What is love?

"Perhaps when a man has held a woman in his arms, there is a little of her with him forever. Who is to say?

A ruined castle, and ancient garden, a moon rising over a fountain . . . love comes easily at such a time. Perhaps we loved each other then; perhaps we do not love each other now, but we each have a memory.

Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to fragments, or love can be a thing that endures, a rich deep current that flows unending dow the years.

I do not think one should demand that love be forever. Perhaps it is better that it not be forever. How can one answer for more than the moment? Who knows what strange tides may sweep us away? What depts there may be or twists and turns and shallows? Each life sails a separate course, although sometimes, and this is the best of times, two lives may move along together until the end of time?

Listen to the music out there. Is the song less beautiful because it has an end? I believe each of us wishes to find the song that does not end, but for me that time is not now.

I have nothing. I have no home, no land, no position. I am an empty gourd that must fill itself.

I owe no debts to destiny, nor could I exist on the bounty of another. I am not a lopdog to be kept by a woman. I do not know what awaits me out there beyond the tim of things, but destiny calls, and I must go. For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that my never become reality."

The above was taken from a novel by Louis L'Amour called "The Walking Drum". He was more famous for his westerns, a number of which were made into movies, but this shows the depth and beauty that he could write.