This is the natural history of undisciplined passion; it cheapens
love, it robs it quickly of its exquisiteness and charm. The faithful
lover, on the other hand, by checking premature intimacies, and
keeping true to the one woman who calls or will some day call out
all his love, knows a steady joy that bulks in the end far greater than
the flaring and fitful and quickly disillusioned passions of unearned
love. Where the veil of mystery is not too rudely drawn aside, the
ability to respond to the charm of girlhood and of ripe womanhood
may be long retained; the pleasures of sex that count for most in
the end are not the moments of passion, but the daily enjoyment
of companionship with the opposite sex, the assurance and comfort
of mutual fidelity, the love that feeds on daily caresses, endearing
words, and acts of tender service. And these lasting joys do not
accrue to the man or woman who is not willing to wait, or who
squanders his potentialities of love in reckless and fundamentally
unsatisfying debauchery. This is the paradox of love; whoso would
find its best gifts must be willing to deny himself its gaudiest. The old
love of twos, the loyalty of man and wife that bring to each other
pure hearts and bodies, is best.
(8) There are, besides, certain practical consequences of which
experience warns. Free love would mean that the pretty and well-
developed girls, the handsomer and physically stronger men, would be
besieged with solicitations and almost inevitably debauched by excess
of temptation, while the less attractive would starve for love.
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