The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-07-13
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

Hence arose the saying, IF 1 love
you. what is that to you@' We say so
because we feel that what We love is
not in your will but above it. 1t is
the radiance of you and not you. It is
that which you know not in yourself
and never can know. "-Eme rson.
I always wonder when I read that
passage why Emerson didn't go a step
further and say something about the
subjectiveness of love.
s'But how can he be so trem endously
in love with such a commonplace girl
as she s?''
II don't understand how she can
care SO much for him when he is so
ordinary and uninteresting.
How often we hear-or perchance
make-comments like these on the
iIove-affairs of our acquaintance.
Now there is one fact that it seems
to me we all ignore too much and
which would. if we would let it, ex-
plain away all these puzzlements And
that is the subjectiVeness of love-
/ We are always looking at the OBJ
jective side of love. We think that
this woman or that ought to be able
1 to inspire great love because she is
so beautiful and charming, or that
that mans wife can hardly love him
very much he is so homely and COM
monplace.
We forget that love is quite as much
subjective as objective. more, I am in
clined to think
We fail to realize that love comes
! from the lovers heart and soul and
/ eyes quite as much as from the be-
The wonder that "he can be so ire
mendously in love with such a com
monplace girl as she is is easily solv-
ed when you remember that he is a
man of great depth and power and
must love largely or not at all.
Ia h v-iT7 =,
him, when he is SO ordinary and I'M
/ interesting" is quickly explained when
you remember that she is :. girl who
| is intense in every way ana that her
love, no matter what its object, would
naturally be as intense as the rest of
her.
In David Graham Phillips novel,
I 1.-The Grain of Dust" there is a very
Illuminating paragraph on this
subeject. Frederick Norman, a very
| big man in every sense of the
word, is in love His love is I'M
requitted and his unhappiness bids fair
to bring about his busin ess failure.
His sister is greatly troubled. But she
could not conceive how appearances
and her forebodings could be true.
Such strength as his could not be over
Whelmed thus suddenly and by so
slight a thing-by an unsatished pas
sion for a woman and an insignificant
woman at that. For like ell women,
like all the world for that matter, she
measured a passion by the woman who
was the object of it instead of by the
man who fabricated it.
There are men and women who
could not love greatly no matter how
beautiful and charming or handsome
and wonderful in every way the object
of their love might be.
And there are men and women who
could not help loving greatly no mat
ter how unworthy the object of their
love.
Everyone knows that one artist will
paint an inferior picture from a most
beautiful landscape and that another
artist with far less wonderful model
will paint a great and enduring pic
ture.
Now love is just as subjective as art.
And there are men and women who
have been born with the ability to love
greatly and men and women who were
born without it.
Do not expect a grand passion from
the first no matter how wonderful the
object.
And do not wonder al a beautiful
love from the second nc matter how
unworthy the beloved.