I came across this passage as I was reading L.M.Montgomery's Magic for Marigold.

...May had said she would give one of her eyes to see the famous Skinner doll. Marigold had gone bravely into the Orchard room to ask Old Grandmother if May might come and see it. She found Old Grandmother asleep-really asleep, not pretending as she sometimes did. Marigold was turning away when her eyes fell on Alicia. Somehow Alicia looked so lovely and appaling-as if she were asking for a little fun. Impulsively Marigold ran to the glass case, opened the door and took Alicia out. She even slipped the shoe out of the hand that had held it for years, and put it on the waiting foot.
...but Marigold did not feel so bold when Salome, terrible and regal in her new plum-colored drugget and starched white apron, had appeared before them and haled her into Old Grandmother's room.
"I should have know she was too quiet" said Salome. "there was the two of 'em-with HER on a chair for a throne, offering HER red currents on lettuce leaves and kissing HER hands. And a crown of flowers on HER head. And both HER boots on. You could 'a' knocked me down iwth a feather. HER, that's never been out o' that glass case since I came to Cloud o' Spruce."
"Why did you do such a naughty thing?" said Old Grandmother snappily.
"She-she wanted to be loved so much," sobbed Marigold. "Nobody has loved her for so long."
"You might wait till I am dead before meddling with her.She will be yours then to 'love' all you want to."
"But you might live forever,"cried Marigold. "Lazarre says so. And I didn't hurt her one bit."
"You might have broken her to fragments."
"Oh, no, no, I couldn't hurt her by loving her."
"I'm not so sure of that," muttered Old Grandmother, who was constantly saying things Marigold was to understand twenty years later.

This passage got me thinking about the nature of love. Sometimes, when we intend to love, it could actually hurt the person that receives it. Just like the doll, although Marigold wanted to love it, she ran the risk of destroying it forever. True she was young and careless so handle such a delicate doll, so this means that perhaps one would have to allow time for love to develop. One shouldn't rush into things quickly without thinking twice of the consequences.
It was also interesting to me about the innocent reaction of Marigold's. After all, the child wanted to love the doll out of the kindness in her heart. Her first impulse was to hold the doll and somehow convey to it how much she loved it.

She could have done that and not destroyed the doll (by dropping it on the floor for example) and the doll would have known how much it is loved.
On the other hand, in showing how love, the doll could have been destroyed forever.

I guess then the next question turns to the nature of the object of our affections, how resilient, how strong they are. If it is a glass doll, obviously its beautiful though very fragile and therefore runs the risk of precarious death.
Also, it depends on the nature of the beholder. I mean if Marigold was older and more careful, she can handle the glass doll much better.
So love depends on a variety of factors, both the giver and receiver, as well as outward dimensions such as time and place.