Love Dies in Most Cases of Its Own Fierceness.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4, 27 January 1906, Page 44

Love Dies in Most Cases of Its Own Fierceness.

(By Helen Oldfield.) Undoubtedly with most persons the power of loving is exhausted sooner or later; excepting when the love is mutual and there is magnetic influence between the two, who love an influence which continually renews, the light in the seven branched candlestick upon the altar of affection. Otherwise the cases in which love is permanent are so rare as to be well nigh anomalous. Whether it be the grand passion which Jerome K. Jerome describes when he says: “We never sicken with love twice.” A man’s heart is a firework that onee in its time flashes heavenward. Meteor-like it blazes for a moment, and lights with its glory the whole world beneath. Then the night of our sordid, commonplace life closes in around it, and the burnt out case, falling back to earth, lies useless and uneared for, slowly smoldering into ashes; whether it be a succession of little blazes which must be industriously fanned and fed to be kept alive, and which flicker and die out when left for a moment alone; most hearts of men and of women grow to be immune after a time. Usually it is the fickle heart which retains the power of loving the longest; hearts which love, as it were, upon the instalment plan; the object of devotion changes, but the fount of love is foreever upon tap, ready to gush its little best when the power is applied. It is greatly to be doubted whether any man or woman ever experiences more than one grand, absorbing passion in a lifetime. To the vast majority such a passion, which "gives and gives all,” which is ready to count all loss gain, and that gladly, for the sake of the beloved, which knows no heaven without, no hell with, its object, never comes at all; whieh is well, since it is only when the love is mutual, and both lovers are worthy above the worth of common clay, that such love brings happiness. Onee in a while such love meets its affinity, is given tack measure, for measure, meets no cheek, no disap : pointment; it loves and is loved even unto the grave, perhaps beyond, who knows. For. as love is the one thing which we bring into the world when we enter it. may it not be also that it is the one thing which we shall carry out? It is an old, old saying that even as no two men eat exactly alike, so no two can be found who make love in precisely the same fashion. With all the exciting stories told of “doubles,” of cases of mistaken identity, there is always some essential difference to be noted between man and man. woman and woman, however closely they may resemble one another. No two human beings are exact duplicates in person, still less in character. One man goes mad for the sake of a woman, sacrificing soul and body, honour and fair fame, for his mess of red pottage; while another. perhaps his brother in blood, jogs his even way through life unmoved by the love of woman. “The sweetest lips that ever were kissed. The brightest eyes that ever shone May pray and whisper and he not list Or look away and never be missed." There are learned men who hold that love is a disease, and the theory holds in some respects. Like the grip, the malady of love fastens upon the weakest spot and exhibits different symptoms with different patents. With some it is like unto measles or scarlet fever, one has it onee, severely, and is thenceforth immune; with others it is like hay fever, of yearly recurrence. However, one cannot always tell; people have been know to experience a second attack of measles, while sufferers from hay fever sometimes escape the periodical visitation. In whatever light one views love, it is as queer as radium, and as potent, when it really takes ■ hold. Probably not one in lOjOOO of the ■ couples who marry madly, desperately in love with each other, are able to keep the pace. Neither would it be well with them if they could. There are few hearts big enough and strong enough t° feed that fierce, devouring passion throughout a long lifetime. The part of wisdom is, ere the torch burns out,

to use it as kindling for the cosy fire of affection upon the hearth of home; a fire whieh will continue to burn cheerily night ami day, nor suffer the ashes of passion upon which it is built to grow cold and desolate. Affection is a fire whieh may be fed from day to day, and be heaped higher and brighter when storms rage without, and the winter is bleak and cold; a fire at which one may warm heart and body, and sit in peace and comfort as old age draws nigh; a fire whose magic glow, shining upon the dear home faces, brightens aud lieautifies them even unto the end of time. As for those who experience what is technically known as a “disappointment in love,” their stories are as different as are the people themselves. With many it is the vanity rather than the heart which is wounded, and, while such wounds are sharp, they are seldom enduring. With some there is a period of bitter chagrin, perhaps of keen regret, a few days or weeks when life is all out of gear, and jar and fret rule supreme, when the lees of the spilled wine poison one’s cup of joy. Then, little by little, things go smoothly one more, and the disappointed lover finds himself in the attitude of the small b:>y, who, having stopped to smile in the midst of hfs tears, is at a loss to recall the cause o fhis weeping. With such men any woman whom they admire is the one woman in the world until another fair face smiles upon them, dimming the image of the old one. Every man thinks the only woman a paragon until he has been surfeited with too many only ones. But there are others. With some love is a consuming flame which scorches and sears, so that henceforth neither leaf nor blossom shall be found upon the blighted tree, and since the LJight fell when life was at its flushing no shoots may arise from the root to replace it. Many men and most women make the mistake of expecting too much love. All things earthly demand periods of rest and quiet, and love is rarely an exception to the rule. Transports may be delicious, but they are usually exhausting. A musical instrument, kept at concert pitch, soon becomes out of tune, and excess of motion, although pleasurable, is deleterious to the nervous sytem. Moreover, as one grows older one is apt to lose enthusiasm, to taka all things in a minor key. One grows blase and comes to regard the dreams of youth with contemptuous amusement. till, as already said, people differ. There be men and women under 30 years of age who have grown quiet and weary, with all their illusions flown; there are others of three score, perhaps nearing the “an ten.” who keep the “dew of their youth” in their hearts. Mature love may lack the undisciplined fervor of earlier days, but it will go deeper and last longer. Another respect in which love may be likened to measles is that the older the patient the more serious the disease is apt to be. Taken late in life it usually strikes in. Youth is prone to regard love as a joke and plaything; it is later on that, as Brigadier Gerard says, “one understands that it is the moulder of one's life, the most solemn and sacred of all things.”