At one period of life, love is simply an emotion--the outcome of attraction, or the effect of that vague mystery which surrounds sex. In this emotional stage the _feeling_ may be real enough, but the passion is an illusion. A girl is often more in love with Love than with an actual lover. The youth who beholds his ideal in the First Woman is in love with the woman herself who for the time (usually very brief) embodies that ideal. But to the girl and the youth comes an hour when they are humiliatingly conscious of study wasted on a prettily-bound work of fiction that for all use and purpose in life is quite valueless. The edifice of romance is constructed much on the same plan as a child's castle of cards, and deservedly shares the same fate. That is to say, the topmost card overbalances the whole structure. It is usually the hand of Reason that topples over Love's romantic tenement by crowning it with the card of Common Sense. When we find Love has become a practical reality, the discovery is often very unpleasant. We would rather not be unhappy if we had the choice. Unfortunately, we haven't, and find ourselves in that condition without exactly knowing how we drifted into it. Drifters often discover Love to be a very practical reality, because of unpleasant consequences. It is decidedly humiliating to find ourselves in the toils of a siren the very reverse of our high ideal of the personage who is to have the honour and glory of subjugating us. This is one of Love's amusing little ways of proving that ideals are really not important. The best and safest test of the reality of Love is to ask yourself how much you have suffered on account of it. I don't speak of such trifles as tears, heartaches, sleepless nights, fevers of jealousy and despair, sacrifices, or discomforts, but of _real_ genuine self-torment and mental torture which only this passion is capable of inflicting on its victims. The most sceptical will acknowledge that its powers in this line are only excelled by its apparent animosity. To discover the life that completes and contents our own is not given to many of us poor mortals. Here and there some fortunate individuals have made that discovery--but they are rare--and not given to boasting on the subject; yet though worldly wise folk scoff at love as a myth, I question whether they could name any other passion of the heart which has occupied so important a place in the world's history, which has given life to all that is great and divine in art, or inspired such deeds of heroism, self-sacrifice, and martyrdom. Before its patient strength men have stood mute and wondering, and proud heads have bent in reverence, and stern eyes grown dim. For Love is beautiful, despite faults, and wise, despite follies. It alone of all human emotions can lift our souls heavenwards, and make even life's thorny path a thing of beauty. * * * * * [Sidenote: John Strange Winter's opinions.]