father says, and when you are older you will understand why you cannot
embrace every woman who regards you with affectionate and friendly
eyes."

That was a sad day. Father came home, agreed I had been very uncivil.
At night my mother put me to bed, and I prayed, but I could not sleep,
and kept wondering what these strange people were, whom one must not
love.

* * * * *

Thou poor human heart! So soon in the spring are thy leaves broken and
the feathers torn from the wings! When the spring-red of life opens
the hidden calyx of the soul, it perfumes our whole being with love.
We learn to stand and to walk, to speak and to read, but no one teaches
us love. It is inherent in us like life, they say, and is the very
deepest foundation of our existence. As the heavenly bodies incline to
and attract each other, and will always cling together by the
everlasting law of gravitation, so heavenly souls incline to and
attract each other, and will always cling together by the everlasting
law of love. A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot
live without love. Would not the child's heart break in despair when
the first cold storm of the world sweeps over it, if the warm sunlight
of love from the eyes of mother and father did not shine upon him like
the soft reflection of divine light and love? The ardent yearning,
which then awakes in the child, is the purest and deepest love. It is
the love which embraces the whole world; which shines resplendent
wherever the eyes of men beam upon it, which exults wherever it hears
the human voice. It is the old, immeasurable love, a deep well which
no plummet has ever sounded; a fountain of perennial richness. Whoever