St. Paul daily globe., 1891-05-31

sense of disappointment as the news is
| circulated. But the GLOBE has to do
its duty, and part of its duty IS to tell
the truth. The truth is, then, that
there is nothing supernatural about
| love. The widespread impression thai
thiSis simply the result of conspiracy
| on the part of the manufacturers of
wedding presents, who have hoped in
| this way to increase the market for
their wares, is mistaken one.
The first essential for falling in love
is propinquity, There is nothing very
profound about this statement, although
it has been vigorously disputed. All
that it means is that you cannot fall in
love with some one whom you have
never seen, or Of whom you have never
heard. You may not have to be intro
duced to your future husband or wife,
but you have got to meet them in some
way. The Socratic theory was that
every person OF either sex had a COM
plement somewhere. and that marriage
was only union of two parts of one
temporarily severed entity. There are
some poets and philosophers who have
the same notion now, and who talk
about elective affinitieS, and hySteric-
ally sing for their other halves, created
for them from before the world. to
hasten to their sides. There is not much
in this, however. SOCRATES found his
XANTHIPPE in Athens, and not on the
borders of the Hyperborean sea, or at
the Pillars of Hercules, where he had
never been; and all the syllogisms of
professors or rhymes of bardS would
not have brought them together under
the contemporary methods Of travel,
had she lived in Patagonia while he
was making marble images in Greece.
1t is all very we'll as matter of Specu-
lation. but the entire mass of facts Is
against the belief that you can fall in
love with and marry person whom
you have never seen.
This theory is part and parcel Of the
electric spark theory of love. The
GLOBE knows that this brand Of the
tender passion does exist, but tine we'd
ding bells which ring in response to it
are apt to be tangled and out of tune.
The best love is nothing but form of
trust and confidence. This may come
in the flash of an eye and with the
force of mighty wind. But, if it does,
it is probably dangerous, like all
cyclones. The deepest passions of life
are the calmest. The passion of mater
nifty is the profoundest which God has
kindled in human breasts, and this
burns with no ftful flame, now of
brilliancy and again of dimness. A
mothers heart is no Seething sea of
agitation, but steady, strong and un-
changing. And so, although in differ
ent way, the strongest bonds which
unite men and women are those which,
woven of long association and mutual
franknesS, are as strong as the ocean
steamers cables and as regular in their
movements as the piston rods.
But whether it is born in the hurri
cane or like the flower III the long days
of contact with the sunshine, all the
books to which the GLOBE has had
access say that the love most worth
having is this love which is only form
of trustand confidence; but beyond that
they do not seem to give much light.
When they try to lay down more def
mite rules they penetrate region as
incapable of exploration as an African
jungle. Nobody is worth a cent in such
a maze except the clairvOyants, and
even they can not be relied on. The
light-halred lady, to be sure, does some
times marry the dark gentleman. as
q ~ Inn
you can not be sure about it,,
even after you have paid your
money. The whole thing is king
dom of secrets and caprice, and
chances are its twin monarchs. Men
whose every thought seems of the earth,
and earthly, love and marry women
without physical attractions. The
stupid captivate the wise, the bad the
good; and then again the wise the wise,
and the bad the bad, all in snarl of
the most inextricable confusion.
GOETHE, the handsome and brilliant.
turns his back on allurements delicious
to contemplate, and to be had for the
asking, and does faithful homage to
CATHERINE, who had neither beauty,
virtue, character nor brains. Who
would have supposed that NAPOLEON,
the soldier of fortune, would have
stopped in career of glory to marry
JOSEPHINE. the mother of two children,
past the age of conception, unimpor- =
tant socially, without any qualities
which would seem enhancing to his
vulgar, ambitious nature; or that the
great sorrow of life which laughed at
carnage aud destruction came when the
need of an heir compelled him to di-
vorce the wife of his early manhood?
Nobody would expect such things if
there were any rules or sign posts in
the domain of love. But there are not.
1t really is country of great mysteries.