Another hindrance to love is its dependence on the beauty of the ideal, be it physical beauty, beauty of thought, of character, or of personality. Whatever beauty it may be, whenever love depends for its continuance or for its existence upon the beauty of its object, it must some day fall. Therefore true love does not regard the body, the external object; in point of fact love prepares its own ideal. For when a person says, "O, I have loved you for your beauty", what will he say when youth has gone and the beauty is lost? Where will the love be then? The love will change too. And if love has gone with the passing of the beauty of the object of its love, what then? Another may say, "O, I love you for your personality", and yet perhaps within a month the beloved may not show the same personality, the same attractive goodness. What then?

We think a flower is a fleeting thing, so soon does it change; and yet the human heart is liable to a quicker change than even the flower. A person may be very good one moment, very kind; and the next moment the contrary; calm one moment, and then restless; at one time so affectionate, at another indifferent; all according to the state of mind in which he happens to be at the time. So it cannot last if it is allowed to depend on the beauty of the ideal; such love is dependent and would sooner or later die. That is why so many hearts cannot keep the flame of love alive in them.

Often it happens that lovers grow cold just from lack of understanding that love must not be for an external ideal, but that the lover has to prepare the ideal in himself, they have failed to make the self-sufficient love within themselves. Not so the sages, the holy men, the wise ones. They know that a person who is kind today can be the contrary tomorrow. Therefore the wise lover expects both opposites in the external and inner beauty of the beloved.