It is a bond that is as
soft as silk and as strong as death, binding hearts, not hands; so long as
it is not strained a man will hardly know that he is bound, but if he
would break it he will spend his strength in vain and suffer the pains of
hell, for it is the very essence and nature of a true love that it cannot
be broken.
With such men as John Harrington love at first sight is an utter
impossibility. The strong dominant aspirations that lead them are a light
too brilliant to be outshone by any sudden flash of hot passion. Love,
when it comes to them, is of slow growth, but enduring in the same
proportion as it is slow; identifying itself, by degrees so small that a
man himself is unconscious of it, with the deepest feelings of the heart
and the highest workings of the intellect. It steals silently into the
soul in the guise of friendship, asking nothing but loyal friendship in
return; in the appearance of kindness which asks but a little gratitude;
in the semblance of a calm and passionless trustfulness, demanding only a
like trust as its equivalent pledge, a like faith as a gauge for its own,
an equal measure of charity for an equal; and so love builds himself a
temple of faith and charity, and trust and kindness, and honest
friendship, and rejoices exceedingly in the whole goodness and strength
and beauty of the place where he will presently worship.
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