What Is Love?
...the raw, emotional tugging of their heart-strings, have pondered over the question, What is Love?
Men and women are equally afflicted by its influence – equally, but probably not similarly, for no one is privy to both viewpoints. People have given away, spent, or wasted fortunes in seeking restitution for their Love. Ruin without satisfaction has been the result in many cases.
Numberless unrequited and over-requited souls have died or done away with themselves for want of Love, or even from an excess of it.
Others have made their fortunes writing about Love, or singing of its mysteries. Myths have been based on it. Indeed it is the underlying theme of nearly all of them. The Moon and Stars have been revered for their influence over stricken lovers, young and old. In fact enormous quantities of romantic notions have been expounded on the subject. Its influence cannot be exaggerated; it is what makes the World go round.
We will address the question: What is Love?
It comes in many forms and intensities. From ‘cupboard’ love, to raging passion; from the gentle, caring love for a child, to deeply powerful love that can only be expressed and consummated in the act of copulation. There is ‘Ethereal’ love, which is not only the preserve of non-corporeal Gods, it is the Love ‘that cannot speak its name’, the Love of the pure Knights of King Arthur.
Does any other animal on Earth experience Love as we humans do? Since we are animals as well, and we respond to all the same basic needs as other animals, self-preservation, eating, mating and so on, it is likely that other animals also feel Love. It will never be possible to prove the contrary, but an indication of Love in animals may be given by their pre-mating behaviour: hares prancing and skipping, mammals puffed up and strutting, birds collecting and displaying bright objects as ‘gifts’ to their intended,...
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