The love, however, that is so strong to obtain must be no superficial
sentiment, but an inward passion of the heart. So long as we live in
thought and imagination we are very apt to mistake mere sentiment for
love; but the difference will show itself so soon as we begin to act.
Sentiment is soon wearied by labor and difficulty in its pursuit of
mental attainment, soon disgusted by squalor or offended by ingratitude
in its attempts at benevolence, soon discouraged by the hardness of its
own heart when it endeavors to acquire self-control, or to gain such
virtues as seem in the abstract lovely and delightful. In short,
sentiment wants a royal road to whatever it strives to reach. Love, on
the contrary, is too much in earnest to be dismayed by any impediment.
It will not stop half-way and make excuses for its short-comings. It
rests not in its course until it has gained what it seeks; and then it
rests not long, for all true love "grows by what it feeds on," and every
height of excellence we reach does but enlarge the field of vision and
show us new countries to be won.
Admitting love to be, indeed, this intense and all-pervading power, and
the very life of our souls, the importance of training ourselves to love
only that which is pure and true at once becomes manifest. The heights
of heaven are not farther from the depths of hell than are the results
that come to us if we seek the pure and the true from those which
inevitably occur when the choice falls upon the impure and the false.
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