LOVE.
ITS POWER ON HUMANITY.
Love, pure love, true love, what can we say of it? The dream of youth; the cherished reminiscence of age; celebrated in the songs of poets; that which impels the warrior to his most daring deeds; which the inspired prophet chooses to typify the holiest sentiments,—what new thing is it possible to say about this theme?
Think for a moment on the history or the literature of the world. Ask the naturalist to reveal the mysteries of life; let the mythologist explain the origin and meaning of all unrevealed religions; look within at the promptings of your own spirit, and this whole life of ours will appear to you as one grand epithalamium.
The profoundest of English poets has said—
'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.'
That life which is devoid of love is incomplete, sterile, unsatisfactory. It fails of its chiefest end. Nature, in anger, blots it out sooner, and it passes like the shadow of a cloud, leaving no trace behind. Admirable as it may be in other respects, to the eye of the statesman, the physician, the lover of his species, it remains but a fragment, a torso.
Love is one thing to a woman, another to a man. To him, said Madame de Staël, it is an episode; to her, it is the whole history of life. A thousand distractions divert man. Fame, riches, power, pleasure, all struggle in his bosom to displace the sentiment of love. They are its rivals, not rarely its masters. But woman knows no such distractions. One passion only sits enthroned in her bosom; one only idol is enshrined in her heart, knowing no rival, no successor. This passion is love! This idol is its object.