The San Francisco call., 1904-11-12
TRUE LOVE-.
By Dorothy Fenimore.

TRUE love between the sexes is
distinctly an expression of mod
ern life in our Western civiliza-
ton. Both antiquity and the Orient
fail to confer upon mans love for
woman the dignity which to-day the
more enlightened nations of our
Western world regard as its just due.
No lover of ancient Greece or Rome
could have written, or even under
stood, what Emerson wrote in his es-
say on love. He would not have been
fitted either by education or expert
ence to identify this human passion
with those secret, life-giving springs
of the spirit which ultimately broaden
out into the broad, irresistible stream
of individual life.
Loves influence upon a woman's
career was interpreted more narrowly
by the classic writers of old than 1t
now is. Once wife's love for her
husband was the love of a slave for
her master. The stories of wifely de-
votion which occur in the literature
of the Orient were invented apparent
ly as object lessons for wives, for the
sole benefit of husbands.
A wife is encouraged to share her
husbands joys and sorrows, but
nothing is said Of a reciprocal sympa-
thy on his part. Plainly in earlier
ages, and even now in lands which lie
near to the morning sun. women are
expected to be the only ones who in
variably weep alone.
Recently a Frenchman, M. Balzane,
sought to prove that true love Is
hof
he advanced was ingenious and orig
inal. Love, pet baby of Olympus, has
at last grown up, ran the tenor Of his
thought. Cupid's growth to manhood
has been the slow process Of centuries.
From the spoiled child of Homer's
time he has developed, through the
dreaming boy of the middle ages, the
chilvalrous youth of the renaissance,
and the braggart seventeenth century
lover, into man grown, who has TAX
en- wife and is father of a family.
In the domestic life of President
Roosevelt NJ. Balzane sees the modern
ideal of love best typifed.
The chief executive of the worlds
great democracy may be taken, he be-
lieves, as fairly representative of the
time. And such unity of interests
between man and woman as we see
displayed in the home of the Presi-
dent of the United States means an
affection which is not the result of
either fancy or a stroke of fate; cit
is an association of two lives for their
mutual good and to the advantage of
posterity."
To me this seems an illuminative
n fYoit Of civ TO hi
highest emotion of the soul the dig
nifty of purpose-an element of it's
Importance which lighter definitions
| have ignored. 1t does not present US
with a pretty but foolish picture of
saucy Cupid shooting aimlessly at
hearts with his bow and arrows. 1t
intimates that absolute congeniality
between the lovers is essential. 1t pre-
supposes that love must be gratified
in order to become perfected.
Love is certainly the ruling force in
our world to-day. The agitation
which questions of marriage laws, di-
vorce and race suicide have caused
among us of late years is merely one
expression of that fact. Loves more
ephemeral charms have been a reg
ular mine of romance and inspiration
to poet, painter and novelist.
But life has been nourished by
loves more abiding powers. The
truth remains, after the last word
rhetorical, psychological or poetical-
| has been said, that the race loves in
order to live and that youth lives in
order to love-. Thus turns the wheel
| upon itself everlastingly.