You may believe me or not, m'dears, but I can assure you that there was never yet a man or woman living who was not in search of love. Of course, you moderns, who are so thoroughly versed in psycho-analysis, will at once retort that you, for one--knowing yourself thoroughly--have never even thought of such an antiquated, ludicrous emotion as love. But let me tell you this: that even now in your practical world of to-day I see old and young, men and women, youths and maidens, rich and poor, married and single--all of you, in fact, hot in pursuit of the little pink god. Love, m'dears, is as vital to existence as is the sun to flowers, as is the pure air of heaven to your lungs, and all of you moderns, cynical and unbelieving though you may label yourselves, tend just as eagerly towards love as we did in the past; you are all striving--though you may not be aware of it--to struggle out of the gloom of the commonplace in order to reach the splendours of Love's fairyland.

The whole of your life, my friends, is incidental to this. It is for love's sake that a man will work so that he may have a home and comfort to offer to the woman of his choice. I doubt not that even the cave-man in his day sought the richest furs for his women and the warmest shelters for them against cold wintry weather.

Will you tell me why your shingled, boyish-looking emancipated City typist or tea-room waitress trips so gaily every morning to her work? Because she likes it? Gadzooks! does any healthy young girl really like work? Because it flatters her vanity to do man's work? Never! She does it because instinct tells her that in the world outside her home she will have a chance of one day finding her mate.

This mating instinct is passionately strong in every healthy human being, though most of you young moderns would deny it, and theorize at length about psychic affinities and sex-appeal. Those words, m'dears, are just twentieth century masks, fashioned to distort the oldest and most valuable heritage of the human race--the will to search for love.

Of course you are ready to pulverize me with the argument that love does not by any means always lead to fairyland. More often than not its sequel is tragedy or else a drab mediocrity which is more unendurable than black despair. What you are pleased to call happiness only comes through the channel of love once in a thousand times. That is your argument, I know, and in a measure you are right; but the reason for tragedy or mediocrity is because you young people of to-day are so apt to mistake the brass-farthing of sex attraction for the pure gold of love.

Love is so elusive that it is easily mistaken for dross. Perhaps it is because we want it so badly that we allow ourselves to be deluded by shams and mockeries. But you young post-War girls who are so ready to lure a man on to make love or propose marriage to you, take my advice and test your choice of a mate as carefully as if you were buying gold; nay! far more carefully, for if, after buying gold, you should find it to be base metal, you can always cast it aside and retrieve your loss by starting to bargain afresh; but if you have been foolish enough to mistake a momentary passion for true and lasting love, you will have ruined your life and could no more build it up again than you could a broken rainbow.

I am not talking now of girls who have been victimized by rogues, or of men whose affections have been broken on the wheel of some woman's caprice. These are but drops in the ocean of tragedies that come in the wake of unhappy love. The real tragedy, m'dears, of life's most romantic adventure is to be found among the millions of people who have been willing to take the cast-out shafts from Cupid's quiver and then discovered--too late, alas!--that those shafts, far from being true gold, were just poisoned darts that left incurable wounds in their heart.

How many of you, I wonder, will during this year utter the solemn vows which the churches demand from those who wish to start life together on the basis of mutual love and comradeship? And how many of you will presently regret those vows and regret them to the end of your days? For whatever may be said to the contrary, your modern easy divorce does not erase from the tablets of memory those happenings which the decree nisi is called upon to obliterate. The divorced man and the divorced woman may seem outwardly the same; they may behave in the same manner as before; they may smile as they did heretofore, but deep down in their hearts they know that the romance they dreamed of has received a wound which can never heal again.

If only instinct would teach you young people that happiness can only be attained by real love, and that charming woman needs to exercise more care in choosing a husband than she does in selecting a hat. Only that way, believe me, does your happiness lie.

There is such a thing as falling in love with love. The glamour of it dazzles; the object of one's adoration appears in the false light as a kind of god, a Titan amongst men. It is only when the eyes become accustomed to the surrounding gloom that the Titan shrivels to the size of a pigmy and the god is found to have feet of clay. But I well understand the glamour! How am I going to preach to you young people who are just on the threshold of life that the great adventure of love needs preparation and thought?

Too hasty enthusiasm has wrecked more exploring expeditions into Loveland than ever Arctic bergs wrecked the vessels of Pole-seeking mariners. There is a very wise parable which was told by Divine lips, and which has a universal meaning. It relates the adventures of ten virgins, five of whom were wise and five very foolish. They were waiting for the bridegroom, if you remember, and the wise virgins in anticipation of his coming kept their lamps trimmed and burning clear and bright. The foolish ones, on the other hand, neglected their lamps, allowed them to flicker out and to die for want of trimming and of oil, so that when the time came and the bridegroom knocked at the door there they were, all in the dark, unable to welcome him. All that is fiction, of course, but what a lot of truth there is in it.

Some of you foolish, charming young people are in far too great a hurry to light the lamp of your love, just letting it shed its feeble, uncertain rays on the first man or woman that comes along. For the time being it certainly does give you a sense of something big and eventful in your life, the illusion that you have laid the foundation of some great happiness. Those of you, on the other hand, who happen to be a little wiser, do not waste the light of your precious lamp. Its searching gleam will reveal pitfalls unseen in the dark. The semi-darkness of loneliness may make the path of life rather difficult, but you are content, nevertheless, to wander along quietly until such time as you see your way to pass through the gloom into the sunshine of real love.

Then, when you have found the one man or woman around whom your universe can safely revolve, you will realize how wise you were to travel on life's highway hopefully, if alone, and to reach your goal in full possession of your vitality and enthusiasm rather than to make a rush for the dazzle-light of passion and arrive dishevelled and blind.

You will no doubt remind me that in a former chapter I have entreated you to live dangerously, to take risks for the sake of the ends you have in view. I do so still: in all things of life, m'dears, be prepared to take risks, but not in love. Be very sure where you set your foot before you tread that wonderful path. Do not mistake the glamour of a momentary thrill for the true light of enduring love. Think twice before you dedicate your life to one who is not worthy of the sacrifice. Your gay bachelor and smart lavender-lady are happier far than those who wear the fetters of an unhappy marriage, and it is better never to have loved at all than to love amiss.

Love still is, and always will be, the most romantic adventure in life. Not for the world would I have a single one of you deliberately refuse to embark on it. All that the great adventure demands of you is a trimmed lamp, clear-sightedness to distinguish what is true gold, the love that makes the poor infinitely rich, and which will wipe away your tears; the companionship that will ease life's burden for you and ensure for your domestic happiness, the only bliss of Paradise that has survived the Fall, the spice of life that gives it all its flavour.