The Newtown bee., 1903-07-10

Illusion is self-deception due to false imagination;s and delusion is self deception in the matter of good judgment, or common-sense. True love makes powerful appeal to the fancy. It seeks to realize it's ideal, and is prone to believe and accept it's object without proof. When a man falls in love he conceives that the ob- ject of his affection is everything that his ideal calls for. It may be true or it may be false. That remains to be verified. For the time being he in- vests the idol of his heart with all the charms and virtues of his excited i'm aginatiOn. It is all in his own fancy. She may not have beauty of form or feature for any other man; she may not be bright or interesting to others; to his most intimate male friend she may be without grace or wit; she may be in fact as Kipling describes a cer- tain type of woman: "A hank of hair, and a bag of bones," but to the man who loves her, or thinks he does, she embodies his ideal, and may in truth atisfy his soul.
 One may fancy himself in love when in fact he is not. A short personal acquaintance sometimes removes the illusion. But not always: One may | follow his own fancy against his better judgment; and that is delusion. Cupid is blind as to matters of fact, and many will follow fancy, or passion without regard to good sense. Appar- ently the mass of mankind are easily delIded as to affairs of the heart; and 1 wonder if it is not supers titious notion that love is matter of fate against which it is no use to reason, or make resistance?
 Still nf intelligence must know that love, like every other experience, is and ought to be subject to right reason, conscience, and the Word or God. Love maycOver multitude of sins and throw the veil of illusion over numberleSS imperfec- tiOns and deficiencies of character: but it is not delusion, and sooner or later the truth will out, and in the end love is according to law and will find out the facts in the case. If ever one needs to use all his senses, looking on all sides, and exercising the highest pow CTS of his best judgment it is when he commits himself for life to the object of his affection.
 Illusion to certain extent is neces- sary and good. The lover should al- ways invest the beloved with the ideal which possesses his soul, however worthy she may be of it, or unworthy. One must make up in himself the full measure of his ideal whatever is lack ing in the one of his choice. It is ssfor better, for worse," and it should be once and for all until parting bv death, if possible; and at best those who love and marry do not need to ex- anime each other under the critical eye of the microscope. But the great est folly of life is marrying in haste and repenting at leisure; the blind, stupid wilfulness of animal passion: the greed of gain and pleasure; the moonShine of romance and emotional excitement; the silly union of weak ness and ignorance; and marrying just to be married; these are delusions which wreck the lives of many.
 Lecky says: "1t is strange to think with how much levity and how little knowledge a contract which is so in- dissoluble and at the same time so momentous is constantly assumed: sometimes under the influence of blind | ing passion, and at an age when life is still looked upon as a romance or an | idyl: sometimes as a matter of mere ambition and calculation, through the desire for wealth or title or position, Men and women rely on the force of | habit and necessity to accommodate themselves to conditions they have never really understood or realized"