One of the arguments about love which has never been solved is the question of love at first sight. One school of thought insists that love at first sight is not lasting. The other says it is the only kind of love. Marlowe, for instance, writes "Whoever love that loved not at first sight." This, however, is futile argument. The question is not
when does love start but how long will it last? And the object of all lovers is to see to it that love lasts forever and ever.
Thousands of young men and women have grown up together in friendship only. They made mud pies together in their babyhood. They went to grammar school together. The young man carried the young girl's books home from high school. All of this they did without knowing why they did it. Suddenly, at a picnic in the forest, after they had deserted the throng of other picnickers and found a lonely spot in the shade near a tinkling brook, the boy looked up into the girl's eyes and he sees something in them that he had never seen before. A strange sparkle is there. He feels a catch come to his throat. A delicious sensation pervades his whole body. His breath seems to come in short gasps. He sees that the same reactions have come to the girl. He sees her bosom heave. He sees her eyes avert in embarrassment. He knows, she knows, they both know that love has suddenly come to them. And although they cannot identify it as love, they know that it is something that is sweet, something that is so overpowering in its strength that its sweetness is almost pain. Then it is that love is born.
Surely, we cannot say that this is not true love because it is not love at first sight. Perhaps it is a truer love than love at first sight. Certainly, it is a love that should prove more lasting. For, throughout those previous years, they have learned to know each other intimately. They know each other's faults and vices. They know each other's little idiosyncrasies, those same little idiosyncrasies that have broken up what was once a happy love life. And it is in the understanding of each other that true love is born and nurtures and lives.
