It is a tender thing.  So often is it wounded that it cannot see another suffer, and its own pain is easier far to bear.  It makes a shield of its very tenderness, gladly receiving the stabs that were meant for him, forgiving always, and forgetting when it may.

[Sidenote:  The Solace]

Yet, after all, it is a simple thing.  For in times of deepest doubt and trouble, it requires for its solace only the tender look, the whispered word which brings new courage, and the old-time grace of the lover’s way.

The Philosophy of Love

[Illustration]

The Philosophy of Love

[Sidenote:  The Prevailing Theme]

A modern novelist has greatly lamented because the prevailing theme of fiction is love.  Every story is a love story, every romance finds its inspiration in the heart, and even the musty tomes of history are beset by the little blind god.

One or two men have dared to write books from which women have been excluded as rigorously as from the Chinese stage, but the world of readers has not loudly clamoured for more of the same sort.  A story of adventure loses none of its interest if there is some fair damsel to be rescued from various thrilling situations.

The realists contend that a single isolated fact should not be dwelt upon to the exclusion of all other interests, that love plays but a small part in the life of the average man or woman, and that it is unreasonable to expand it to the uttermost limits of art.

Strangely enough, the realists are all men.  If a woman ventures to write a book which may fitly be classed under the head of realism, the critics charitably unite upon insanity as the cause of it and lament the lost womanliness of a decadent generation.

If realism were actually real, we should have no time for books and pictures.  Our days and nights would be spent in reclaiming the people in the slums.  There would be a visible increase in the church fair—­where we spend more than we can afford for things we do not want, in order to please people whom we do not like, and to help heathen who are happier than we are.

[Sidenote:  The Root of all Good]

The love of money is said to be the root of all evil, but love itself is the root of all good, for it is the very foundation of the social structure.  The universal race for the elusive shilling, which is commonly considered selfish, is based upon love.

Money will buy fine houses, but who would wish to live in a mansion alone!  Fast horses, yachts, private cars, and the feasts of Lucullus, are not to be enjoyed in solitude; they must be shared.  Buying jewels and costly raiment is the purest philanthropy, for it gives pleasure to others.  Sapphires and real lace depreciate rapidly in the cloister or the desert.

The envy which luxury sometimes creates is also altruistic in character, for in its last analysis, it is the wish to give pleasure to others, in the same degree, as the envied fortunately may.  Nothing is happiness which is not shared by at least one other, and nothing is truly sorrow unless it is borne absolutely alone.