Love and its Hidden History.
What is Love?—Everybody.
It is—it is—well, I don't know what it is!—Everybody Else.
But this, after all we do know, that—
Love is a glorious thing for old and young,
for high and low.
for all below,—
The Mecca of the heart all bards have sung.
The poor are rich if love with them abide;
The rich are poor if he dwell not with them;
The monarch oft would give his diadem
For such sweet company at even-tide.
Love is a glorious thing, I do rehearse;
A burning fount more potent than the god
That rules the day, and vivifies the clod:—
It is the spirit of the universe—
Th' attraction by Eternal Wisdom given,
To keep souls in their orbits, both in earth and heaven.
ALL this is truth. Life bereft of love were of little worth. But what is love ? Ought any power other than the Infinite attempt to answer? We all, at times, feel its force, and recognize its power, and yet not one of us really knows what this mysterious thing consists in. Some of us try to synthetize, others to analyze it—fruitlessly; and others still tell us that there are hundreds of distinct feelings and attractions, common to the human breast, all of which we call by separate names; and these fortify their notions by triumphantly pointing to apparent proofs of their correctness, and ask, "Is the love I feel toward my little pet dog, of the same species as that which I bear toward my friend, my parents, acquaintances, and my children, wife, husband,—God? "Of
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