e unto her.
And she said, Behold thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her
people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law.
And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my
people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and
there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if
ought but death part me and thee." (Ruth i. 14-17.)

People have sometimes discussed with me whether it is right to have as
intense and absorbing a love for a friend of one's own sex as exists
between lovers. The word "absorbing" is perhaps the difficulty in their
minds. All love is essentially the same, and it has been pointed out that
the great classic instances of great love have been almost as often between
friends as between lovers. But the test of love's nobility remains
the same. If it is in the strict sense "absorbing"--if, that is, it is
exclusive, if it narrows one's interests instead of enlarging them, if it
involves a failure in love or sympathy with other people, it is wrong--it
is not in the true sense "love"; but if it enriches the understanding,
widens interest, deepens sympathy--if, in a word, to love one teaches us to
love others better, then it is good, it is love indeed. A friendship which
is of such character that no one outside it is of any interest, a maternal
love which not only concentrates on its own but wholly excludes all other
children, even a marriage which ultimately narrows rather than widens and
is exclusive in its interests, is a poor caricature of love. A young mother
may, in the first rapture of her motherhood, seem wholly absorbed; but,
as a matter of fact, she generally ends by caring more for _all_ children
because she loves one so deeply. Even lovers, after the first absorption of
newly-discovered joy, must learn to share their happiness and the happiness
of their home with others if it is not to grow hard and dull. And friends
may easily estimate the worth of their friendship by the measure with which
it has humanized their relations to all other human beings.

There is another test also for love: Does it express itself naturally and
rightly? This test is much more difficult to apply. One may believe
that all love is essentially the same, but it is certain that all human
relationships are not the same,