Romantic Love and Personal Beauty Henry T. Finck 1316 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Romantic Love and Personal
Beauty
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Romantic Love and Personal Beauty

Author: Henry T. Finck

Release date: August 4, 2019 [eBook #60054]
Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60054

Credits: Produced by KD Weeks, Turgut Dincer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANTIC
LOVE AND PERSONAL BEAUTY ***

Transcriber’s Note:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter,
and are linked for ease of reference.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected.
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for
details regarding the handling of any textual issues
encountered during its preparation.
Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight.
Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original
text in a small popup.

The cover image was created from elements of the title page
and is hereby placed in the public domain.

ROMANTIC LOVE
AND

PERSONAL BEAUTY

THEIR

DEVELOPMENT, CAUSAL RELATIONS,
HISTORIC AND NATIONAL PECULIARITIES

BY

HENRY T. FINCK

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1902
All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1887
BY HENRY T. FINCK

Set Up and Electrotyped, 1887
New Edition, February, 1903

Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

CONTENTS

PAGE
Evolution of Romantic Love 1
Cosmic Attraction and Chemical Affinities 3
Flower Love and Beauty 7
Impersonal Affection 11
Personal Affections 16
I. Love for Animals 16
II. Maternal Love 19
III. Paternal Love 20
IV. Filial Love 22
V. Brotherly and Sisterly Love 23
VI. Friendship 24
VII. Romantic Love 26
Overtones of Love 29
I. Individual Preference 30
II. Monopoly or Exclusiveness 30
III. Jealousy 30
IV. Coyness 30
V. Gallantry 31
VI. Self-Sacrifice 31
VII. Sympathy 31
VIII. Pride of Conquest and Possession 31
IX. Emotional Hyperbole 32
X. Mixed Moods 32
XI. Admiration of Personal Beauty 32

Herbert Spencer on Love 33
Love among Animals 33
Courtship 37
(a) Jealousy 39
(b) Coyness 40
(c) Individual Preference 42
(d) Personal Beauty and Sexual Selection 43
(1) Protective Colours 48
(2) Warning Colours 48
(3) Typical Colours 48
(4) Sexual Colours 49
Love Charms and Love Calls 50
Love Dances and Display 52
Love among Savages 54
Strangers to Love 54
Primitive Courtship 56
(1) Capture 56
(2) Purchase 58
(3) Service 58
Individual Preference 59
Personal Beauty and Sexual Selection 60
Jealousy and Polygamy 62
Monopoly and Monogamy 63
Primitive Coyness 64
Can American Negroes Love? 66
History of Love 67
Love in Egypt 67
Ancient Hebrew Love 69
Ancient Aryan Love 72
Hindoo Love Maxims 73
Greek Love 75
Family Affection 75

No Love Stories 76
Woman’s Position 77
Chaperonage versus Courtship 77
Plato on Courtship 78
Parental versus Lovers’ Choice 78
The Hetæræ 79
Platonic Love 80
Sappho and Female Friendship 81
Greek Beauty 83
Cupid’s Arrows 84
Origin of Love 85
Roman Love 86
Woman’s Position 86
No Wooing and Choice 87
Virgil, Dryden, and Scott 89
Ovid’s Art of Making Love 90
Birth of Gallantry 91
Mediæval Love 92
Celibacy versus Marriage 92
Woman’s Lowest Degradation 93
Negation of Feminine Choice 95
Christianity and Love 97
Chivalry—Militant and Comic 98
Chivalry—Poetic 101
(a) French Troubadours 102
(b) German Minnesingers 103
Female Culture 105
Personal Beauty 107
Spenser on Love 108
Dante and Shakspere 109
Modern Love 111
A Biologic Test 111

Venus, Plutus, and Minerva 112
Leading Motives 114
Modern Coyness 114
(1) An Echo of Capture 114
(2) Maiden versus Wife 115
(3) Modesty 115
(4) Cunning to be Strange 115
(5) Procrastination 116
Goldsmith on Love 116
Disadvantages of Coyness 118
Coyness lessens Woman’s Love 120
Masculine versus Feminine Love 120
Flirtation and Coquetry 122
Flirtation versus Coyness 123
Modern Courtship 125
Modern Jealousy 127
Lover’s Jealousy 129
Retrospective and Prospective Jealousy 131
Jealousy and Beauty 133
Monopoly or Exclusiveness 133
True Love is Transient 135
Is First Love Best? 136
Heine on First Love 137
First Love is not Best 137
Pride and Vanity 141
Coquetry 142
Love and Rank 143
Special Sympathy 145
How Love Intensifies Emotions 146
Development of Sympathy 147
Pity and Love 150
Love at First Sight 152

Intellect and Love 154
Gallantry and Self-Sacrifice 157
Active and Passive Desire to Please 159
Feminine Devotion 160
Emotional Hyperbole 162
Mixed Moods and Paradoxes 166
Lunatic, Lover, and Poet 172
Individual Preference 173
Sexual Divergence 174
Making Woman Masculine 175
Love and Culture 176
Personal Beauty 177
Feminine Beauty in Masculine Eyes 177
Masculine Beauty in Feminine Eyes 178
Conjugal Affection and Romantic Love 180
Romance in Conjugal Love 184
Marriages of Reason or Love Matches? 187
Marriage Hints 189
Old Maids 190
Bachelors 194
Genius and Marriage 197
Genius and Love 201
Genius in Love 204
(1) Precocity 204
(2) Ardour 207
(3) Fickleness 210
(4) Multiplicity 213
(5) Fictitiousness 215
Insanity and Love 218
Analogies 218
Erotomania, or Real Love-Sickness 222
The Language of Love 223

I. Words 223
II. Facial Expression 224
III. Caresses 225
Kissing—Past, Present, and Future 227
Among Animals 227
Among Savages 228
Origin of Kissing 229
Ancient Kisses 232
Mediæval Kisses 233
Modern Kisses 234
Love Kisses 235
How to Kiss 237
How to Win Love 238
Brass Buttons 238
Confidence and Boldness 239
Pleasant Associations 240
Perseverance 241
Feigned Indifference 241
Compliments 244
Love Letters 246
Love Charms for Women 250
Proposing 253
Diagnosis, or Signs of Love 254
How to Cure Love 255
Absence 256
Travel 257
Employment 257
Married Misery 257
Feminine Inferiority 260
Focussing Her Faults 262
Reason versus Passion 263
Love versus Love 264

Prognosis, or Chances of Recovery 265
Nationality and Love 265
French Love 266
Italian Love 274
Spanish Love 277
German Love 280
English Love 288
American Love 294
Schopenhauer’s Theory of Love 301
Love is an Illusion 302
Individuals Sacrificed to the Species 302
Sources of Love 303
(1) Physical Beauty 303
(2) Psychic Traits 304
(3) Complementary Qualities 305
Four Sources of Beauty 310
I. Health 310
Greek Beauty 313
Mediæval Ugliness 314
Modern Hygiene 316
II. Crossing 318
III. Romantic Love 322
IV. Mental Refinement 324
Evolution of Taste 327
Savage Notions of Beauty 327
Non-Æsthetic "Ornamentation" 328
Personal Beauty as a Fine Art 329
Negative Tests of Beauty 331
(a) Animals 331
(b) Savages 333
(c) Degraded Classes 333
(d) Age and Decrepitude 334

(e) Disease 334
Positive Tests of Beauty 338
(a) Symmetry 338
(b) Gradation 339
(c) Curvature 341
Masculine and Feminine Beauty 342
(d) Delicacy 343
(e) Smoothness 344
(f) Lustre and Colour 345
(g) Expression, Variety, Individuality 348
The Feet 351
Size 351
Fashionable Ugliness 352
Tests of Beauty 354
A Graceful Gait 357
Evolution of the Great Toe 359
National Peculiarities 361
Beautifying Hygiene 362
Dancing and Grace 364
Dancing and Courtship 365
Evolution of Dance Music 367
The Dance of Love 369
Ballet-Dancing 370
The Lower Limbs 371
Muscular Development 371
Beautifying Exercise 372
Fashionable Ugliness 375
The Crinoline Craze 376
The Waist 378
The Beauty-Curve 378
The Wasp-Waist Mania 379
Hygienic Disadvantages 380

Æsthetic Disadvantages 381
Corpulence and Leanness 382
The Fashion Fetish Analysed 386
Individualism versus Fashion 389
Masculine Fashions 391
Chest and Bosom 394
Feminine Beauty 394
Masculine Beauty 397
Magic Effect of Deep Breathing 397
A Moral Question 399
Neck and Shoulder 400
Arm and Hand 402
Evolution and Sexual Differences 402
Calisthenics and Massage 403
The Second Face 405
Finger Nails 406
Manicure Secrets 407
Jaw, Chin, and Mouth 408
Hands versus Jaws 408
Dimples in the Chin 412
Refined Lips 413
Cosmetic Hints 421
The Cheeks 423
High Cheek Bones 423
Colour and Blushes 425
The Ears 429
A Useless Ornament 429
Cosmetics and Fashion 431
Physiognomic Vagaries 433
Noise and Civilisation 434
A Musical Voice 435
The Nose 436

