Halbert Britan was a member of the Bates faculty from 1907 until his retirement in 1943. A quote attributed to Britan in a Mirror yearbook was, “Facts are cheap \u2014 get hold of general principles.” (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nI Really Like You<\/h3>\n\n\n\n In this quote, Britan says that if you fall in love too easily, you\u2019re probably not great at staying in love:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are…individuals whose instinctive reactions are of a hair-trigger delicacy, so that a gentle glance, an eye of blue or brown, an accent or a smile unlocks \u2014 or we would better say unlatches \u2014 the door of their emotional consciousness [and] submerges the judicial faculties so that for time the poor victim is hopelessly swept away. This acute sensitivity…may secure a pronounced response to some element of sexual attraction [but] is obviously an enemy to constancy.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201c<\/em>During these cold, dark winter months, there\u2019s no harm in being swept away by hair-trigger delicacies. But, a little delicacy goes a long way. Does Dr. Love know what it\u2019s like when the Deansmen belt out a Valentine-gram \u2014 a 1990s pop love song, always \u2014 in Commons while you\u2019re trying to dig into your General Tso\u2019s chicken?“<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nAll You Need Is Love<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Britan says there\u2019s no right way to fall in love:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are widely different ways in which individuals succumb to Cupid’s darts. Some fall suddenly, as tho a trap had been sprung beneath their feet; some stumble and stagger, recover their balance, but finally go down ingloriously to their glorious doom. Some seem immune to all charms.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cAh, The Notebook. <\/em>Classic. Heart-wrenching. Tear jerking (at least for Hannah). A million stolen letters, an engagement to another man, unsupportive parents: Love conquers all! And for the rest of us? Whether you bond over a flunked exam, a difficult lab, or a dropped dish in Commons, one message is clear: There\u2019s no right way to fall in love.“<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nCheck Yes Or No<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Britan gets personal, offering his backstory of childhood infatuation, based on an offhand compliment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“My first experience of falling in love I can remember clearly and can identify the excitant or stimulus that roused my tender heart of 11 years. My sister chanced to tell me one day of a remark made by a girl, to the effect that she thought that I was the prettiest boy in school.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cWell done, Dr. Love! First- or second-hand, compliments are still alive and well, even past grade school. Can you remember a time where someone complimented you in class? How about in Commons? All it sometimes takes is one offhand compliment to spark a first love. (Who knew that Hannah\u2019s strawberry hat would make people so nice?)\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nRock with You<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Britan makes anyone over 30 feel like an ancient rock formation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“After 30, the sediment of a prolonged experience has settled over the instinct and often so solidified that toy tools will seldom suffice to break through to the emotion-bearing Paleozoic stratum of human nature.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cWe\u2019d like Dr. Love to binge on The Golden Bachelor<\/em> in which women of a certain age enter the cutthroat reality TV scene to compete for an eligible widower\u2019s love. While he might have seen this show as an archeological dig, we think it shows that there\u2019s still some molten lava beneath that Paleozoic stratum \u2014 even after 30.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHalbert Britan (left), who had a doctorate in philosophy from Yale, was a beloved Bates professor of philosophy from 1905 to 1943. (BCM illustration \/ Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library [Britan])<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLove Is a Battlefield<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Human emotions, love, fear, and rage, all follow the same general process:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is not one single formula for awakening love. Just as anger or fear, for example, may be excited by a wide variety of circumstances and conditions, so love is capable of being awakened by stimuli equally diverse.”Hannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cThe anger-fear-love intersection, seen in enemies-to-lovers tropes, existed long before Britan\u2019s time. That said, we\u2019d be interested to see his take on the romance book recs on Tiktok now, and how far they take it. It\u2019s fun to think that during his day Dr. Love might\u2019ve been a fan of Pride and Prejudice<\/em>; Ramona only wishes he was around long enough to see the 2005 adaptation with Keira Knightley.“<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHow Deep Is Your Love?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Britan says that the immediate and intense response to stimuli \u2014 call it the Commons Crush phenomenon \u2014 has an age limit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What is an adequate stimulus at one age is [not] necessarily so at another. In the tender years of youth, when all the experiences of life have the impressiveness of novelty, that may well seem portentous and epoch-making when later will hardly start a ripple upon the emotional calm of the years.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cLast year, Nate Shore \u201927 of Kennebunkport, Maine, released ‘Commons Crush’, with lyrics like ‘It\u2019s still only September \/ But I\u2019ll be thinking of her until my thesis is bound.’ We wonder: How does Shore feel toward the girl now? Was his song a result of so-called \u2018tender years of youth,\u2019 or something more lasting?“<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nI Knew I Loved You<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Some folks are more susceptible to big feelings than others, like Donkey compared to Shrek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are persons of an impressionable type…individuals whose instinctive reactions are of a hair-trigger delicacy, hypersensitive to emotional stimuli, so that a gentle glance, an eye of blue or brown, an accent or a smile unlatches the door of their emotional consciousness.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cDr. Love nails it. Fleeting eye contact across the lecture hall. A stolen glance in the clandestine, quiet floor of Ladd Library. We all have that friend who comes to us at dinner and says, \u2018I\u2019ve met the person I\u2019m going to marry.\u2019 And that they are destined to become a Bates statistic of married alumni. We wish them luck. Always.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe’ve Only Just Begun <\/h3>\n\n\n\n Is that intense feeling true love or just infatuation, like a summer fling? It\u2019s what Sandy Olsson and Danny Zuko dealt with in Grease<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIn its origin, there is little essential difference between love that is to prove permanent and a summer experience at the seashore. The first step toward a life-long sentiment of love is easily taken because it is instinctive; but to nurture and develop this germ to full maturity depends upon a maturity of thought and feeling not found in childhood, upon a mental capital and breadth of experience that only time gives.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cWe\u2019ve all been there: trekking through the Maine wilderness or surfing in the coastal waves during AESOP, when bouts of sleep talking, a lack of showers, and pre-packed meals somehow spark up a connection. But will it last through the frigid Maine winter, and warm up again during a floral Short Term?” <\/p>\n\n\n\nYou Make Loving Fun<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Physical beauty can spark attraction, but it\u2019s just one factor of many, and is subordinate to those:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeauty is almost wholly subordinate to other attractions. [It is] a kind of first aid to love, but after that its presence or its absence makes little difference. Other qualities of body or mind [such as sympathy] may serve to attract favorable attention and so form a nucleus around which the emotions may be segregated and organized. The modern profession of nursing, as the facts go to show, has proved an open road to the heart of man.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHannah & Ramona\u2019s take<\/strong>: \u201cIt\u2019s awesome that Dr. Love reminds us that love doesn’t need physical beauty to get going. Which takes Ramona back to Pride and Prejudice<\/em>: \u2018There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart\u2019 \u2014 like being willing to trek to The Ronj for a coffee date, even after a very cold February snowstorm.”Holding Out for a Hero<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Britan listed these qualities that can arouse “the tender passion”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Ramona](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2025\/02\/2-hannah-ramona_1504.webp\")
<\/a>