he expression of the whole nature, through the physical;
it is the vital creative force endeavoring to reach a tangible result.
Holy in its inception, it can be degraded to the vilest uses. Forming
the distinctive feature of love between the sexes, it is too often
imagined to be the all, and a strong physical attraction without the
basic friendship, which can only come through acquaintance, is not
infrequently supposed to be worthy of the name of love, and found,
alas! to be the most unsubstantial of chimeras.

Love, to be worthy of the name, must rest, not on the fact of
admiration for beauty, not on the physical attraction manifested in
sweet electric thrills. Love should include intellectual congeniality
and spiritual sympathy, as well as physical attraction. Lacking any
one of these three ingredients, the interest of two people in each
other should not be called love.

In order that it may be determined whether there is the true basis of
love, there should be opportunity for unsentimental acquaintance. If
we could free the minds of young people from the romantic idea, and
allow them to associate as intelligent beings, and so form
acquaintance on the basis of comradeship, we should make things safer
for them.

But if the older people do not know how to secure this desirable state
of affairs, the young people themselves might secure it if they
understood its desirability. You, as a young woman, can have much
influence in the right directions, supposing that you drop from your
mind the idea of sentimental relations with young men and meet them
on the ground of a friendly comradeship.

Don't indulge in _tete-a-tetes_, or in lackadaisical glances of the
eye. Don't permit personal familiarities, hand pressures, or caresses.
Don't simper, and put on the airs which mean, though the girl may not
understand it, an effort to arouse the admiration and the physical
feeling of love. Refuse to be flattered, to be played with, to be
treated as a female, but insist on being treated as a woman with
intelligence, with a capacity to understand reasonable things.
Manifest an interest in the movements of the world, of politics,
literature, art, religion, athletics. Talk of the things that interest
the young man as a citizen of the world, and not merely of those
things which appeal to him as a male. Be frank, be lively, be witty,
be wise, but do not be sentimental.

When a young man calls, don't let him get the idea that you have to