Size and Shape 436
Evolution of the Nose 438
Greek and Hebrew Noses 440
Fashion and Cosmetic Surgery 443
Nose-Breathing and Health 445
Cosmetic Value of Odours 446
The Forehead 448
Beauty and Brain 448
Fashionable Deformity 450
Wrinkles 451
The Complexion 453
White versus Black 453
Cosmetic Hints 460
Freckles and Sunshine 462
The Eyes 464
Colour 465
Lustre 469
Form 472
Expression 475
(a) Lustre 476
(b) Colour of Iris 478
(c) Movements of the Iris 479
(d) ” ” Eyeball 480
(e) ” ” Eyelids 482
(f) ” ” Eyebrows 485
Cosmetic Hints 485
The Hair 486
Cause of Man’s Nudity 486
Beards and Moustaches 489
Baldness and Depilatories 492
Æsthetic Value of Hair 494
Brunette and Blonde 496

Blonde versus Brunette 496
Brunette versus Blonde 498
Why Cupid Favours Brunettes 499
Nationality and Beauty 505
French Beauty 506
Italian Beauty 511
Spanish Beauty 515
German and Austrian Beauty 522
English Beauty 528
American Beauty 535

ROMANTIC LOVE & PERSONAL BEAUTY

EVOLUTION OF ROMANTIC LOVE

Of all the rhetorical commonplaces in literature and conversation, none is
more frequently repeated than the assertion that Love, as depicted in a
thousand novels and poems every year, has existed at all times, and in every
country, immutable as the mountains and the stars.
Only a few months ago one of the leading German writers of the period,
Ernst Eckstein, wrote an essay in which he endeavoured to prove that not
only was Love as felt by the ancient Romans the same as modern Love, but
that it was identical with the modern sentiment even in its minutest details
and manifestations. He based this bold inference on the fact that in Ovid’s
Ars Amoris directions are given to the men regarding certain tricks of
gallantry—such as dusting the adored one’s seat at the circus, fanning her,
applauding her favourites, and drinking from the cup where it was touched
by her lips.
Curious and interesting these hints are, no doubt. But a closer
examination of Roman literature and manners shows that Dr. Eckstein has
been guilty of the common blunder of generalising from a single instance.
Gallantry is one of the essential traits of modern Love; and far from having
been a common practice in ancient Rome, the interest of Ovid’s remarks
lies in the fact that they give us the first instance on record of an attempt at
gallant behaviour on the part of the men; as will be shown in detail in the
chapter on Roman Love.
And as with Gallantry, so with the other traits which make up the group
of emotions known to us as Love. We look for them in vain among modern
savages, in vain among the ancient civilised nations. Romantic Love is a
modern sentiment, less than a thousand years old.
Conjugal Love is, indeed, often celebrated by Greek, Hebrew, and other
ancient writers, but regarding Romantic—or pre-matrimonial—Love
(which alone forms the theme of our novelists), they are silent. The Bible
takes no account of it, and although Greek literature and mythology seem at

first sight to abound in allusions to it, critical analysis shows that the
reference never is to Love as we understand it. Greek Love, as will be
shown hereafter, was a peculiar mixture of friendship and passion, differing
widely from the modern sentiment of Love.
It is because among the Romans the position of woman was somewhat
more elevated and modern than among the Greeks, that we find in Roman
literature a vague foreshadowing of some of the elements of modern Love.
In the Dark Ages there is a relapse. The germs of Love could not flourish
in a period when women were kept in brutal subjection by the men, and
their minds refused all nourishment and refinement. The Troubadours of
Italy and France proved useful champions of woman, as did the German
Minnesingers, by teaching the mediæval military man to look upon her with
sentiments of respect and adoration. Yet their conduct rarely harmonised
with their preaching; and the cause of Romantic Love gained little by their
poetic effusions, which were almost invariably addressed to married
women.
Not till Dante’s Vita Nuova appeared was the gospel of modern Love—
the romantic adoration of a maiden by a youth—revealed for the first time
in definite language. Genius, however, is always in advance of its age, in
emotions as well as in thoughts; and the feelings experienced by Dante
were obviously not shared by his contemporaries, who found them too
subtle and sublimated for their comprehension. And, in fact, they were too
ethereal to quite correspond with reality. The strings of Dante’s lyre were
strung too high, and touched by his magic hand, gave forth harmonic
overtones too celestial for mundane ears to hear.
It remained for Shakspere to combine the idealism with the realism of
Love in proper proportions. The colours with which he painted the passion
and sentiment of modern Love are as fresh and as true to life as on the day
when they were first put on his canvas. Like Dante, however, he was
emotionally ahead of his time, as an examination of contemporary literature
in England and elsewhere shows. But within the last two centuries Love has
gradually, if slowly, assumed among all educated people characteristics
which formerly it possessed only in the minds of a few isolated men of
genius.
Before we proceed to prove all these assertions in detail, it will be well to
cast a brief glance at the analogies to human Love presented by cosmic,
chemical, and vegetal phenomena; as well as to distinguish Romantic Love

from other forms of human and animal affection. This will enable us to
comprehend more clearly what modern Love is, by making apparent what it
is not.

COSMIC ATTRACTION AND CHEMICAL AFFINITIES

It is a favourite device of poets to invest plants and even inanimate
objects with human thoughts and feelings. The parched, withering flower,
tormented by the pangs of thirst, implores the passing cloud for a few drops
of the vital fluid; and the cloud, moved to pity at sight of the suffering
beauty, sheds its welcome, soothing tears.

“And ’tis my faith, that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.”—Wordsworth.
“The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise.”
. . . . . . . .
“Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them.”—Shakspere.

One of the first authors who thus endowed non-human objects with
human feelings was the Greek philosopher Empedokles, who flourished
about twenty-three centuries ago. Just as the last of the great German
metaphysicians, Schopenhauer, believed that all the forces of Nature—
astronomic, chemical, biological, etc.—are identical with the human Will,
of which they represent different stages of development or “objectivation,”
so Empedokles insisted that the two ruling passions of the human soul,
Love and Hate, are the two principles which pervade and rule the whole
universe. In the primitive condition of things, he taught, the four elements,
Earth, Water, Air, and Fire are mingled harmoniously, and Love rules
supreme. Then Hate intervenes and produces individual, separate forms.
Plants are developed, and after them animals, or rather, at first, only single

organs—detached eyes, arms, hands, etc. Then Love reasserts its force and
unites these separate organs into complete animals. Strange monstrosities
are the result of some of these unions—animals of double sex, human heads
on the bodies of oxen, or horned heads on the bodies of men. These,
however, perish, while others, which are congruous and adapted to their
surroundings, survive and multiply.
Thus Empedokles, “the Greek Darwin,” was the originator of a theory of
evolution based on the alternate predominance of cosmic Love and Hate;
Love being the attractive, Hate the repulsive force.
In the preface to the first volume of Don Quixote, Cervantes refers those
who wish to acquire some information concerning Love to an Italian
treatise by Judah Leo. The full title of the book, which appeared in Rome in
the sixteenth century, is Dialoghi di amore, Composti da Leone Medico, di
nazione Ebreo, e di poi fatto cristiano. There are said to be three French
translations of it, but it was only after long searching that I succeeded in
finding a copy, at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It proved to be a
strange medley of astrology, metaphysics, theology, classical erudition,
mythology, and mediæval science. Burton, in the chapter on Love, in his
Anatomy of Melancholy, quotes freely from this work of Leo, whom he
names as one of about twenty-five authors who wrote treatises on Love in
ancient and mediæval times.
Like Empedokles, Leo identifies cosmic attraction with Love. But he
points out three degrees of Love—Natural, Sensible, and Rational.
By Natural Love he means those “sympathies” which attract a stone to
the earth, make rivers flow to the sea, keep the sun, moon, and stars in their
courses, etc. Burton (1652) agrees with Leo, and asks quaintly, “How
comes a loadstone to draw iron to it ... the ground to covet showers, but for
love? ... no stock, no stone, that has not some feeling of love. ’Tis more
eminent in Plants, Hearbs, and is especially observed in vegetals; as betwixt
the Vine and Elm a great sympathy,” etc.
“Sensible” Love is that which prevails among animals. In it Leo
recognises the higher elements of delight in one another’s company, and of
attachment to a master.
“Rational” Love, the third and highest class, is peculiar to God, angels,
and men.
But the inclination to confound gravitation and other natural forces with
Love is not to be found among ancient and mediæval authors alone.

