the one word, "love."

What is love? The idea of love occupies much of the thought of old and
young, and in different persons it will have very different meanings.
To one it means merely pleasurable sensations aroused by either the
thought of a person, or by the actual presence of that person. To
another it means an opportunity to sacrifice inclination and pleasure
in order to promote the happiness or welfare of a certain person.

Much that passes in the world as love is principally love of self. The
man loves the woman because she satisfies his sense of beauty; her
presence causes thrills and ecstasies; she contributes to his
happiness and comfort. That is, he loves himself through her. The
woman loves the man because he protects her, he surrounds her with
luxury, his presence brings thrills and ecstasies to her. She loves
herself through him. Is not this but the essence of selfishness? In
another case the man loves the woman so tenderly that he cannot do
enough to prove his devotion. If her welfare demands his absence, he
gladly foregoes the pleasure of her society. If her comfort requires
his unremitting toil, he gives his days, and even his nights, to the
task of labor for her. His only anxiety is to know her wants and to
supply them. He effaces himself and his wishes to serve her. He would
die to secure her good. He gives, and asks nothing. Or, in the same
way, the woman loves the man so that her whole thought is not what she
can obtain from him, but what she can give him. True love desires only
to give. Self-love strives only to secure.

Emerson says, "All the world loves a lover," and conversely we may say
a true lover loves all the world. The affection kindled in the heart
by one worthy individual goes out in a kindlier feeling for all the
world. A poet once said that the world was brighter and all humanity
dearer because he loved truly one worthy woman. He was more gentle
with little children; the very beggar on the street corner seemed to
be a brother in distress. Because the woman he loved had given him her
heart, he wanted to give something to every one he met. This is the
spirit of true love, to go out in blessings towards the beloved
object, and so on towards every created thing.

I was once asked if I believed in love at first sight. How can love
spring up in a minute? There may be admiration of beauty, there may be
appreciation of intellectual qualities, there may be a recognition of
magnetic person