MARRYING FOR LOVE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XXIV, 12 June 1897, Page 745

MARRYING FOR LOVE.

It is an old adage that ‘ when love cometh in at the door, good sense flies out at the window, and (remarks a man who has evidently got over a few bad attacks) there is infinitely more truth than poetry in all saws of this sort. For if there is on the face of wide creation a creature apparently bereft of all sense and reason, it is the individual who is deeply in love. There is not enough eommonsense left in the average brain under snch circumstances to come in when it rains, unless the beloved one has by chance sought shelter under the roof beforehand. There is a good deal of sentimental twaddle indulged in anent this subject of marrying for love. To do this is all very well, provided there is some reason behind it; but to marry simply and only for love is a performance that might, without any stretch of imagination, be characterised aa idiotic. Poets, novelists, and the troubadours of old have said and sung the charms of the tender passion ; but philosophers and sages long ago made np their minds that good, healthy reason lasts longer, and pays larger dividends, than the most extravagant gush that ever deluged the souls of the happy young things who live only in the light of each other’s eyes. But the lucky pair are they who unite reason and love, the harmlessness of the dove with the wisdom of the serpent.