Paradoxical as it may seem, it is the “gross materialist,” Dr. Ludwig
Büchner, who exclaims rapturously: “For it is love, in the form of
attraction, which chains stone to stone, earth to earth, star to star, and which
holds together the mighty edifice on which we stand, and on the surface of
which, like parasites, we carry on our existence, barely noticeable in the
infinite universe; and on which we shall continue to exist till that distant
period when its component parts will again be resolved into that primal
chaos from which it laboriously severed itself millions of years ago, and
became a separate planet.”
Büchner carries on this anthropopathic process a step farther, by
including all the chemical affinities of atoms and molecules as
manifestations of love: “Just as man and woman attract one another, so
oxygen attracts hydrogen, and, in loving union with it, forms water, that
mighty omnipresent element, without which no life nor thought would be
possible.” And again: “Potassium and phosphorus entertain such a violent
passion for oxygen that even under water they burn—i.e. unite themselves
with the beloved object.”
Goethe’s novel, Elective Affinities, which was inspired by a late and
hopeless passion of its author, is based on this chemical notion that no
physical obstacle can separate two souls that are united by an amorous
affinity. But the practical outcome of his theory—that the psychic affinity of
two persons suffices to impress the characteristics of both on the offspring
of one of them—has nothing to support it in medical experience; while the
chemical analogy, with all due deference to Goethe’s reputation as a man of
science, is against his view. His notion was that the children of two souls
loving one another will inherit their characteristics. But what distinguishes a
chemical compound (based on “affinity”) from a mere physical mixture, is
precisely the contrary fact that the compound does not in any respect
resemble the parental elements! Read what a specialist says in Watts’s
Dictionary of Chemistry:—
“Definite chemical compounds generally differ altogether in physical
properties from their components. Thus, with regard to colour, yellow
sulphur and gray mercury produce red cinnabar; purple iodine and gray
potassium yield colourless iodide of potassium.... The density of a
compound is very rarely an exact mean between that of its constituents,
being generally higher, and in a few cases lower; and the taste, smell,
refracting power, fusibility, volatility, conducting power for heat and

electricity, and other physical properties, are not for the most part such as
would result from mere mixture of their constituents.”
Chemical affinities, accordingly, cannot be used as analogies of Love.
Not even on account of the violent individual preference shown by two
elements for one another, for this apparently individual preference is really
only generic. A piece of phosphorus will as readily unite with one cubic
foot of oxygen as with another; whereas it is the very essence of Love that it
demands a union with one particular individual, and no other.
Equally unsatisfactory are all similar attempts to identify Love with
gravitation or other forms of cosmic attraction. Here is what a great expert
in Love has to say on this subject: “The attraction of love, I find,” writes
Burns, “is in inverse proportion to the attraction of the Newtonian
philosophy. In the system of Sir Isaac, the nearer objects are to one another,
the stronger is the attractive force. In my system, every milestone that
marked my progress from Clarinda awakened a keener pang of attachment
to her.”
How beautifully, in other respects, does the law of gravitation simulate
the methods of Love! Does not the meteor which passionately falls on this
planet and digs a deep hole into it, show its love in this manner, even as that
affectionate bear who smashed his master’s forehead in order to kill the fly
on it? Does not the avalanche which thunders down the mountain-side and
buries a whole forest and several villages, afford another touching
illustration of the love of attraction, or cosmic Love?—a crushing argument
in its favour? Or the frigid glacier, in its slower course, does it not lacerate
the sides of the valley, and strew about its precious boulders, merely by way
of illustrating the amorous effect of gravitation? And millions of years
hence, will not this same law of attraction enable the sun to prove his
ecstatic love for our earth by swallowing her up and reducing her to her
primitive chaotic state? Imagine a man and a woman whose love consists in
this, that they must be kept widely separated by a hostile force to prevent
them from dashing together, and reducing each other to atoms and
molecules! That is the “love” of the stars and planets.
But it is needless to continue this reductio ad absurdum of pantheistic or
panerotic vagaries. The method of the writers on Love here quoted—
Empedokles, Leo, Burton, Büchner—has been to identify Love with cosmic
force simply because they possess in common the one quality of attraction,
by virtue of which the large earth hugs a small stone, and a large man a

small maiden. Modern scientific psychology objects to this (i.e. not the
hugging, but the method), because it does not in the least aid us in
understanding the nature of Love; and because it is as irrational to call
attraction Love as it would be to call a brick a house, a leaf a tree, or a
green daub a rainbow. For Love embraces every colour in the spectrum of
human emotion.
Having failed to find a satisfactory solution of the mystery of Love in the
inorganic world, let us now see if the vegetable kingdom offers no better
analogies in its sexual phenomena.

FLOWER LOVE AND BEAUTY

Until a few decades ago, it was the universal belief that flowers had been
specially created for man’s exclusive delight. This was such an easy way,
you know, to overcome the difficulty of explaining the immense variety of
forms and colours in the floral world; and it was, above all, so flattering to
man’s egregious vanity. But one fine morning in May a German naturalist,
Conrad Sprengel, published a remarkable book in which he pointed out that
flowers owe their peculiar shape, colour, and fragrance to the visits of
insects. Not that the insects visit the flowers in order to shape and paint and
perfume them. On the contrary, they visit them for the unæsthetic purpose
of eating their pollen and their honey; while the flowers’ scent and colour
exist solely for the purpose of indicating to winged insects at a distance
where they can find a savoury lunch.
But why should flowers take such pains to attract insects by serving them
with a breakfast of honey, and by hanging out big petals to serve as
coloured and perfumed signal-flags? Nature is economical in the
expenditure of energy; and as the production of honey and large flowers
costs the plant some of its vital energies, we may be sure that this
expenditure secures the plant some superior advantage. Sprengel noticed
that the insects, while pillaging flowers of their honey, unwittingly brushed
off with their wings and feet some of the fertilising dust or pollen, and

carried it to the pistil or female part of a flower. But it remained for Darwin
to point out what advantage this transference of the pollen secured to the
flower. Darwin, says Sir John Lubbock, “was the first clearly to perceive
that the essential service which insects perform to flowers consists not only
in transferring the pollen from the stamens to the pistil, but in transferring it
from the stamens of one flower to the pistil of another. Sprengel had indeed
observed in more than one instance that this was the case, but he did not
altogether appreciate the importance of the fact. Mr. Darwin however, has
not only made it clear from theoretical considerations, but has also proved
it, in a variety of cases, by actual experiment. More recently Fritz Müller
has even shown that in some cases pollen, if placed on the stigma of the
same flower, has no more effect than so much inorganic dust; while, and
this is perhaps even more extraordinary, in others, the pollen placed on the
stigma of the same flower acted on it like poison”—a curious analogy to the
current belief that close intermarriage is injurious to mankind.
What Darwin and others have proved by their experiments is that cross-
fertilised flowers are more vigorous than those fertilised with their own
pollen, and have a more healthy and numerous offspring. With this fact
before us we need only apply the usual evolutionary formula to account for
the beauty of flowers. It is well known that Nature rarely, if ever, produces
two leaves or plants that are exactly alike. There is also a natural tendency
in all parts of a plant except the leaves to develop other colours besides
green. Now any plant which, owing to chemical causes, favourable
position, etc., developed an unusually brilliant colour, would be likely to
attract the attention of a winged insect in search of pollen-food. The insect,
by alighting on a second flower soon after, would fertilise it with the pollen
of the first flower that adhered to its limbs, thus securing to the plant the
advantages of cross-fertilisation. Thanks to the laws of heredity, this
advantage would be transmitted to the young plants, among which again
those most favoured would gain an advantage and a more numerous
offspring. And thus the gradual development not only of coloured petals,
but of scents and honey, can be accounted for.
What makes this argument irresistible is the additional fact, first pointed
out by Darwin, that plants which are not visited by insects, but are fertilised
by the agency of the wind, are neither adorned with beautifully-coloured
flowers, nor provided with honey or fragrance. And another most important
fact: Darwin found that flowers which depend on the wind for their

fertilisation follow the natural tendency of objects to a symmetrical form;
whereas the irregular flowers are always those fertilised by insects or birds.
This points to the conclusion that insects and birds are responsible not only
for the colours and fragrance of flowers, but also for the shape of those that
are most unique and fantastic. And this a priori inference is borne out by
thousands of curious and most fascinating observations described in the
works of Darwin, Lubbock, Müller, and many others. The briefest and
clearest presentation of the subject is in Lubbock’s Flowers, Fruits, and
Leaves, which no one interested in natural æsthetics should fail to read.
There is indeed no more interesting study in biology than the mutual
adaptation of flowers, bees, butterflies, humming-birds, etc.; for just as
these animals have modified the forms of flowers, so the flowers have
altered the shape of these animals.
Many of the changes in the shapes of flowers are made not only with a
view to facilitate the visits of winged insects, but also for keeping out
creeping intruders, such as ants, which are very fond of honey, but which,
as they do not fly, would not aid the cause of cross-fertilisation. Of these
contrivances, “the most frequent are the interposition of chevaux de frise,
which ants cannot penetrate, glutinous surfaces which they cannot traverse,
slippery slopes which they cannot climb, or barriers which close the way.”
How obtuse are those who, with Ruskin and Emerson, accuse science of
destroying the poetry of nature! What poetry is there in the thought that
flowers were made for unæsthetic man, when not one man in a thousand
ever takes the trouble to examine one, while for every single flower on
which a human eye ever rests, a million are born to blush unseen?
But if we abandon the narrow anthropocentric point of view, and admit
that insects too have a right to live, how the scope of Nature’s poetry
widens! How easy it then becomes to share not only Wordsworth’s belief
that “every flower enjoys the air it breathes,” but to endow it with a
thousand thoughts and emotions like our own—delight in a gaily-coloured
floral envelope; hope that yonder gaudy butterfly will be attracted by it;
anxiety lest that “horrid” ant may steal some of its honey; determination to
breathe the sweetest perfume on this darling honey bee, so as to induce it to
speedily call again.
Love dramas, too, tragic and comic, are enacted in this world of flowers
and insects. Thus the Arum plant resorts to the following stratagem to

