And hope and fear...
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love
How love might be, hath been indeed and is,"

then the key to all morality and all sound practical wisdom is just to
conserve at all costs our chance of knowing love--love pure,
passionate, fruitful, and holy.


_Unreturned Love_


I ask myself whether I can say anything of use to those who love deeply
and truly, but find their love unreturned. Many who read these pages
may say to themselves that they can fully believe that mutual love is
the way into a wonderful country of new and full life, but that for
them love has meant only a great longing and a great pain. They could
give generously and nobly. They have in them a great wealth of love
which they long to spend lavishly; but because he or she remains
indifferent they find themselves tormented by that which is best in
them. There is something here harder to face than even the sorrow of
widows or widowers. To have loved and lost might be said to be a
tolerable situation compared with the feeling that one's love has not
been wanted.

Those who have never known such a situation may speak lightly of it.
Those who have will always want to deal gently and reverently with it.
Plainly it has great dangers attached to it. It is easy for those who
are facing it to allow themselves to become bitter and cynical. It must
be hard for them not to feel that many who do enjoy the privilege of