LOVE AT FIRST-SIGHT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 24, 23 October 1907, Page 3

LOVE AT FIRST-SIGHT.

DOES IT LEAD TO HAPPINESS ? An interesting correspondence has been taking placo in tho London "Daily Mail" lately as to whether matches founded on loro at first sight have much prospect of being happy. According to Sir James Crichton-Browne, the great English authority. on mental com- ; plaints, first love, like any other fever, is a perfectly recognised complaint, with cortain specified symptoms. Its causes, according to Sir James Crichton-Browne, are two: — (1) A species of cerebral commotion. (2) The stirring of some hitherto dormant association centres by an appropriate af&nitivo impression. It can no longer bo denied in the face of such authority, says our contemporary, that first love is real and serious. But tho question still remains whether it is onduring. Is calf-love, as it is slightingly termed, a thing that can and ought to bo scotched, or is it tho only lovo upon which to found a lifetime of married happiness? The argument on the one side is that a community of thoughts, feelings and ideas', a thing rarely experienced in first lovo, is tlio best basin for happiness. On tho other, it is argued that marriages based oil first love, passion ,or the instinctive recognition of an affinity in experience bting the most lasting happiness. Against first love some correspondents have argued that it docs not last, but others relate cases whero first lovo has undoubtedly begun a life of happiness. ■ Below we print letters taking both views. ' '.' LOVE THAT ENDURED. Sir,—l should like to state a few "truths" upon this question. The ca3e in point was that of my own father and mother. In early youth—twenty-one—nineteen —they met in the porch of B Church. She was coming out, he going in. My father, though an Oxford scholar," ivas very poor; my mother the daughter and co-heiress of "the", family of B -. (Very trite, I know, but such aro the facts.) . . . No words-passed'between them at tho moment of their first meeting, my father nierely "uncovering" until the "vision of his ideal" passed. - . .' My mother had looked up, and,.as she has many times told me, there had never been a man in tho world for her was thero ever -another., Tho "recognition" was instantaneous — final. Not long, after .this they mot in tho vicar's ('anion and were introduced. My father, , knowing his suit would bo hopeless, and feeling, an absolute certainty—a sure knowledge—that tho attraction was mutual —wrote to my mother. 1 have the letter bofore mo now—a sacred possession. What happened next is matter for a novel, and that a stirring ono. Suffico it here say they evontually married, and their two children, my' brother and myself,- havo never married. Looking on and living tho lifo of our parents has, i think, iiiade any . ordinary marriage impossible for us. I—and, I believe, my brother, too—have felt that "species of cerebral commotion —the stirring of some hitherto dormant association-centres by an appropriate aflinitivo impression , "—many times, but it has always passed, on closer acquaintance with the subject of its disturbance. ■■■■••.-■/ I am now a woman on the' wrong side' of thirty-five, and 1 can truthfully say. that no love has ever reached me which could have satisfied my ideas of wedded lifo; and the same is true of my brother. My mother was for many years a confirmed invalid. My father's love.ami care of and for her never wavered-or faltered. • Slip was ever him his lodestar, his very life, his soul's ideal. Looking on-such a. lovo as. this—a love that was changeless as tho "Spirit of Life," is it wonder that the trfo children born of that love have not been able to mate? My mother died only a short timo before my father, ■ and with, her passing away his whole personality changed. Ho. was not long in following his lodestar.—Eleanor Winifred H—. ." ■ ..". .', ' INFATUATED WITH PRETTY DRESS. Sir, —Tho result of acting upon lovo at first sight has been tho means.of completely ruining my, whole life. ■ |! . % ■ I fell madly in.love with a girl whom I saw every day passing my house.:. Slio was very protty and always very;smartly dressed. J. :j;ot an introduction to her, and tho first week i,kncw her I proposed. In loss than three months' , , time we were niarriedv That was seven years ago, and our married lifo has been a complete failure. Tho protty faco concealed a shrewish,,temper, ami tho smart, dress rovcaled tho wearer's taste ;for extravagance. I now know that what I thought was lovo at first sight was,merely a temporary infatuation for a ■ pretty ,-dress, and any man who falls in lovo : merely for that reason is nearly always ; fntetl to meet with disappointment. . ..,,■■ . •,. I would thereforo utter ono word of : warning to other young men who.take a violent fancy to some girl at first sight. Don't marry hor until you havo been engaged for two years. In that time you will have learned her real character, and you will then know if your lovo is likely to stand the tost of married Sufferer Through Lovo at First Sight. .. . ■ .; ■ ~,. A REJECTED PROPOSAL. Sir, —About two years ago 1 fell in love at first sight with a beautiful girl, and realised that 1 had found my, affinity. But the attraction was not mutual. Realising this I endeavoured to win her affection by; slow and arduous siege, but have progressed little. She.tells mo she likes mo, but does not lovo me. -She loves no ono else, sho says,, and 1 know of no rival, yet wo get no farther. ■ ■ Under Sir James Crichton-Lrowho's aflinitivo impression theory, how is this explained i , .- How can she bo my affinity - while 1 am not hers ? I >do not boliovo that lovo can bo put into a formula and labelled, and under my experience shall need persuasion; though, perhaps; when I' win I shall ho more in tho mood to admit theories.—A. T. LOVE AT FIRST HEARING. Sir, —I fell in lovo at first sight—not with a faco, but a voice. I chanced to be waiting in a crowd when I heard behind mo a , girl talking to a companion. Her-faco I could not seo, but her voico was so sweet and had such a charm for mo that I felt at once this was tho woman I should liko to havo always at my-side.' I wasfortunato to make her acquaintance, and though hor face was not strictly pretty, yot thero seemed to bo tho samo sympathetic charm about it as hor voice. We havo boon married for some years now, and I may say that I shall never regret falling in lovo with a voico at first hearing. A sweet voico is generally a rovelation of a sweet character,. and love at first hearing is by no moans a bad guido to matrimonial happiness.—B. L. T. AT A RAILWAY STATION. Sir,—Over, twenty years ago I chanced to_ be at a railway station just taking my ticket for a Watoringrplace. 1 was a bachelor of thirty-four, and only that very day had said to tlio friend who accompanied me, "I have made up my mind I shall never marry, for I havo never yot met the woman 1 should caro to make my wife, and now I am suro it is too late." However, just as I had taken my tickot I happened to look round, and saw behind me a girl who was asking for a ticket for tho samo placo to which I was bound. At that instant I said to my friend, "That's tho girl 1 shall marry if sho is free." It was a case of lovo at first sight, and I was in deadly earnest. Luckily I coutrivod to get an introduction to tho girl. In a month's time wo were engaged, and wo have now been married twenty years, and have had a perfectly happy married life.—A Husband. 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