"Off With the Old Love.”

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1903, Page 62

"Off With the Old Love.”

HOW MEN AND WOMEN -LIVE HAPPY EVER AFTER." IN SPITE OE BROKEN ENGAGEMENTS. “The heart that once truly loves never forgets, but as truly loves on to the close.” Is this true of modern love? "1 was once engaged to that girl over there!*’ say- Smith to Brown at an evening party. She is talking tenderly and intimately to her new fiance. But Smith doesn’t seem to wire. He i- cool and unruffled. Nevertheless, it is only by the merest accident that she is not now his wife — a person he has sworn to love ami cherish till death do them part! Women are a little more sentimental. Even to themselves they try a "makebelieve" of an emotional fondness —a sort of withered rose leaf, might-have-been romance. But. all the same, little Mrs Robinson invites Dr and Mrs Wilton t< dinner, and hears him call her "dear.’ and sees him tucking her cloak solicitously about her throat—" You mustn’t take cold, pet!’’ —when they leave, with perfectly calm composure. Not long since she wa> to have presided over the doctor’s destinies. Both have married somebody else. She wa> sure -lie -hould die when that foolish iitt e quarrel caused an estrangement which led finally to the broken engagement. No other man could possibly take Reg gie’s place. >ix months afterward she accepted her present husband! Two years later she is entertaining Reggie and his young wife, and neither the do«tor nor his "broken-heart-ed” -weet heart of the two-year-old epi sode retain- one tender memory of the love storv that once seemed all the world to botn. "Pleasant little woman!” remarks the doctor blandly to his wife, as they settle into the brougham on their way home from the dinner party. "But 1 fancy she isn’t a- amiable as she used to be.’ Prettv Mrs Robinson. lingering to have a little chat with her husband, who i> enjoying his last cigar before turning in. remarks-. "Dr. Wilton is getting quite bald, and just a wee bit old bogeyish, isn’t he. dear?" And she kisses her husband with quite a feeling of relief that it i>n‘t for "the other one” that she has to perform this little wifely act of devotion. Cynic- -neer ami say that "lovers vow- are writ in sand.” and human nature i- fal-e and inconstant. But this is not the fact. The truth i-. average humans tire of "crving for the moon.” 1 hey take the next best. Reggie wa- not inconsistent nor shal-low-hearted. But the engagement was broken off. and that was the end of it.

Most people are more in love with love ttuvn with the individual. Fate or chance ordains as to the object jr w>*om the love in their natures shall be lavished. Ella crys her heart out and makes herself sick and ill when Jack deserts her for another girl. Presently she finds that it’s very lonely shutting herself up and refusing to be comforted. And Jim was always fond of her —and he has such beautiful eye-! She halt suspects that he could dry her tears ami soothe her injured feelings. Everyl>odv craves the warmth and comfort, of companionship. And why should Eda waste her sweetness and young life on Jack, who manifestly did not care for her? So Jim wins the sore-hearted little maiden, and the wounds in her heart, which she thought were so deep and permanent. prove to be only superficial scratches. She wanted some love and warmth in her life—oh. how badly she wanted it! —and how lonely it was when Jack turned out untrue! When she had a lover there was al wavs a possible letter to look forward to at breakfast. All sorts of little surprises and treats were always cropping up—a telegram to say he had stalls at the theatre, a bunch of flowers, or a new soinr. Suddenly robbed of these when her engagement ended, she felt desolate. There was nobody now to remember that lilies of the valley were her favourite flower, and nobody to care much when she bought a perfectly lovely blouse at a bargain sale. So she took Jim. And Jim soon learned and remembered all these things, and Ella’s cup of happiness was full. It is the condition of being wooed which is so attractive to girls, and that wonderful power of "compensation in nature usually reconciles Ella to being made love to by Jim when Jack has failed her. But here and there are men and women who have not this power of adjusting themselves, and taking a substitute when their life’s love stories go wrong. These are the people who have made an idol and worshipped it. They posses- the rare faculty of love for one only. Sometimes in the ease of a woman, this la-t love may be the only chance of marriage which falls to her lot. And she goes through life devoting herself to a memory, and wasting the love element in her, which, under happier circumstances, would have illuminated her life and made a happy haven for some other man. Fortunately, the majority are not built on these lonely lines. If they can’t have Miranda, there is sweet Molly, who makes them wonderfully happy. If Reginald jirov.es impossible, there is usually a dear old Jim in the background, and they marry and live happily ever after.