* * *

To die for a woman would perhaps, to a young and ardent lover, not be difficult; to wage incessant warfare with the world for her, that perhaps is not so easy.  But it is the better test of love; and perhaps also the better preserver and replenisher of love.  For

Little as people seem to be aware of it, love requires constant replenishing:  no flame can burn without a feeding oil, no pool overflow with out a purling brook.  Yet

The first ecstasies of love often blind both lover and lass to the care necessary for the nurture of love.  Indeed,

To many treat love as if it were a passing whim; whereas in sober reality it is (or should be) a lasting emotion.

* * *

Love, with woman, is like the tides.  And

Few women know the high-water mark of their love:  they are always harboring the belief that it may rise still higher; and often they await that rise.

* * *

It is but the reflection of himself in his mistress that many a foolish lover loves.

* * *

That aged spinster is a rare one who does not regret she did not accept one of her lovers.  But

That younger spinster is not to be envied who has to make choice of several.

Youth glories in the multiplicity of its lovers; age sometimes wishes it had had but one.

* * *

The unloved think lad the one thing needful.  The beloved know that an ocean of love could be swallowed up and the parched soul cry out athirst.

* * *

It is not well either to confide or confess too much.

A very small rock will wreck a very big ship, and a very small slip will spoil a very long life.

* * *

The pain which lovers cause each other—­through fickleness, languidness, jealousy, and the thousand natural shocks that love is heir to—­is not altogether pain, though at the moment it may seem the most poignant anguish the human soul could suffer.  One proof of this lies in the fact that

There are few who would choose to have missed love’s pangs altogether.

Perhaps the pleasure intermixed with love’s pangs arises from the thought that the other is the cause of our suffering.  For,

In all love, it is the sacrifice of oneself for the other that brings keenest joy.  And yet

There is an element of self-love in the very extremest of love.  Since

Love, after all, is a debtor and creditor affair. (Who ever loved with no hope of return?) It is when one of the parties declares him-or her-self insolvent that the account is closed—­with many tears and sighs on the part of the chief creditor.  At all events

The intenser the love, the more flawless does its object appear.  For

The surest test of the sincerity of love is that it thinketh no evil.

The surest test of a waning love is that it begins not to content itself when it sees its object suffer.