secure a messenger of love for carrying its pollen to a distant female flower:
—
“The stigmas come to maturity first, and have lost the possibility of
fertilisation before the pollen is ripe. The pollen must therefore be brought
by insects, and this is effected by small flies, which enter the leaf, either for
the sake of honey or of shelter, and which, moreover, when they have once
entered the tube, are imprisoned by the fringe of hairs. When the anthers
ripen, the pollen falls on to the flies, which, in their efforts to escape, get
thoroughly dusted with it. Then the fringe of hairs withers, and the flies,
thus set free, soon come out, and ere long carry the pollen to another plant”
(Lubbock).
Then there are male flowers which go a-courting like any amorous swain
of a Sunday night. One of these belongs to the Valisneria plant, concerning
which the same writer observes that “the female flowers are borne on long
stalks, which reach to the surface of the water, on which the flowers float.
The male flowers, on the contrary, have short, straight stalks, from which,
when mature, the pollen detaches itself, rises to the surface, and, floating
freely on it, is wafted about, so that it comes in contact with the female
flowers.”
But alas for the poor flowers! Few of them are thus privileged to roam
about and seek their own bride. Most flowers have no more free choice in
the selection of their spouse than an Oriental or a French girl. There is no
previous acquaintance, no courtship before marriage, hence no Romantic
Love, even if the undifferentiated germs of nervous protoplasm in the plant
were capable of feeling such an emotion.
Poor flowers! Their honeymoon is without pleasure, unconscious. The
wind may woo, the butterfly caress them—but the wind has no thought of
the flower, and the insect’s attachment is mere “cupboard love.” The beauty
of one flower cannot exist for another which has no eyes to see it; its honey
and its fragrance are not for a floral lover’s delight, but for a gastronomic
insect’s epicurean use. No modest coyness, no harmless flirtation, no gallant
devotion and self-sacrifice, enter into the flower’s sexual life; not even the
bitter-sweet pangs of jealousy, for, as Heine has ascertained, “the butterfly
stops not to ask the flower, ‘Has any one kissed thee before?’ nor does the
flower ask, ‘Hast thou already flitted about another?’”
Thus “flower-love,” with all its poetic analogies, has none of the
elements of Romantic Love. Even attraction fails, for plants are commonly

sessile, and cannot go forth to seek a mate.

“I prayed the flowers,
Oh, tell me, what is love?
Only a fragrant sigh was wafted
Thro’ the night.”—German Song.

Two important lessons of this chapter should, however, be carefully
borne in mind; for though our search for Love has so far yielded only
negative results, some light has been thrown on the general laws of Beauty
in Nature. The lessons are:—
(1) That there is in flowers a natural tendency towards Symmetry of
Form, all normal irregularities being due to the agency of insects and birds.
(2) That the superior Beauty of one flower over another is due to its
superior vitality or Health, which, again, is promoted by cross-fertilisation
or intermarriage—the choosing of a mate not in the same but in another
flower-bed.
Regarding the beauty of flowers a further detail may be added. Some of
the coloured lines on flowers are so placed as to guide the visiting bees to
the nectar or honey. More complicated colour-patterns probably owe their
existence to the advantage of having an easy means of recognition at a
distance. It is well known that bees on any single expedition visit the
flowers of one species only. Now it has been experimentally proved by
Lubbock that bees can distinguish different colours; and, if we may judge
by analogy with the human eye, they can distinguish colours at a greater
distance than forms. Hence the advantage to each flower of having its own
colours in its flag.

IMPERSONAL AFFECTION

From the sexual life of plants we ought to pass on to that of animals; but
before doing so, it will be advisable to ascertain clearly what is meant by
Romantic Love, and how it differs from other forms of affection,

impersonal and personal; from the love for inanimate objects and for plants
and animals; from the family affections—maternal, paternal, filial,
brotherly, and sisterly love; from friendship; and from conjugal love.
Love is the most attractive word in the language, as Heine and Oliver
Wendell Holmes have remarked. Out of every half-dozen novels one is
likely to have the word Love in its title, as a bait sure to catch readers. But
whereas novelists always use this word in the sense of Romantic or pre-
matrimonial Love, in common language it is vaguely used as a synonym for
any kind of attachment, from that of Romeo to the schoolgirl who “just
loves caramels.” For the verb to love there is perhaps no satisfactory and
equally comprehensive substitute; but in place of the noun love it is
advisable, at least in a scientific work, to use the word Affection, which
comprehends every form of love mentioned above. In the present work
Love, with a capital L, always means Romantic Love.
Professor Calderwood, in his Handbook of Moral Philosophy, says that
“Affection is inclination towards others, disposing us to give from our own
resources what may influence them either for good or ill. In practical
tendency, the Affections are the reverse of the Desires. Desires absorb,
Affections give out. Affections presuppose a recognition of certain qualities
in persons, and, in a modified degree, in lower sentient beings, but not in
things, for the exercise of Affection presupposes in the object of it the
possibility either of harmony or antagonism of feeling.”
In other words, the eminent Scotch moralist thinks we can entertain
affections only towards human beings, and, to some degree, towards
animals; but not towards plants or inanimate objects. Careful analysis of our
emotions, however, does not sustain this distinction, which is as unpoetic as
it is anthropocentric and unscientific. Dr. Calderwood obviously confounds
affection with sympathy. Sympathy means literally to suffer with another, or
to share his feelings; and this, indeed, “presupposes in the object of it the
possibility either of harmony or antagonism of feeling.” But affection, in his
own words, “gives out,” and hence can be bestowed, and is bestowed, by all
emotional and refined persons on a variety of “things,” that are neither
sentient nor even animate; and a poetic soul will even feel sympathy with
such a non-sentient thing as a crushed flower, for his imagination
unconsciously endows it with the requisite feeling.
“Things” are of two kinds—those fashioned by man, and those produced
by Nature. A poem, a symphony, a violin, a novel come under the first head;

a tree, a precious metal, a mountain under the second. An author who has
passed through the whole gamut of emotion in writing his book, follows its
fate with a paternal pride and an affectionate anxiety as great as if his bodily
child had been sent into the world to seek its fortune. Perhaps the story of
the German soldier who was carried off his feet by a cannon-ball, and who
grasped first his pipe and then his severed leg, is not a legend. For was not
his pipe, like a good, friend, associated with all the pleasant hours of his
life? An artist certainly can entertain for his favourite instrument an
affection almost, if not quite, human in quality. When Ole Bull suffered
shipwreck on the Mississippi, he swam ashore, holding his violin high
above water, at the risk of his life. And to an amateur who has often called
upon his pianoforte to feed his momentary mood with a nocturne or a
scherzo, the instrument soon assumes the functions of “a true friend, to
whom,” as Bacon would say, “you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes,
suspicions, counsels, and whatever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a
kind of civil shrift or confession.”
As for “things” not produced by man, who that has ever spent a summer
in Switzerland is not quite willing to believe the legend of the Swiss
Heimweh—the exiled mountaineer’s reminiscent longing and affection for
his native haunts, which causes him to die of a broken heart, even if wife
and children accompany him in his exile? His feelings are not identical with
the æsthetic admiration of a tourist; for these imply a certain degree of
novelty and artistic perception foreign to his mind. They are true
impersonal affection, for the snowy summits, sluggish glaciers, azure lakes,
chasing clouds coyly playing hide-and-seek with the scenery below; the
balmy breezes, and boisterous storm-winds; the green slopes studded with
cows, whose welcome chimes alone interrupt the sublime silence of the
Alpine summits. For these sounds and scenes are so interwoven with all his
experiences, thoughts, and associations, that he cannot live and be happy
without them in a foreign land.
The attitude of an æsthetically-refined visitor is thus expressed by Byron:
“I live not in myself, but I become portion of that around me; and to me
high mountains are a feeling”—a poetic anticipation of Schopenhauer’s
doctrine, that for true æsthetic enjoyment it is necessary that the percipient
subject be completely merged in the perceived object,—the personal man
and the impersonal mountain becoming one and indistinguishable.

