The Idealist who Fails to Realise her Vision - Is it Necessary to Fall in Love in Order to Marry? The Nature Capable of a Great Passion is Rare - In Love with the Ideal, not the Real - The

Reasons which Justify Marriage once became acquainted with a very charming woman, and could not help wondering, as women will about another of their own sex, how it was she had remained unmarried, seeing that she had all the requisite qualifications for making a good wife and mother, besides possessing a very delightful personality.

As our friendship deepened, she enlightened me, telling me that she had remained unwed because she had never fallen in love as she deemed she could fall in love. She had waited all her life for a "grande passion" to come and sweep her off her feet and make her oblivious of everything save the man who had probed the innermost recesses of her soul.

Poor lady, she is probably waiting still I

Other men had loved her, but she had carefully analysed their feelings towards her and found them wanting. She had always been able to criticise them, to see their little faults and failings, and she had not had the insight to weigh these against their sterling good qualities, which doubtless would have far outweighed them in the balance.

The result was that she had missed the best part of her womanhood, and I think there are a great many other women in the same case. Not, of course, the sensible, practical girl who knows a good, straight man when she meets one, and thinks herself lucky to marry him; but the dreamy idealist, the fond, foolish kind of woman, of whom there are so many to be met with still, Heaven bless them!

The question that arose in my mind was: Is it necessary for a woman to what is called "fall in love" with a man before it is right for her to marry him? And I think the answer is emphatically "No!"

First and foremost, it is not given to every woman to be capable of "falling in love" in the fullest sense of the term. To do this one must absolutely lose oneself in another, and this is not possible with either every woman or every man.

Some" women are so imbued with the idea of this ideal love, of which poets have rhymed and novelists written for centuries, that they consider no other sentiment worthy of attention.

The Ideal Love

I would not have any girl marry without love, for, as a rule, that can only end in disaster; but pure affection founded on mutual esteem and regard makes as good a foundation for matrimony as any other, and generally a better.

Women sometimes argue that the love they feel for a man who is desirous of marrying "is not the right sort," but they don't realise that it may be the greatest of which they are capable. It takes a great, deep nature to love deeply; and, looking round on your own circle of friends, have they all got "great, deep natures" capable of feeling a devotion similar to that of Dante for Beatrice? I think not. We are most of us rather shallow streams, trying to make ourselves and others believe that we are deep, silent rivers.

Theoretical love differs from practical, and we have to live practical, not theoretical, lives.

The great passion depicted by poets is not the birthright of all sentient souls; but, even were they capable of feeling it, there would probably be Only one person who could wake it into life. Arid how infinitely small are the chances of those two persons meeting on this side of eternity!

Consider, also, another point. There is a very great doubt about the stability of the love which starts with a passion of fervour, which knows no happiness out of sight of the beloved object, and works itself up into a frenzy of despair if obstacles occur which prevent the consummation of its hopes and desires. Passionate love is not always the love which lasts best. It is not always proof against the little rubs and friction of everyday life, and very often when it has disappeared, has burnt itself out by the very fierceness of its fires, there is nothing that remains; even its very ashes are consumed. And there is no foundation on which a more lasting structure can be built.

When a woman falls in love with a man, she is not capable of judging him in a sensible manner, neither can she reason about his and her chances of happiness together in a reasonable manner. She minimises his faults and exaggerates his virtues till she transmutes him into something utterly unlike himself; she paints him as she would like him to be, but not in the least as he is. And when the true understanding of him comes, as in process of time it must, she realises that she has immolated herself upon the altar of a god of clay.

The man she loved was not the man she married, because the former was nonexistent; she had created him out of the love she bore him. There is nothing more hopeless than a burnt-out passion, and nothing more desperate than the case of a woman yoked for life to a man whom she may not be able even to respect.

Women are so proud of their potential capacity for loving that if you were to tell one of them that she was not capable of a deep-souled, lifelong devotion she would feel, not only that you had grossly insulted her, but that you had entirely misread her character and failed to probe the depth of her nature.

I do not mean to infer that all women, or even the majority of them, are shallow - the history of the world would soon prove the contrary - but I do think it is a pity for every woman to expect to be able to feel some soul-stirring emotion, and, because she fails to experience it, to let slip from her the crown of womanhood.

I once heard a man say that the majority of women were like cats, that if they were married to a man who fed and housed them well and treated them kindly, they would be sure to grow extremely fond of him and be quite happily content. I think there is a certain amount of truth in the remark, but I have heard of cats who strayed away from even the kindest and most comfortable of homes. I suppose those are the foolish ones, who do not know when they are well off.

A Word of Advice

Yet I do think it is a sure fact that a marriage grounded on mutual esteem and regard is just as likely to turn out well and happily as one which is entered into with a passion of fervent love. Many girls marry for reasons which are utterly unworthy - for a home, for money, for the sake of being married, all selfish and inadequate motives, and a marriage so entered upon can have no reasonable expectation of being happy. I do not think it necessary to wait for a soul-stirring passion which may never come, but I know it is essential to have true mutual esteem and regard, out of which love can grow almost before it is realised.

The broad lines on which advice to girls should be based is, marry, if you can, the man you love, if he is straight and true; if you cannot do that, the next best thing is to marry the man who loves you, provided you can go to him with an open heart, ready to learn the lesson he is willing to teach.

Above all things, be honest and true to yourself and the man you have chosen, and you will find you are not very far from the golden gate which leads to the land of happiness.