"Nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer"
About this Quote
Jerome K. Jerome knows how to slip a serious idea into a line that sounds like it belongs on a wedding invitation. The trick is the pivot: he flatters youthful love as "the beginning of life" only to gently dethrone it in the next breath. Young love is framed as ignition - bright, quick, self-confident. Old love is framed as duration - not a spark but a steady heat that proves itself precisely because time has tried to put it out.
The phrase "weathered the storms of life" does more than romanticize hardship; it quietly sets a standard. Love isn’t validated by intensity or novelty but by survivability. Jerome is writing in a late-Victorian/Edwardian moral climate that prized endurance, duty, and respectability, yet he avoids sermonizing by choosing beauty as the metric, not virtue. He’s not arguing that older people love more purely; he’s arguing that time adds a kind of narrative weight. When you’ve seen illness, disappointment, boredom, money trouble - the ordinary erosions - affection becomes less a mood than a practiced loyalty.
The final clause, "the beginning of things longer", is slyly metaphysical. He’s not promising an afterlife; he’s hinting that long-shared history creates its own permanence. Two people aging together become an archive: private jokes, remembered griefs, routines that outlast the selves that started them. That’s the subtextual sting: if young love is about possibility, old love is about proof.
The phrase "weathered the storms of life" does more than romanticize hardship; it quietly sets a standard. Love isn’t validated by intensity or novelty but by survivability. Jerome is writing in a late-Victorian/Edwardian moral climate that prized endurance, duty, and respectability, yet he avoids sermonizing by choosing beauty as the metric, not virtue. He’s not arguing that older people love more purely; he’s arguing that time adds a kind of narrative weight. When you’ve seen illness, disappointment, boredom, money trouble - the ordinary erosions - affection becomes less a mood than a practiced loyalty.
The final clause, "the beginning of things longer", is slyly metaphysical. He’s not promising an afterlife; he’s hinting that long-shared history creates its own permanence. Two people aging together become an archive: private jokes, remembered griefs, routines that outlast the selves that started them. That’s the subtextual sting: if young love is about possibility, old love is about proof.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
|---|
More Quotes by Jerome
Add to List
