Hints for Lovers Part 14

Little as people seem to be aware of it, love requires constant replenis.h.i.+ng: no flame can burn without a feeding oil, no pool overflow with out a purling brook. Yet

The first ecstasies of love often blind both lover and la.s.s to the care necessary for the nurture of love. Indeed,

To many treat love as if it were a pa.s.sing whim; whereas in sober reality it is (or should be) a lasting emotion.

Love, with woman, is like the tides. And

Few women know the high-water mark of their love: they are always harboring the belief that it may rise still higher; and often they await that rise.

It is but the reflection of himself in his mistress that many a foolish lover loves.

That aged spinster is a rare one who does not regret she did not accept one of her lovers. But

That younger spinster is not to be envied who has to make choice of several.

Youth glories in the multiplicity of its lovers; age sometimes wishes it had had but one.

The unloved think lad the one thing needful. The beloved know that an ocean of love could be swallowed up and the parched soul cry out athirst.

It is not well either to confide or confess too much.

A very small rock will wreck a very big s.h.i.+p, and a very small slip will spoil a very long life.

The pain which lovers cause each other--through fickleness, languidness, jealousy, and the thousand natural shocks that love is heir to--is not altogether pain, though at the moment it may seem the most poignant anguish the human soul could suffer. One proof of this lies in the fact that

There are few who would choose to have missed love's pangs altogether.

Perhaps the pleasure intermixed with love's pangs arises from the thought that the other is the cause of our suffering. For,

In all love, it is the sacrifice of oneself for the other that brings keenest joy. And yet

There is an element of self-love in the very extremest of love. Since

Love, after all, is a debtor and creditor affair. (Who ever loved with no hope of return?) It is when one of the parties declares him-or her-self insolvent that the account is closed--with many tears and sighs on the part of the chief creditor. At all events

The intenser the love, the more flawless does its object appear. For

The surest test of the sincerity of love is that it thinketh no evil.

The surest test of a waning love is that it begins not to content itself when it sees its object suffer.

The surest test of a dead love is that it forgets how to be jealous.

The falling-out of lovers true is a renewing may be of love. (1) Still it is not to be recommended. In fact, it might be said that

Every falling-out of lovers true is a nail in love's coffin. Yet,

A blessing it is that in love we remember the sweet rather than the bitter. For

Love was ever bitter-sweet (2).

(1) "Amanitum irae amoris integratis est."

--Terrence, Andria, III, 23.

(2) But I supposed innumerable people have said this before. No matter.

The heart of a lover is like that bottom of a well: all the beauties of the starry heavens are revealed in it; but when it sheds the light of its countenance upon it, all else is obliterated.

Was any lover ever loved enough? Or

Did any ever hear of a tired lover? Nevertheless often

"Drink to me only with thine eyes", says the youthful lover; but when the seance is over he goes out and orders beef-steak and bottled beer.

What it really craves, the lover's heart is impotent to express. Yet, it is ever attempting.

A lover is full of wishes as an egg is full of meat. But

What it really wishes no lover seems able to say. As a matter of fact,

The endless task which the lover is ever attempting is a search for a formula for the summation of an infinite series of which love is the variable.--Few lovers seem to understand this.

To kindle aspiration in her lover, a woman herself need not be aspiring.

For,