For it is to be considered that this passion of which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old, but makes the aged participators of it, not less than the tender maiden, though in a different and nobler sort.

But from these formidable censors I shall appeal to my seniors. And, therefore, I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose the Court and Parliament of Love. The delicious fancies of youth reject the least savour of a mature philosophy, as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom. The natural association of the sentiment of love with the heyday of the blood seems to require, that in order to portray it in vivid tints, which every youth and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing experience, one must not be too old. The introduction to this felicity is in a private and tender relation of one to one, which is the enchantment of human life which, like a certain divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at one period, and works a revolution in his mind and body unites him to his race, pledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries him with new sympathy into nature, enhances the power of the senses, opens the imagination, adds to his character heroic and sacred attributes, establishes marriage, and gives permanence to human society.

Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all particular regards in its general light. Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays, First Series LoveĮvery promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments each of its joys ripens into a new want.

Eloquent evenings.