Love is not like the sun: a unit, and practically the same wherever seen;
it is like light: all-pervading, universally diffused, and reflected and
refracted and absorbed in varying degrees and varying manners by various
objects. And
Than a great and pure love, can anyone point to anything on earth
greater and more purifying?
The lesser luminary perturbs the tide of human passion; the greater light
draws it upward--none the less veritably because in tinted formless
vapor. This is symbolical of love.
It is the nascent thing that evokes the keenest emotions: the bud--the
babe--dawn--and the first beginnings of love. So
Love, like sun-light, wears its most tender tints at dawn.
* * *
It still remains a mystery that, out of a townful of folk, two particular
hearts should worry themselves into early graves because this one cannot
get that other. Yet
It is almost enough to destroy one's faith in the uniqueness of love to
see from how narrow a circle of acquaintances men and women choose their
spouses. Were Plato's two half-souls separated by the diameter of the
globe--that were lamentable.
* * *
The man often argues that esteem will grow into passion. The woman knows
that the argument is utterly fallacious. Yet
Unless passion is guarded by esteem,--as the calyx ensheaths the
corolla, the former is prone to wither.
In youthful love, as in the enfolded bud, esteem and passion--like calyx
and corolla---seem one and identical;
It is only the full-blown flower that displays its constituent parts.
Would that love could remain ever in bud!
* * *
To some love comes like a flash; to others as the burning of tinder.
In all, when real love is kindled, it devours all that is combustible.
But
All love, like all fire, needs, not only ventilation but replenishing:
Unless the primal spark is nourished, it will not glow;