Like Romantic Love, the affection for the grander aspects of Nature
appears to be essentially a modern sentiment. The Greeks, as has often been
pointed out, had little regard for the impersonal beauties of Nature; and to
make the forests, brooks, and mountains attractive to the popular mind the
poets had to people them with personal beauties; with nymphs and dryads
and goddesses.
The latest phase of the modern passion for impersonal nature includes
even its most dismal and awe-inspiring aspects, with an ecstatic predilection
that would have seemed incomprehensible to an ancient Greek. This phase
has been thus beautifully described by Ruskin: “There is a sense of the
material beauty, both of inanimate nature, the lower animals, and human
beings, which in the iridescence, colour-depth, and morbid (I use the word
deliberately) mystery and softness of it—with other qualities indescribable
by any single words, and only to be analysed by extreme care—is found to
the full only in five men that I know of in modern times; namely, Rousseau,
Shelley, Byron, Turner, and myself, differing totally and in the entire group
of us from the delight in clear-struck beauty of Angelico and the Trecentisti,
and separated, much more singularly, from the cheerful joys of Chaucer,
Shakspere, and Scott, by its unaccountable affection for ‘Rokkes blok’ and
other forms of terror and power, such as those of the ice-oceans, which to
Shakspere were only Alpine rheum; and the Via Malas and Diabolic
Bridges which Dante would have condemned none but lost souls to climb
or cross,—all this love of impending mountains, coiled thunderclouds, and
dangerous sea, being joined in us with a sulky, almost ferine, love of retreat
in valleys of Charmettes, gulphs of Spezzia, ravines of Olympus, low
lodgings in Chelsea, and close brushwood at Coniston.”
Ruskin flatters himself if he still imagines he is the sole living possessor
of this feeling. Though there is much hypocrisy and guide-book-star-
admiration among tourists, there are yet unquestionably hundreds who
enjoy the Via Malas, the ice-oceans and solitary Swiss valleys they visit;
and though their dismal delight may not be so intense as Ruskin’s, it is yet
sufficient to indicate the growth of a general affection for impersonal nature
in all her moods, whether smiling or frowning.
To a mind that can thus rise above human associations and utilities, the
sublimest thing in the world is the absolute solitude of an Alpine summit.
To the ignorant peasant the harsh cow-bell which interrupts this silence is
sweet music, because it suggests the abodes of mankind; and on this

primitive stage of æsthetic culture Jeffrey placed himself when he wrote
that, “It is man, and man alone, that we see in the beauties of the earth
which he inhabits.”
Inasmuch as mountain solitudes are accessible to only a very small
proportion of mankind, the existence of true impersonal affection on a large
scale can be more easily demonstrated by recurring for a moment to the
floral world. A city belle is apt to look upon flowers merely from a social or
military point of view; the more bouquets, the more evidence of admiration
and conquest. of male hearts. And the city belle can hardly be blamed for
this callousness of feeling; for bunched flowers have lost as much of their
natural charm and grace as butterflies stuck up on rows of pins in a
museum. But watch that fair gardener in a suburban cottage or a country
seat; how she recognises every individual plant, every single flower, as a
friend for whose comfort she provides with all the affectionate care which
as a child she lavished on her doll. If, after a refreshing shower, the flowers
hold up their heads and look bright and happy, her face reflects the same
feeling; if a drouth has parched them and dimmed their lustre, she will
neglect her own pleasures to bring them water, and derive from this
charitable action the same sympathetic pleasure as if they had been so many
suffering human beings. And if an early frost kills all her floral friends, her
sorrow and despair will find vent in a flood of tears. What is all this but
affection—true affection—though flowers be but “things,” and not “sentient
beings.”
Obviously Professor Calderwood erred in his definition of affection; for,
as the above analysis shows, when the regard for an impersonal object rises
to the fervour of adoring interest, it does not specifically differ from
personal affections any more than, for example, maternal love differs from
friendship. Unemotional persons, who have had no opportunities to
cultivate their love of Nature, may feel inclined to doubt this; but they
should remember that just as there is an intellectual eminence (Shakspere,
Kant, Wagner) which the ignorant are too lazy or too weak to climb, so
there is an emotional horizon, beyond which those only can see who have
taken the trouble to ascend the summit whence a wider scene is unfolded to
the view.
From one point of view, impersonal affections are even higher and nobler
than personal attachments. The evolution of emotions has been but little
studied, but so much is apparent—that there has been a gradual

development from utilitarian attachments to those that are less utilitarian, or
less obviously so. Personal affections are too often exclusively selfish and
based on material interests, as the loss of “friends,” which commonly
follows the loss of wealth or position, shows. Whereas impersonal
attachments are less apt to be interested, selfish, and fickle, since they
presuppose more intellectual power, more imagination, more refinement.
Again, although it must be admitted that man is the crown and
compendium of Nature, uniting in himself most of the excellences of the
lower kingdoms with others exclusively his own; yet it cannot be denied,
either, that the vast majority of these “crowns” of Nature are so full of flaws
in workmanship, and have lost so many of their jewels, that the sight of
them is anything but exhilarating. Indeed, it is obvious that the average
plant and the average animal are, in their way, far superior to the average
man, in beauty, health, vitality; natural selection, which has been arrested in
man, having made them so. No wonder, then, that some of the greatest
minds have turned away from mankind, and devoted all their thoughts and
energies to the world of “things” and ideas.
Goethe and other men of genius have often been accused of being cold
and unsympathetic, because they refused to shape their conduct so as to
please the people with whom they chanced to come into contact. Had they
wasted their affections and sympathies on their commonplace admirers and
acquaintances, instead of bestowing them on art and science, on the great
ideas that teemed in their brains, we should now be without many of those
glorious works which could never have been created had not their authors
ignored personal relations for the time being, and bestowed all their
warmest impersonal affections on their ideas.
As compared with men of genius, women have achieved but little that
can lay claim to immortal fame; and the principal reason of this is that their
affections are apt to be too exclusively personal. A girl will assiduously
practice on the piano as long as that will assist her in fascinating her suitors.
But how many women, outside the ranks of teachers, continue their practice
after marriage, from the impersonal love of music itself? Needless to say
they have no time; for every hour devoted to emotional refreshment
strengthens the nerves for two hours of extra labour.
As regards the love of Nature, woman is, indeed, artificially hampered.
She may botanise to some extent, but she cannot, as a rule, indulge in those
solitary walks in a virgin forest which alone can establish a deep

communion with Nature. If accompanied by friend, brother, husband, or
lover, her thought will inevitably retain a human tinge. No doubt there is
something comic in the ardent affection with which a German professor
hugs his pet theory regarding the Greek dative, or the origin of honey in
flowers, and in the ferocity with which he will defend it against his best
friends, if they happen to oppose it. But such complete devotion to abstract
crotchets is absolutely necessary to the discovery of original ideas: and as
women are rarely able or willing to emerge from the haunts of personal
emotion, this explains why they have achieved greatness in hardly anything
but novel-writing, which is chiefly concerned with personal emotions.

PERSONAL AFFECTIONS

I.—LOVE FOR ANIMALS

Over inanimate objects and plants we have this great emotional
advantage that we can love them, whereas they cannot love us, nor even one
another, though related by marriage, like flowers.
Animals, however, can love both us and one another and be loved; and
this establishes a distinction between them and lower beings, and a
relationship with us, that warrants us in placing their attachments under the
head of Personal Affections.
Calderwood is sufficiently liberal to admit that, to a degree animals may
be included in our affections. But Adolf Horwicz who has written the most
complete, and, on the whole, most satisfactory analysis of the human
feelings in existence, denies this. “Love is and remains a personal feeling,”
he asserts; it “can only be referred to persons, not to things. The tenderness
of American ladies towards dogs and cats is simply a gross emotional
caricature.”
So it is, very often, especially in the case of ladies who neglect their
children and make fashionable pets of animals, changing and exchanging
them with the fashion. But it is simply absurd to mention this case as a fair

instance of human love towards animals. How many of the greatest
geniuses the world has produced have become famous for their affectionate
devotion to their dogs! “A dog!” says an old English writer, “is the only
thing on this earth that loves you more than he loves himself.” And should
we be morally inferior to the dog—unable to love him in return? especially
when we remember that “histories,” as Pope remarks, “are more full of
examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
Vischer, the well-known German writer on æsthetics, goes so far as to
admit that whenever he is in society his only wish is, “Oh, if there was only
a dog here!”
There is something much nobler and deeper than sarcasm on humanity in
Byron’s famous epitaph on his dog:—

“Near this spot
Are deposited the remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of man without his Vices.”

I wonder if Horwicz could read the following exquisite prose poem of
Turgenieff without feeling ashamed of himself:—
"We two are sitting in the room: my dog and I. A violent storm is raging
without.
"The dog sits close before me—he gazes straight into my eyes.
"And I too gaze straight into his eyes.
"It seems as if he wished to say something to me. He is dumb, has no
words, does not understand himself; but I understand him.
"I understand that he and I are at this moment governed by the same
feeling, that there is not the slightest difference between us. We are beings
of the same kind. In each of us shines and glows the same flame.
"Death approaches, flapping his broad, cold, moist wings....
"And all is ended.
"Who then will establish the difference between the flames which glowed
within us two?
"No! We who exchange those glances are not animal and man.
"Created alike are the two pairs of eyes that are fixed on each other.

