The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-15
The Beauty And Rarity Of Old
 Love
Dorothy Die
Lasting Love Thrves On Tenderness On Daily Apprecla- ton, Spoken and Shown; On Personal Attractiveness And A Respect For Personal Liberty

The greatest thing in the world is love- The love of man for woman and woman for man. It is the thing we all most desire, and without which life is flat and flavorless, though we have all else beside. It Is the thing that most fhtrigues our fancy. the thing we like best to see, and hear about. Nc play with out love interest can succeed. It is the love story that sells by the hundreds of thousands of, copies. For we chiefly go to the theatre and read novels to borrow a thrill from those
 whC walk in Already.
 Everybody loves a lover. Every body sympathizes with the follies that
 are committed in the name of love. Not even the hardest cynic can watch tthe love-making of youth and maiden without having his withered
 old heart grow suddenly soft with the
 memory of some far-off, half-forgCt- ten romance of his youth, or filled with a passionate regret for loss
 than can never be made good. But beautiful as is young love,
 there is love that is still more won-
 derful and beautiful, and far, far
 rarer. That is old love. The love that
 has endured through the years.- The love that has withstood the trials and
 
 of life. You do net see it very often.
 Most husbands and wives have worn ltheir romance to tatters long before
 they were middle-aged, and by the
 time they are elderly their feeling for
 each other Is that of two old work
 horses who have pulled a load so long together that they shave grown &C.,
 customed to each others gait, and 
 One would miss the other, if he or she should die, because 1t would bleak up habit, but that is all Of real love, of real companionship, of
 real joy in each other, none is left. But occasionally yCu meet an old
 gray -haired couple who are lovers | still, who have kept the fire alight on
 the altar during the 50 or 60 years of their wedlock, and who are as tender and sentimental about each other as ! they were when they were boy and | girl SWeethearts. Old love like this is the rarest spec tacle on earth, and the most beauti- i full. It is the thing that fills us most with envy, for no enc can look at it
 without thinking of the long years
 of happiness that such couE.e have | enjoyed, of the comradeship that has
 been theirs of how they must really
 have halved every sorrow and doubled
 every joy.
 How does such miracle happen in an age in which love Is so Cften a will the -wisp, gone before you can clasp its light, and when marriage is oftener failure than a success?
 Could all husbands and wives secure this ineffable consolation for their old age? Or is it gift sent only to | those favored few who are the darl- ings of the gods?
 I asked enc of these old lovers this
 question, and he said:
 There is no reason why every man and woman who love should not keep their love true and tender to the end, as we have done ours. Indeed, there | is every reason why love should grow stronger as the years go by, and why
 a husband and wife should be bound more closely together by the experi- 1 ence they have shared in common, as | soldiers are by the battles they have fought shoulder to shoulder, and the fun they have enjoyed together. "When this doesn't happen it is be- cause men and women are too stupid to understand that in your youth when you are beautiful and gay, and
 romantic, and lovable, you must lay
 up love for your old age when you
 will be no longer personally attrac- ] tive and able to inspire love, just as