HAPPY they who hold their friends,
As a magnet holds the steel;
Worth inherent serves the ends
Of Love's first and last appeal.

LOVE

Love is the richest thing in the world. Without it wealth, power, fame, and sport would be but poverty itself.

Love relieves the tension of power. Were there no affection, every ruler would be either a tyrant or a pigmy.

Love is the fascination of fame. Human nature wants not only to be known, but favorably known. Celebrity without esteem is the cemetery of comfort.

Love is the zest of sport. Without affection pastime pales into brutality. Just in proportion as warm Christian love waned the cruel old Roman arena flourished.

Love enriches whatever it reaches. It is the very heart of everything that men covet. The most luxurious lust affords no pleasure like unto the minutest joy of genuine love.

Love institutes the charms of life. It makes existence dear, work easy, care endurable, association delightful, courtship beautiful, marriage blissful, parenthood heavenly, age serene, and death rapturous.

He builds an unchanging fortune who develops love. Solitude can not dishearten him. Misfortune brings to him no despair. His treasure is hidden in his own heart and God's hand holds the key. Should the earth itself fall from its foundations, his affection would float him to the skies.

Love takes many forms, but in any form its character is golden. Even animal love enriches human thought. The affection of a mother bird or beast elicits encomiums.

The heart is hard in nature and unfit

For human fellowship, as being void

Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike
To love and friendship both, that is not pleased
With sight of animals enjoying life,

Nor feels their happiness augment his own.

We repeat the word, Love is the richest thing in the world. It is life's great end, but not its ending; it is life's wealth, never spent, though ever spending. No man loves to live like him who lives to love.

THE BEAUTY OF LOVE

Love is beautiful to the thought, and love makes everything seem beautiful. It is a spirit with a charm in it.

Love has been called blind, but this is not true. Love has keen eyesight. It sees the best traits, however, and ignores faults. This is a beautiful kind of blindness.

Love is beautiful in courage. "None but the brave deserve the fair." Bravery is beautiful, and love is brave. Love will dare death for the object loved.

Love is beautiful in persistency. It knows no defeat. It lays siege to the last breath and dies trying. "As soon go kindle a fire with snow as to quench the fire of love with words."

Love is beautiful in generosity. It is the only passion that admits another to its dreams of happiness. It pictures heaven for two and often transforms the picture into a glorious reality. Love is beautiful in its consciousness. It knows the sweetness of being. If there is anything sweeter than to be loved, it is loving; and if there is anything sweeter than loving, it is to be loved while loving.

Love is beautiful in its rapture. A perfect mutual love is almost too ecstatic for earth. "To love one who loves you, to be the idol of your idol, exceeds the limit of human joy-it is like stealing fire from heaven.”

Love is beautiful in its variety. Though one in substance, it takes many forms-the love of lovers, the conjugal, the paternal, the fraternal, the filial, the patriotic, and love for love's sake. A person in love carries a sort of talisman that makes life too precious to be touched.

Love is beautiful in duration and sweep. It ignores decline, survives decay, strokes white hairs, and keeps young in heart. It thrives in every clime, is conversant with every tongue, and does n't stop with earth. Love is of God. Angels revel in its atmosphere. Eternity can not exhaust it.