“And each of these eye-pairs, that of the man as well as that of the
animal, expresses clearly and distinctly an anxious craving for mutual
caresses.”
It is a vicious trait of the human character that it soon grows callous to
caresses, and that the unmasked expression of tender emotion is regarded as
undignified and in “bad form.” It is the absence in the dog’s mind of this
ugly human trait that makes him such a delightful friend and companion.
However much you caress and fondle him, he will always be anxious and
grateful for the next gentle pat on the head, the next kind look, and will
never despise you for any excess of fond emotion lavished on him.
The greatest flaw in Christian ethics is, that it takes so little account of
this capacity of animals for affection, and our duties towards them. The
duty of kindness towards animals is indeed, as Mr. Lecky remarks, “the one
form of humanity which appears more prominently in the Old Testament
than in the New.” “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth
out the corn,” is a precept which deprecates even a very modified form of
cruelty to animals. Had this precept been given in a more generalised and
comprehensive form, what an incalculable amount of suffering might have
been saved the animals that had the misfortune to be born in Christian
countries, as compared with those in the Oriental countries.
According to Mr. Lecky, Plutarch was the first writer who placed the
duty of kindness to animals on purely moral grounds; “and he urges that
duty with an emphasis and detail to which no adequate parallel can, I
believe, be found in the Christian writings for at least 1700 years.” Some of
the earlier Greek philosophers had based this duty on the doctrine of the
transmigration of human souls into animal bodies; and it is related that
Pythagoras used to buy of fishermen the whole contents of their nets, for
the pleasure of letting the fish go again. Leonardo da Vinci, from less
superstitious motives, used to buy caged birds for the same purpose; and
similar traits are told of other men of genius who were sufficiently refined
to recognise the evidences of emotion in animals. In our times, finally, we
have a man, Mr. Bergh, who devotes his whole life to the object of
establishing the personal rights of animals to kind treatment on legal
grounds.
But, after all, the most influential friend animals have ever possessed was
Darwin, who, by establishing their relationship to man on grounds which no
one who understands the evidence can question, for ever vindicated for

them the privilege of personal affection. The very grammar of our language
has been affected by Darwinism. Formerly, it was customary to write “the
dog which jumped into the water to save a child.” Now we say, “the dog
who jumped into the water.” In other words, animals are no longer regarded
as “things,” or animated machines, but as persons.

II.—MATERNAL LOVE

Within the range of impersonal emotions and affections, as we have seen,
women are vastly inferior to men; but in personal affections—partly owing
to their almost exclusive devotion to them—women are commonly superior
to men. Not always, however; for, as we shall see later on, the prevalent
dogma that woman’s Romantic Love is deeper and more ardent than man’s
is an absurd myth. But in conjugal affection—which differs widely from
Romantic Love—woman is generally more sincere, devoted, and self-
sacrificing than man. In friendship, too, women are more sincere and ardent
than men; for friendship is an ancient, rather than a modern sentiment; and
as women are more conservative than men, they have preserved this
sentiment (at least in early life), while among men it has become nearly
extinct:—

“All friendship is feigning, all loving mere folly.”—Shakspere.

But the one affection in which woman stands infinitely above man is the
maternal, compared with which paternal love is ordinarily a mere shadow.
Romantic Love in man and child-love in woman are the two strongest
passions which the human mind entertains.
In depth and strength these two passions are perhaps alike. In point of
antiquity, the maternal feeling has an advantage over the Love-passion; for,
of all personal affections, the maternal was developed first, and the
sentiment of Romantic Love last.
Personal affections are of two kinds: (1) Those based on blood-
relationship—maternal, paternal, filial, brotherly, and sisterly love; (2)
Those not based on blood-relationship—friendship and Romantic Love.
Conjugal affection belongs psychologically to the first class.
That of all relationships the one between mother and child is the most
intimate is obvious. The child is part and parcel of the mother: her own

flesh and blood and soul; and in loving it the mother practically loves a
detached portion of herself—thus uniting the force of selfish with that of
altruistic emotion. This is the primitive fountain of maternal affection. A
second source of it lies in the resemblance of the child to the father,
reviving in the mother’s memory the romantic days of pre-matrimonial
Love. It must be an unending source of interest in a mother’s mind to note
which of the child’s traits are derived from her, which from the father. If she
loves herself, and loves her husband, the child that unites the traits of both
must be doubly dear to her. The fact that the child is inseparably associated
with all the mother’s joys and sorrows, from the wedding-day to death,
constitutes a third source of her attachment; and a fourth is the social regard
and honour which an energetic and gifted son, or a beautiful and
accomplished daughter, may reflect on her.
The mother herself is of course unconscious of the complex nature of her
feeling and its origin; especially in the first days, when the new feeling
dawns upon her like a revelation. As in the case of budding Love, the
feeling is at first less individual than generic—less the affection of this
particular mother for this particular child than the bursting out of the
general feeling of motherhood, inherited by her in common with all women.
Natural selection helps us to explain how this general feeling of
motherhood was developed. As among animals, so among our savage and
semi-civilised ancestors, those mothers who fondly cared for their infants
naturally succeeded in rearing a larger and more vigorous progeny than
those mothers who neglected their children. And through hereditary
transmission this instinct gradually acquired, that marvellous intensity and
power which we now admire.
The sublime and almost terrible height to which this emotion can rise is
most realistically depicted in Rubens’s famous picture in Munich,
representing the murder of the children at Bethlehem; in which mothers
grasp the naked daggers, and frantically expose their breasts to receive the
blows intended for their little ones. Throughout the animal kingdom,
including mankind, the female is less pugnacious than the male, less
provided with means of defence, and hence more gentle and timid; yet in
the moment of peril the mother’s affection absolutely annihilates fear, and
makes her face danger and death with a courage, supernatural strength, and
endurance, rarely equalled by man, with all his weapons and natural
consciousness of superior muscle.

It is in this blind, impetuous, passionate willingness of self-sacrifice that
maternal affection most closely resembles the passion of Romantic Love.

III.—PATERNAL LOVE

For paternal affection Natural Selection has done much less than for
maternal; and it is easy to understand why. For, useful as the father’s
assistance is in securing various advantages to the growing child, yet even if
he should cruelly abandon it altogether, the maternal love would still remain
interposed to save and rear it.
Nor is it in the human race alone that paternal is weaker than maternal
love. Among mammals, as Horwicz remarks, we even come across a Herr
Papa occasionally who shows a great inclination to dine on his progeny.
And how irregularly the paternal—sometimes even the maternal—instinct
is displayed among savages is graphically shown by this group of cases
collected by Herbert Spencer:—
“As among brutes the philoprogenitive instinct is occasionally
suppressed by the desire to kill, and even devour, their young ones; so
among primitive men this instinct is now and again overridden by impulses
temporarily excited. Thus, though attached to their offspring, Australian
mothers, when in danger, will sometimes desert them; and if we may
believe Angas, men have been known to bait their hooks with the flesh of
boys they have killed. Thus, notwithstanding their marked parental
affection, Fuegians sell their children for slaves; thus, among the Chonos
Indians, a father, though doting on his boy, will kill him in a fit of anger for
an accidental offence. Everywhere among the lower races we meet with like
incongruities. Falkner, while describing the paternal feelings of Patagonians
as very strong, says they often pawn and sell their wives and little ones to
the Spaniards for brandy. Speaking of the children of the Sound Indians,
Bancroft says they ‘sell or gamble them away.’ According to Simpson, the
Pi-Edes ‘barter their children to the Utes proper for a few trinkets or bits of
clothing.’ And of the Macusi, Schomburgk writes, ‘the price of a child is the
same as an Indian asks for his dog.’ This seemingly heartless conduct to
children often arises from the difficulty experienced in rearing them.”
Some light is thrown on the genesis and composition of parental affection
by the three reasons named by Spencer, why among savages and semi-
civilised peoples in general sons were much more appreciated than
daughters. While daughters were little more than an encumbrance to the

parents, useless before puberty, and lost to them after marriage, the sons
could make themselves useful in warding off the enemy, in avenging
personal injuries, and in performing the funeral rites for the benefit of
departed ancestors.
In a higher stage of civilisation it is probable that utilitarian
considerations of a somewhat different kind still formed a principal
ingredient in parental love. A son was valued as an assistant in workshop or
field, a daughter as a domestic drudge. Feelings of a tenderer nature were of
course sometimes present, but that they were not general is shown by the
fact, attested by numerous historic examples, that the aim of our paternal
ancestors in centuries past was to make their children fear rather than love
them.
A slight element of fear is indeed necessary for the maintenance of filial
respect and discipline; but our forefathers were too prone to sacrifice their
tender feelings of sympathy with their offspring to the gratification of
parental authority, for the obvious reason that the latter feeling was stronger
than the former. The frequency with which daughters especially were forced
to sacrifice their personal preferences in marriage to the ambitions and
whims of their father, affords the most striking instance of the former
embryonic state of parental affection.
In modern parental love Pride is perhaps the most conspicuous trait. This
Pride has two aspects—one comic, one serious. Nothing is more amusing
than the suddenness with which the “pride of authorship” converts a
bachelor’s well-known horror of babies into the young father’s fantastic
worship. Yet though he feels “like a little tin god on wheels,” he recognises
the superior rank of the young prince, spoils his best trousers in kneeling
before him, allows him to pull his moustache and whiskers, and, indeed,
shows a disposition towards self-sacrifice almost worthy of a lover.
The serious side of the matter reveals one of the greatest differences
between paternal and maternal love. A mother’s love is largely influenced
by pity; hence she is very apt to lavish her fondest caresses on that child
which happens to be imperfect in some way—say a cripple—and therefore
unhappy. The father on the other hand, will show most favour to his
handsomest daughter, his most talented son; and nothing will so swell a
father’s heart and cause it to overflow with affection as the news of some
great distinction acquired by this son.

