The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-02-28
Is Thirty the
LOUe DeadHne?
Nathan Says Durant See
ing Things Through
Philosophy WhiSkerS.
BY GEORGE JEAN NATHAN


FNHE result of years of browsing
4 in the philosophical pastures Of
Plato, Socrates, Hegel, Schopen-
hauer, Kant and Simon and Schus-
ter plainly is evident in the case of
VIII Durant. The poor fellow has
become infected with the philosophy
coccus or metaphysical lead poison
ing.
He apparently cannot now view
anything save through philosophical
whiskers He would apply the prin-
ciples of Nicomachean ethics to hay
fever and the transcendental dialec-
tic to a Follies girl. He would en-
doysc Lucky Strike cigarets with
a quotation from the 'Novum Or
ganum."
AS an instance of the poX which
has ce.zed him. we have his recent
animadversions on ramour,
Fondling his beard, Professor
Will has generated a profound cere-
bration to the effect that no man,
and by inference no woman, is cap
able of falling in love after the
age of SO. BY love, the professor
says. he mean true devotion.
Peing a bachelor OF long and
reputable standing in the COM
munity an perhaps not the most
appropriate party to enter into a
debate with the professor, yet it
seems, even to an outcast like nc,
that he is much more highly
equipped to write the story of phil
osophv than to produce philosophy
himself.
As a philosopher, he may be said
10 have his weak points. In the
first place, to argue that a man or
woman is incapable after so OF
succumbing to what is called love
is to argue that onlJ man or a
woman under 80 is capable Of self
delusiOn.
More, that love and true devotion,
as the professor phrases it, arc one
and the same thing.
T Owe and true devotion, unfor-
L. tunately are not always one
ard the same thing. A man or a
woman falls in love much more
often than he or she. if I may eX-
press it so. falls in true devotion.
True devotion may be a conse-
quence of love, hUt it is not love
itself nor the prcOllsive power OF
love.
Love. as HeliOr abaluS meditated,
is the triumph OF imagination over
intelligence, the delusiOn that one
woman differs from another, the
temporary conviction that there
is nothing in the cocktail but
genuine gin. 1t is a lovely violin
duet PLAYED by a booty bald
headed man and a slattern hidden
from the enraptured hearers eyes.
1t is artfully charged cider in
a Charles HeidSieck rs bottle. 1t
is nonsense picking the edelweiss
on the peak of Olympic. 1t is
beautiful and it is dumb. True
devotion has no more place IN 1t.
at least in its first and most
glamorouS stages, than harp has
in a Strauss waltz or in Papa
Loves Mama"
To say that a man can't fall
| in love after 80 is to say that he
can't enjoy music, liquor or any
| other such analogous Sense-steal-
ing diversion after the same age.
AS a man gets older, his capacity
for making a fool of himself in
creas. and so his aptitude for love
increases.
TRUE devotion, to revert to
Il Professor Durant's phrase, IS
hardly a gift at which youth ex-
GELS. Surely the professor would
not have us believe that the love
of BOYS and girls is either found
ed upon or inspired by any such
! phenomenon.
This is no place to wax too con-
crete about so delicate a matter.
but even the professor, piled SUI
ficiently with persuasive schnapps,
would admit that what he calls
true devotion is somewhat re-
moved from the necking and pet
ting the younger generation IN
turn calls love.
If that is true devotion, either
incipient or potentially perma-
nent. then I am ready to believe
that Casanova's name was Dante.
It is a platitude, grounded In
statistics. that marriages after
80 are generally more successful
| than marriages contracted before
90. While no Pollyanna, I have
a feeling that devotion, if not love,
must have something to do with
the prosperity and endurance OF
the past-30 hitch. Love may keep
lovers together, but love alone, in
the accepted sense of the word,
can't keep a married couple to-
gether.
There must be something else,
and that something else, unless
am in error. is the peculiar hang
over that goes by the name OF
devotion. respect, sympathy, I'M
derstanding or what not.
II
7 Owe is less great even than
IL friendship, and less lasting.
Friendship is love purged of the
havoc of emotion by the test Of
time and the trial of faith. A sue
cessful marriage is more Of bar
gain between friends than between
lovers.
Love is never absolute, entire.
In it, though it be as deep as the
deepest sea, there is always elbow
room for bit of a glance at some
other man or woman. The patriot
NAV love only one country, but til: