He who stems a stream with sand,
And fetters flame with flaxen band,
Has yet a harder task to prove,
By firm resolve to conquer Love.
Southey, who is convinced that ‘love is indestructible,’ goes so far as to assert that
They sin who tell us Love can die.
If further evidence of the vitality and power of this passion were required, an appeal might be made to the language of Hebrew Scripture, which teaches that ‘Love is strong as death.... Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.’
In view of testimony like this, one might be pardoned for supposing the point in question satisfactorily established. We shall not, however, have proceeded far in the consideration of other phases of the subject, before we shall come upon views which it is by no means easy to reconcile with the above conclusions. Take, for example, the theory that a man or a woman can truly love but once. This would seem to be the natural corollary of the belief that love is indestructible. The argument, of course, is that the love which departs is not love at all. As the old lines run:
Pray, how comes Love?
It comes unsought, unsent.