IV.—FILIAL LOVE

Mr. Spencer is doubtless right in asserting that of all family affections
filial love is the least developed; and in tracing this weakness especially to
the parental harshness and disposition to inspire excessive fear just referred
to. In Germany the example of the Prussian king who so unmercifully
treated his children was extensively imitated. The condition in France is
indicated by the words of Chateaubriand: “My mother, my sister, and
myself, transformed into statues by my father’s presence, only recover
ourselves after he leaves the room;” and in England, in the fifteenth century,
says Wright, “Young ladies, even of great families, were brought up not
only strictly, but even tyrannically.” And even two centuries later “children
stood or knelt in trembling silence in the presence of their fathers and
mothers, and might not sit without permission.”
Among animals filial affection can scarcely be said to exist, except as a
very utilitarian craving for protection and sustenance. Among primitive men
it is a common practice to abandon aged parents to their fate. The parents
do not resent this treatment; and of the Nascopies Heriot even says that the
aged father “usually employed as his executioner the son who is most dear
to him.” Nor are cases of heartless neglect at all uncommon even among
modern civilised communities. But the gradual change of fathers “from
masters into friends” has tended to multiply and intensify filial love at the
same rate as paternal; and the advance of moral refinement will tend to
make the lot of aged parents more and more pleasant, not only because the
duty of gratitude for favours received will be more vividly realised and
enforced by example, but because the cultivation of the imagination
intensifies sympathy, thus making it impossible for a son or daughter to be
happy while they know their parents to be unhappy.
Our feelings are curiously complicated and subtly interwoven. Parents
feel a natural pride in their children. The best way therefore to repay them
for all their troubles is to act in such a way as to justify and intensify that
pride. On the other hand, the thought that the parental pride is gratified also
gratifies filial vanity, and proves an additional incentive to ambitious effort.

V.—BROTHERLY AND SISTERLY LOVE

Young people of both sexes more frequently make confidants and
“bosom friends” of their playmates and classmates than of their brothers
and sisters. Why is this so? Novelty perhaps has something to do with it.
The domestic experiences and emotions of two brothers or sisters are apt to
be so much alike as to become monotonous; whereas a member of another
family may initiate them into a fresh and fascinating sphere of emotion and
a novel way of looking at things. Moreover, friendship is very capricious in
its choice; and as the number of brothers and sisters is limited, the selection
is apt to be made in the wider field outside the domestic circle. Again, it is a
peculiarity of human nature to appear in great négligé at home, and to
regard the nearest relatives as the best lightning-rods for disagreeable
moods; and this does not tend to deepen the love of brothers and sisters.
It may be doubted whether this form of affection exists among animals or
among primitive men; and even among civilised peoples the bond is but a
weak one, except in the most refined families. Though brothers feel bound
to protect their sisters, they reserve most of their gallantry for some one
else’s sister; and though a sister will feel proud if her brother is one of a
victorious crew, her heart will beat twice as fast if it is her lover instead of
her brother. The English language has not even a collective word for the
love of brothers and sisters; and even the partial terms, “sisterly love” and
“brotherly love,” have more of an ecclesiastic than a domestic flavour. The
German language has a collective word—and a big one too,—
Geschwisterliebe; but it would perhaps be misleading to infer from its
existence and size that this species of family love is more developed in
Germany than in England. The German’s advantage appears to be
philological merely, and not sociological. He is less of a traveller and
colonist than the Englishman, who is very often separated from his brothers
and sisters for years. Yet this sometimes is rather a gain than a loss; for it
destroys that excessive familiarity which, as just noted, makes friendship
rarer among members of the same hearth than between individuals of
different families.
To the wider circles of blood-relationship—up to “forty-second
cousins”—the Germans pay much more regard than the English; and the
French perhaps go a step beyond the Germans. For in France each family,
with its ramifications, forms a sort of clique into which an outsider can
rarely enter. Needless to say that this forms a great impediment to Love’s
free choice.

VI.—FRIENDSHIP

If we now turn to the two remaining species of personal affection—
Friendship and Love—the emotional scenery undergoes a great change. In
all the cases so far considered, blood-relationship was a source of affection;
whereas in friendship it is commonly a disadvantage, and in Romantic Love
it is positively abhorred, except in the more remote degrees. Some savage
tribes, it is true, allow, or even prescribe, marriages between brother and
sister—especially a younger sister; and cases occur of marriages between
father and daughter, mother and son. But civilised society—guided by
religious precepts, and possibly also by a vague instinctive recognition of
the advantages of cross-fertilisation—condemns such unions as hideous
crimes; and the mediæval theologians, in their extreme zeal, forbade all
marriages within the seventh degree of relationship.
In the case of friendship the objection to blood-relationship is not
founded on a social or religious precept; but it exists all the same, as already
noted. Perhaps Jean Paul’s maxim that friends may have everything in
common except their room accounts for its existence. Brothers and sisters
are commonly too much alike in their thoughts and tastes to become
friends, in the special sense of the word. Hence it is that there is apt to be a
deeper attachment between those brothers and sisters who have frequently
been separated by school-terms than among those who are always together.
For in friendship, as in love, a short absence is advantageous.
Friendship is partly an outgrowth of the social instinct and partly a result
of special associations, habit, community of interests and tastes. As a boy I
had an opportunity to make some interesting observations on friendship
among animals, showing that it differed in degree only, and not in kind or
origin, from that of man. Among the animals we kept at our country-house
were a dog, a pet sheep, and some pigs. The dog showed his confidence in
the sheep’s amiable forbearance by abandoning his cold kennel on winter
nights and seeking warmer quarters by the side of his woolly neighbour. For
the pigs his friendly regards were shown in a less utilitarian manner, by
driving away, unbidden and untaught, any swinish tramps that appeared,
uninvited, to share their meals. But the most peculiar relations existed
between the sheep and the pigs. In the absence of any other means of
satisfying its gregarious or social instincts, the sheep joined the pigs every
morning in their foraging expeditions in the woods, returning with them in

the evening. And, what was still more remarkable, when after a time a
dozen sheep were added to our stock of animals, the old pet remained
faithful to the pigs, and paid no attention whatever to the newcomers. Here
the friendly attachment, based on habitual association and the memory of
mutual pleasures of grazing, was strong enough to overcome the inherited
fellow-feeling for members of its own species.
Between this instance and those ordinary cases of companionship among
men which are called friendship, there is hardly any difference. In the more
intimate cases of special friendship the craving for companionship is
strengthened by a community of thoughts and emotions. Bacon gives us in a
nut-shell three of the ingredients of friendship which are not to be found in
the primitive form just considered. The first is this, that each friend
becomes a sort of secular confessor, to whom the other may confide all his
hopes and fears, joys and sorrows; the second is this, that “a friend’s wits
and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and
discoursing with another;” so that “he waxeth wiser than himself; and that
more by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditation;” the third is the
“aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions” to be expected of a
friend.
Friendship is not a modern sentiment. Cases of it such as existed among
the ancient Greeks and Romans, characterised by an ardour that made
Friendship resemble the Love passion, are no longer to be met with,
although a somewhat less intense form frequently occurs among young men
at college or young ladies in high schools: thus illustrating the law that the
individual passes through the same stages of development as the race.
“The enthusiasm of friendship,” says Voltaire in his Philosophic
Dictionary, “was greater among the Greeks and Arabians than it is among
ourselves. The tales which these peoples have imagined on friendship are
delightful; we have nothing to match them. We are somewhat dry in
everything. I do not see a single grand trait of friendship in our novels, in
our histories, on our stage.”
Why is this so? Let another Frenchman, La Rochefoucauld, answer: “The
reason why the majority of women are but little touched by friendship, is
because it seems insipid after one has experienced love.”
Precisely. The reason why the ancients, in their histories and dramas,
made so much of friendship, while modern poets almost ignore it, is that the
latter have a subject a thousand times more fascinating than friendship, a

subject unknown to the ancients—the inexhaustible subject of Romantic
Love.

