Love Never Fails

When Romney, the great English artist, was young he fell passionately in love with a young lady of the North of England and they were married. But his real passion was his work. One day he heard that Sir Joshua Reynolds had said that it was a pity that Romney had married, as he had the talents for greatness as a painter, and he would not get very far if he was burdened with a wife. Consequently, Romney left his young wife and came down to London. His work was his one passion now. He made good! Portraits of the first people of the land came from his brush, landscapes, that in this day are worth many, many thousands. He was a lion in London for a time. Then he grew old and ill and, gathering his effects together, went back to his wife in the North, and she took him in and nursed him tenderly till he was laid away. And some one has rightfully said that the spirit manifested by that wife was worth more than all the pictures that Romney ever produced. We treat Jesus that way. We forsake Him and then plan to get back and die in His arms. He never forsakes us, but loves us and abides with us through all our years.

Note in Cambridge edition of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Poems