The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-11
FALLING IN LOVE
And the Influences That Arouse the
Emotion.

| And the Influences That Arouse the
Emotion.
The new school of hypnotism, says
E. P. Powell in the st. Louis Globe
Democrat, insists upon it that falling
in love is a blunder. A few years ago
| Sir George Campbell insisted that the
English custom of letting boys and
| girls. fall in love should be stopped by
statute. He proposed to regulate such
affairs on the Oriental method. He
would have husbands and wives select
ed for each other. with a view to an
evolution of finer human stock-"man-
breeding" he called it. Quoting from
nature he says: Probably we have
enough physiological knowledge to ef-
feet vast improvement in the marry
ing of individuals of the same or al
lied races, if we could only apply that
knowledge to make fitting marriages,
instead of giving way to folish ideas
about love, and the tastes of young
people, whom we can hardly trust to
choose their own bonnet, much less to
choose in a graver matter, in which
they are most likely to be influenced
by frivolous prejudices."
1t is interesting to notice what par
ticular points are sought after by An
glo-Saxons in selecting mates. We fall
in love with first what may be called
sweetness, second, brightness; third,
wealth, and fourth, beauty. l think
that some would entirely reverse this
enumeration. If we listen to our novel
writer's we shall believe that beauty
controls the whole subject of love and
marriage. 1t is a total blunder. The
physical always underlies the spiritual;
and | venture that statistics will prove
that what a man selects. and a wom-
an too. for that matter, is partner
who is physically pleasant, rather than
one who is physically beautiful. A man
will generally express his opin-
ion of the favored woman that is
"womanly." We understand this
phrase. but find it difficult to explain
The man who marries and finds his
wife incapable of matching his mas
culinity with an indescribable tender
ness, femininity of delicate care for
his welfare, is sick at heart man
must have some elements of strength
or disappoint and disgust a woman.
Both must have refinement without
fussiness, and tenderness without
weakness. A little later in life this
which ] have called sweetness in the
girl and womanliness in the wife be-
comes motherliness. This is simply
ifes and satisfies a man. No decent
man ever forgets a decent mother. The
soothing of her hand in sickness is
the one touch in nature which governs
from the kings throne to the beggars
cellar.
We have said there is a physical ba-
sis to all forms of love. The body can
never be overlooked or love ETHEREAL
lied and localized so as to overlook
that relation which is sometimes called
physical magnetism. A notable lee
turer, M. L. r. P. Thompson, some
years ago, in an address to college
students. said to them: BE sure of
one thing, that when you select your
partners for life you select those whom
YOU esteem and honor, and with whom
YOU can be friends. For, I tell you, as
sure as the sun shines in the heavens,
that which you call love is blossom
OF friendship. You can not get the
real blossom, nor the fruit of it, on any
other tree, but mutual regard for each
others aims and ends in life"
According to Grant Allen, modern
biology and science, as applied to life
development. does not side with the