White crystalline sugar musk and radiant heliotrope succumbing to a bawdy temptation of fleshy peaches, piquant damson, spicy dianthus, nyctophilic white florals, sassafras, rosewood, santal, and tonka.
Why do we fall in love? I do believe
That virtue is the magnet, the small vein
Of ore, the spark, the torch that we receive
At birth, and that we render back again.
That drop of godhood, like a precious stone,
May shine the brightest in the tiniest flake.
Lavished on saints, to sinners not unknown;
In harlot, nun, philanthropist, and rake,
It shines for those who love; none else discern
Evil from good; Men's fall did not bestow
That threatened wisdom; blindly still we yearn
After a virtue that we do not know,
Until our thirst and longing rise above
The barriers of reason—and we love.
- Alice Duer Miller
Art: Jugend by Paul Rieth, 1908
White crystalline sugar musk and radiant heliotrope succumbing to a bawdy temptation of fleshy peaches, piquant damson, spicy dianthus, nyctophilic white florals, sassafras, rosewood, santal, and tonka.
Why do we fall in love? I do believe
That virtue is the magnet, the small vein
Of ore, the spark, the torch that we receive
At birth, and that we render back again.
That drop of godhood, like a precious stone,
May shine the brightest in the tiniest flake.
Lavished on saints, to sinners not unknown;
In harlot, nun, philanthropist, and rake,
It shines for those who love; none else discern
Evil from good; Men's fall did not bestow
That threatened wisdom; blindly still we yearn
After a virtue that we do not know,
Until our thirst and longing rise above
The barriers of reason—and we love.
- Alice Duer Miller
Art: Jugend by Paul Rieth, 1908