"O, that this too too solid
flesh would melt!" he cries, as his dissatisfied employer, or father,
requires some reasonable action and fails to get it. In after-life this
same young man is glad the "grand passion" will never come to him again.
He feels that it has not heightened him in his own regard. His love may
have been smooth or it may have been swallowed in the quicksands of
adversity--the difference is small. It is not creditable to the human
brain to be so hoodwinked and purblind as Cupid makes his victims. But
LOVE RULES THE UNIVERSE,
having its climax in God himself, and its earthly ideality in the
mother's affection. We should not complain that when the potent essence
is first administered to us it shakes us seriously. Without this
passion, selfishness would triumph, and man would not take on the cares
of wedded life. Society and religion would wither. The world would be a
howling den of chaos and deep crime.
HOW HAVE THE SAGES LOOKED UPON LOVE?
I think they are inclined to praise it, as a whole--to indorse it merely
as a sensation, a passing gratification.
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