The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1902-09-07
LOVE,


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LOVE.
What is love? 1t is human love that
we are talking about. 1t is something
Den can say a great deal about without
saving anything; and it is something
one can say nothing about and mean
everything Definitions must vary with
personality. Love is the commonest thlns
in life and the rarest. Its manifestations
are as diverse as physical and mental
health. temperament, birth and breeding
character and experience. The vast ma
iority are not born with senslolllties ca
pable of the Heavenly exaitation OF the
highest love, and yet the bright hight olten
flashes in the humbest home The aver
age is the safest, and the average IS what
The world gets; an average OF primal I'M
pulses and the saving passion OF the SOU.
Millions of people who fall in love DO
rot fall in at all, but drift in through
fbe influences of propinquity; and propin-
unity. sometimes, is all that holds them
together. unless there was real, natural
selection in their choice. or love is rc|
,-aaIed 10 them after their marriage. Love
is a growing thing. and does not really
.get its growth and begin its true de-
yejonment until marriage roots 1t firmly
in a home. The expression TO fan IN
love, should seem TO imply what the
adept calls affinity; or an inevitable pre-
disposition for each other which the pair
10 he mated become conscious of directly
they are brought together. This sort of
thing is known in the vernacular as love
ut first sight, There is no such thing
AS love at first sight. The first impulse
Of love may be aroused more or less
strongly .'at first sight; ones heart may
he stirred and his blood suffused because
&c an instructive agitation of the sort of
wireless fre-alarm arrangement at the
base of the brain, which is caused by
the impact of a highly favorable mental
impression. but this material impulse is
a fatal thing to true love unless there
comes with it a sympathy of eyes. For
are not the eyes ..the windows of the
soul?"
What continual revelation and de-
light arc a swcetheart's eyes when the
lover has been given the happy privilege
Of reading them. Your nature may de-
mand them blue, another's will get in
best accord with gray, and then brown are
a joy to one where they are colorless TO
another: but just so You love them it
doesn't matter if they are poster purple
The greatest artists have lavished their
skill upon womens eyes, and none has
f,scr ccmpased their infinite Variety There
is the same inscrutable direcness for all
who are not Intimate with Whistler's
simple Little Rose" and in da Vinci's
..aIonna Lisa with her fuil-eyed, half
smiling look of eternal knowledge and
vast understanding. Wise men have as
serted that there is no difference be-
tween love at six and love at sixty in a
woman; or at thirty, for that matter, for
always il is in part maternal in its nature.
They say that women love to be loved;
that they love the sentiment rather than
the happy peg they choose to hang it on.
Ii may he a confession OF age to remark
a growing conviction of ignorance on
the subject of women. but here let 1t be
recorded while we beat "a retreat. Boys
do that sort of thing. Boy-love is merely
a tentative ebulli1ion OF latent fires. Their
love IS fer the sake of the sentiment.
and they make a great row while the
growing pains are upon them; but
when the first flush is over and the boy
las. perhaps. survived one or two deeper
disturbances. the woman whom the man
finally falls in love with and n1arries
has Won a tenderness of affection, and
a depth Of feeling. and a generous con-
sideration that When we We're twenty
one never had the least conception of.
AS the flower of life is a social bios
som, SO is love the only thing worth liv-
ing for and the man or woman who does
not hunger for it, and search for it. and
| ind it, and bear it out even to the edge
OF doom. is a pitiful victim of delusion
| and deserves it when haunted with sigh.
| ing and regret