Love Dies-Why Should Love Die? – May Huntley, 5/11/1901

Republished from our predecessor publication Lucifer the Light Bearer

From her mountain home in Colorado, May Huntley writes me as follows: You said editorially that you could not
see any reason for the tragic ending of the lives of Fern and Christobel in the little story called “Nature and the
Law,” and you ask, “Why does she not let them live long enough to show the superiority of ‘Love in Freedom’
and ‘Motherhood in Freedom’ over the conventional kind or kinds?” I will tell you—though perhaps I had better
not tell the public—that it was because I do not know how. I have never seen a really happy and model motherhood,
or even loverhood, in “Freedom.” They may exist, and I have not had the good fortune to see them. Mutual love
is beautiful wherever seen, and I do not think the lovers at such a time ever stop to remember whether they are
free or not. But alas! Love dies. It dies out with married couples, and it seems to me more quickly with unmarried
couples. The death of love is the saddest thing in the world, in marriage or out of it. And so, as I could not bear
to look forward and see my pure, free, innocent characters growing old and commonplace, tired and dull with each
other; nor could I see them seeking other lovers and forgetting their own sweet, unselfish passion for each other;
so to me, the best and least sad ending was to have them die in each other’s arms, in the fullness and freshness of
their first love. Two young, ignorant, innocent people cannot be insured happiness merely by ignoring the marriage
ceremony. Without wisdom and good judgment, they were more likely to meet wreck and ruin—both in their lives
and their happiness—than anything else. The story follows “logical consequences.” Happiness in love relations is
a great problem. The abolition of an old, established ceremony will not solve it. Study, experience, a better economic
condition, the cultivation of judgment, the understanding of human needs and relationships, and time alone can
bring about a more harmonious adjustment of sex relationships. I admit we must have freedom in order to
progress; but freedom alone does not bring us directly to the threshold of perfection.

You are at liberty to use the above if you think best, but it might be more dignified for the author
not to expose the fact that she does not know, any better than her readers, how the two lovers
might have proved the superiority of freedom in love. However, I do not mind if you publish me,
and I would like to read your comments.

A Reply – Moses Harman

I have here reproduced the letter exactly as written. For the present I will make but very brief comment.
First—I am glad to note the evident candor, the intellectual honesty of the writer of the letter and of the story.
As I see it, the most discouraging persons we meet are those who “know it all”; those who have solved the
mysteries of life and of the universe, and who talk to us with a lofty, self-assured, self-assertive air and
patronizing manner, as though it were an act of great condescension on their part to undertake the task of
enlightening the benighted minds of their hearers. Of this class are nearly all churchmen and churchwomen;
also many Spiritualists, Theosophists, Christian and Mental Scientists, etc., with not a few who call themselves
Materialists, Physical Scientists, “Freethinkers” par excellence—Positivists, Rationalists, Egoists, etc. In
our search for knowledge on any line, the first step, it would seem, is to find out the impediments in the
way—the difficulties to be overcome—and it is always, I think, a hopeful sign when an investigator frankly
acknowledges her or his ignorance. In the great university of life it is well that we all take our places in the
“Freshman” class, whatever may be the number of our years, or however great the honors and titles that
may have been conferred upon us by our fellow tyros, our contemporary ignoramuses. In all institutions of
learning the worst-behaved students are the “Sophs”—the “Sophomores,” which means the “wise fools”!
With May Huntley I frankly acknowledge my ignorance. I have been an investigator of social problems many
more years than has the writer of the story, “Nature and the Law,” but have not yet got beyond the “Freshman”
class. With her I say, “Happiness in love relations is a great problem.” With her, “I have never seen a model
motherhood [my ideal motherhood] or even loverhood in freedom.” With her I can say, “The abolition of an
old, established [marriage] ceremony will not solve” the problem.

Thus far we are agreed—substantially agreed—but I do not share the pessimistic feeling, the almost hopeless
feeling expressed in this letter and in other letters received from her and from many who have written us on the
same subject. For the present I close by asking Lucifer’s readers to join us in a symposium—a briefly worded
investigation of the problem proposed by May Huntley. Why should love die? Why should an author kill her
children of nature in order to prevent a more disastrous ending of love’s young dream?