WHAT IS LOVE ?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 39, 26 September 1891, Page 411

WHAT IS LOVE ?

BY A WOMAN. ‘WHAT is love?’ Love is very much the creature of impulse. One cynic of about 30, who has seen all of life and exhausted it, announces that there is no such tiling. Another aged philosopher, who has seen about twenty-three summers, thinks that love is of little use unless ‘ a woman had been everywhere and seen everything and could make it interesting for a fellow.’ A young woman with delicious blue eyes and brown hair says that ‘ Love is heavenly,’ but then she has only been engaged twenty-four hours, and her experience is limited to a solitaire diamond ring and a bunch of orchids. A little woman who has been married eight years and who is the proud possessor of two pairs of twins, announced ‘ That love was all very well in its way, and that the first year or two of your married life you were always devotedly fond of Charlie, but when it came to leal satisfaction, give her babies !’ Nobody denied her her privilege. A man about sixty, who really knew what he was talking about, said that ‘ love was like champagne—every fresh glass seemed the best;’.while a bachelor of forty-five said : ‘ you know it is very nice to have a little woman fond of you, and all that sort of thing, but- never allow yourself to get fond of her; you will spoil her.’ Inasmuch as everybody knew that he was under the complete control of a woman who weighedabout ninety pounds, it was more than charming to hear him make this announcement. Eor my own part, I think love is very much like hokey-pokey ice cream. The day is warm, the sign is attractive,you stand and read, ‘ Hokey-pokey ice cream, only one half penny a square.’ You are weary, you are warm, you feel in your pocket, you find the coin, you know that you are going to get a delicious mouthful that will make you oh ! so happy ! You walk up to the cart where love—l mean hokeypokey ice cream—is sold : you lay down your penny ; you demand your square. It is given to you on a piece of brown paper ; it looks fascinating ; you walk back to the pavement and you conclude not to take it down in a gulp, but to enjoy it by slow mouthfuls. At first it is delightful. The second mouthful is cool, but suggestive of oleomargarine; the third mouthful is waxy and sticky; and then you take the last with a wry face and are disgusted with yourself for buying it; feel that it has upset your heart—l mean your stomach—and that you never want any more again. And you don't, until the next time you arewarm and the enticing hokeypokey comes along to lead you to new loves and new pains. I regard love as the spring disease of the brain. The system is all upset, and we take sulphur and treacle ami spots come out on our faces and we feel generally diabolical. Then the heart and the brain get themselves agitated, and the girls and boys get to thinking themselves the only persons in the world who thoroughly understand the advantages and delights of hokey-pokey ice cream—l mean love —and so they rush out with their complimentary coin seeking whom they may devour. This springtime fancy may lasTt during the summer days, but at last like the hokeypokey ice cream it disappears in the early autumn and platonics and chestnut- take its place. I feel that I have said all that I can about love. I trust that I have given some tips to the unwary as to the eating of hokey-pokey or love.