METHODICAL LOVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19168, 6 November 1925, Page 15

METHODICAL LOVERS.

To sweet-hearted twenty the thought that love could ever have anything scientific about it—it could have its birth in' any applied rulo or vote —must always bo anathema. "But how can 'books' tell you 'how to love* ?" He or She will protest who feels the lure of scented summer night-time, whose pulse's follow the waltz three beats in the bar. • Little as the idea appeals to these young and naturally ardent beings, method is very valuable when applied even to the selection of a mate. Method need not be inhuman or lacking in warmth. In fact, method, child of knowledge and understanding, might easily, in this connection, bo renamed sympathy,Older people who have had youth's rosetinted spectacles snatched off by the rudefingered world often find their quiet happiness ijnd retain it by the aid of some well-thought-out amative t text-book. The lover of 35 will not, in most cases, attempt to carry his inamorata by storm. No, he "studies her up" psychologically. Before forming a marital partnership he will —if he be wise—read all the valuable literature which deals clearly with both mental and physical sides of this subject. Of course, there is the "heavier-than-air" type, of person, who always was, and ever will be, pedantic; who,, were he to seek a mate, would be so astoundingly slow that while he applied his iron-hand rules, with the aid of set-square and micrometer, love would fly out of the laboratory window. Again, there is our pedantic friend's antithesis, .who is so swift and intuitive that he always puts forward the right word, and who has little need of the text-book. Both these types are, of course, unusual. A little exact knowledge of the amative instincts is dangerous to but very few of us, so long as the scientific view is not overstressed. People who try to bring all the metallic business principles intp their emotional life . are a rule-proving exception and always failure.