On the other hand it may be wrong, as it has been oft before. Many a

woman has jumped out of the frying pan of one marriage into the fire

of another.

 

Only time will tell. If this new love is the "soul mate" she thinks,

the attraction will be all the stronger and steadier in a year or two

from now. If he is not the soul mate she thinks him, the attraction

will wane.

 

I know women who, under similar conditions, have elected to wait; women

whose consciences would not allow them to leave a kind husband or young

children for the sake of gratifying their passion for another man. I

have known these same women to despise a year or two later, the men they

had thought themselves passionately and everlastingly in love with.

They have never got over thanking whatever gods there be that they were

saved from that rash step. I have known many cases of this kind, and

have received many letters of fervent thanks from both men and women who

followed my private counsel to let time prove the new attraction

before severing old ties and making new ones.

 

And I must say that not one who waited but has said to me, "I am

glad I waited"; whilst many who did not wait have bitterly

regretted.

 

A love affair is emotional insanity. Lovers are insane; not in fit

condition to decide their own actions. The state of "falling in love" is

moon-madness. For the time being the lover's sense of justice, his

reason, his judgment, is distorted by reflections from another

personality. This is especially so in the woman's case, for the reason

that she is generally a creature of untrained impulse, instead of

reasoning will.

 

There is that recent case of the beautiful and beloved Princess Louise

who ran away from her royal husband. She thought she loved Monsieur

Giron so devotedly that she could bear anything for the sake of being

with him. And surely she was miserable enough in her old environment.

But when it came to the reality she could not bear the consequences. She

wanted her children; her proud spirit winced at the snubs she got; she

longed a little for the old life; and familiarity with her soul mate

revealed the knowledge that he was not all soul. She flunked miserably

and went home to her sick child. You see, she was literally love-sick.

Her mind was disordered; a life spent with her soul mate loomed to her

so large and dazzling that all other things were as nothing. She

couldn't for the time being see straight. She was literally insane.

 

If she had only waited until the new wore off her passion! Waited

until she saw things in their proper proportions and relations to each

other; until she was sure she could live the life made inevitable by