VII.—ROMANTIC LOVE

That Love is superior to friendship is apparent from the one consideration
that it includes all the features of friendship, and adds to them a thousand
ecstasies of which friendship never dreams. The lover, no less than the
friend, gratifies his social instinct, his desire for companionship, his need of
confessing his own and sharing another’s hopes and fears, his craving for
stimulating conversation, his sympathetic disposition to give and receive
aid in the trials of life. But if modern friendship ever had any moments to
compare with the romantic episodes, the tragic agonies and wild delights of
love, would it be conceivable that our realistic novelists and poets could
neglect it altogether and devote all their attention to Love?
The other personal affections fare no better in comparison with Love.
How prosaic even Conjugal Love seems to us as compared with Romantic
Love, of which it is the metamorphosis and continuation, is shown by the
fact that novelists always end their stories with the marriage of the hero and
heroine.
Maternal Love, however, has four traits which occasionally make it
resemble Romantic Love in intensity. They are: (1) a disposition toward
self-sacrifice; (2) jealousy; (3) an exaggerated adoration; and (4) pride of
ownership. But of these the first is the only one that ever quite rises to the
giddy heights of rapturous Love. Jealousy is often aroused in mothers if
their children display excessive fondness or partiality for their father or a
family friend; and they know well in such a case how to make the latter
understand that his presence is an impertinence. But this momentary
ebullition of feeling is but a storm in a tea-kettle compared to the ferocity of
a jealous lover seeking to devour his rival. Nor does a mother’s excessive
worship of the self-evident beauty and accomplishments of her offspring
ever quite equal the hyperbolic illusion and folly of a lover.
Again, Romantic Love is a monopolist who never shares his treasures of
affection with another, whereas a mother, if she has more than one child, is
obliged to divide her heart like an apple, so that each may get a slice. Would
you infer from this that the mother has a deeper fund of affection than the

lover, because she can love several at a time? Impossible. The amount of
emotion human nerves can bear is limited. The more you widen it, the
shallower does it become. The general love for all mankind is the weakest
and shallowest of all, the lover’s concentrated affection for one person the
deepest and strongest. See what a terrible strain on his nerves this deep
passion is: how he loses flesh, grows pale and feverish, and prone to self-
destruction. Could a mother survive if she loved each one of five or ten
children with the depth and intensity of a lover? No, we must take back
what we said a few pages back. Maternal affection is after all a mere
phantom compared with Romantic Love.
And the ace of hearts is yet to be played—in favour of Romantic Love.
The mother’s affection is bestowed on what after all is merely a severed
portion of her own individuality; whereas the two lovers are individuals
utterly unrelated. And herein lies the Miracle of Love: that it can in a few
days, ay, a few minutes, ignite between two young persons who have
perhaps never before seen each other, a passion more intense than that
which in the mother is the growth of months and years.
It follows as a corollary from this that Romantic Love is not only more
intense, more concentrated, more immediate and irresistible than parental
affection, but also more just, more in accordance with the highest precepts
of morality, because more altruistic. For the mother loves only her own
flesh and blood, while the lover adores a stranger; like Romeo, he may even
adore the daughter of an enemy.
Thousands of fathers and mothers, moreover, love their own ugly,
vicious, and stupid children more than the beautiful, well-behaved, and
clever children of their neighbours. Who, on the other hand, ever heard of a
young man loving his ugly sister more than the beautiful and accomplished
daughter of his neighbour?
In consideration of the great importance of the family feelings as a social
cement, the parental injustice in question is pardoned and even commended.
But from the standpoint of progressive culture, under guidance of the law of
Natural Selection, it must be condemned; for it favours demerit in
preference to merit, and retards the advent of the time when family and
national prejudices will be forgotten and replaced by a loverlike,
cosmopolitan admiration of personal excellence wherever and in
whomsoever found.

This matter, though it has a semi-humorous aspect, is of the deepest
philosophic import. If family affection, so important as the first step in the
development of society, were the only form of personal love, close
intermarriage between blood-relations would be unduly encouraged.
Fortunately the all-powerful instinct of Romantic Love comes in as a
corrective of family affection, basing its preferences not on relationship and
resemblance, but on differences and complementary qualities, thus securing
for the human race the advantages of “cross-fertilisation.” We have already
seen that flowers owe their beauty to the cross-fertilisation brought about
through the agency of bees and butterflies. In the same way the human race
owes its supreme beauty to the cross-fertilisation—the union of
complementary qualities—brought about through the agency of Love. Is it
perhaps for this reason that Love is so much like a butterfly, and that Cupid
has wings?
Instead of being merely a transient malady of youth, as cynics aver, or
only an epicurean episode in our emotional life, Love is thus seen to be one
of the greatest (if not the greatest) moral, æsthetic, and hygienic forces that
control human life. And in face of this fact the few pages, or lines,
commonly devoted to this passion in psychologic text-books, seem wofully
inadequate. No apology is therefore needed for our attempt to subject
Romantic Love to a thorough chemical analysis, and to discover its
ingredients. We shall first enumerate and briefly characterise these
ingredients; then proceed to examine how many of them are to be found in
the love of animals and savages, of the ancient nations and of our mediæval
ancestors; and finally, we shall attempt to describe these various component
parts of the passion, as fully developed in Modern Love.

OVERTONES OF ROMANTIC LOVE

First of all it is necessary to get rid of the prevalent illusion that Love is a
single emotion. It is, on the contrary, a most complex and ever-varying
group of emotions. Love is not a diamond which drops from a celestial

body, cut and polished, and ready to be set into the human soul. Rather is it
the crown of life, composed of various jewels, some of which, mixed with
much coarse ore, may be found in the animal kingdom, among primitive
men and ancient civilised nations; but of which no complete specimens are
to be found till we come to comparatively modern times. Each lover has his
own crown, but no two of them are exactly alike. The component jewels
vary in size and brilliancy. Some—as Coyness, Adoration, Gallantry,
Jealousy—are occasionally missing or lacking in lustre; and in Ancient
Love those are habitually absent which in Modern Love are most prominent
and cherished.
Perhaps the composite nature of Love can be still better illustrated by a
comparison with colours, and with “overtones” in music, between which
and the elements of Love there exists a wonderfully close analogy.
Professor Helmholtz has proved that just as white is not a simple colour,
but a combination of all the hues of the rainbow, so any single tone
produced by the voice or a musical instrument is not simple, as it seems, but
contains, besides the fundamental tone which the ordinary listener alone
hears, several partial or “overtones,” which blend so closely with the
fundamental tone, that it takes a very delicate ear and close attention to
distinguish them. Were it not for these overtones, all instruments would
sound alike, and music would lose all its charms of “colour.” For the
fundamental tones of instruments and voices are identical, and the only
thing that enables a musician to tell at a distance whether a given note
proceeds from a piano, voice, or violin, is the presence of these overtones,
which vary in their number, relative loudness and pitch (or height), thus
giving rise to the differences of quality or timbre in instruments.
In Love the fundamental tone is the sexual relation—the fact that one of
the lovers is male, the other female. This fundamental tone does not vary
throughout Nature. It is the same among animals and savages as among
civilised men; and what distinguishes the passion of one of these groups
from that of the other is alone the overtones of love, which vary in number,
relative prominence, and refinement (“high-toned”).
What are these overtones?

I.—INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE

What first ennobles Love and raises it above mere passion, is the
stubborn preference for a particular individual. A savage chief ignorant of
Love would not hesitate a moment to exchange his bride for two or three
other women equally young and tempting; whereas a man under the
influence of Love would not give his beloved for the choice among all the
beauties of the Caucasus and Andalusia. “If we pass in review the different
degrees of love,” says Schopenhauer, “from the most transient attachment
to the most violent passion, we shall find that the difference between them
springs from their different degrees of individualisation.”

II.—MONOPOLY OR EXCLUSIVENESS

Closely connected with the first overtone is that of exclusiveness. True
Love is a monopolist. As in a sun-glass all the solar rays are concentrated
into one burning focus, so are the lover’s emotions on his beloved. Not only
does he care for her alone of all women, but he voluntarily offers her a
monopoly of his thoughts and feelings. In return for this, however, he
expects and exacts of her a like monopoly of her affection and favours; and
this leads to the next overtone.

III.—JEALOUSY

This is the salt and pepper of Love. A little of it is piquant, too much of it
spoils the soup. The moral mission of Jealousy is, by means of watchfulness
and the inspiring of fear, to ensure fidelity and chastity, and thus help to
develop the romantic features of Love.

IV.—COYNESS

This is a specially feminine trait of Love, which, by retarding the eager
lover’s conquest, augments and idealises his passion. In Modern Love,
Coyness varies in two directions—towards prudery on one side, coquetry
on the other.

V.—GALLANTRY

If Coyness is a peculiarly feminine ingredient of Love, Gallantry, on the
other hand, is a specially masculine attribute. The eager desire to please, it
is true, is also present in a woman’s Love; but it shows itself less as an
active impulse to do something for the lover, than as a desire to please him
by making herself as attractive as possible.

VI.—SELF-SACRIFICE

In the most violent cases of Love this overtone may reveal itself in two
ways: either as a mere exaggeration of Gallantry—a desire to please even at
the risk of life; or as a suicidal impulse in cases of hopeless passion—when
the one object which seemed to make life worth living has been placed
beyond reach.

VII.—SYMPATHY

“In order to feel with another’s pain it is enough to be a man; to feel with
another’s pleasure it is needful to be an angel.” If this be true, then lovers
are angels. For not only do they share one another’s pleasures, but it is
impossible for the one to be really happy unless the other enjoys the same
emotion. “Does that other see the same star, the same melting cloud; read
the same book, feel the same emotion that now delights me?”—these are, in
Emerson’s words, the questions which the lovers, when separated, ask
incessantly.

VIII.—PRIDE OF CONQUEST AND POSSESSION

In his suggestive but incomplete analysis of Love, in his Principles of
Psychology, Mr. Herbert Spencer names as two of the emotions which enter
into it, the Love of Approbation and Self-Esteem, which he thus defines:
“To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired beyond all
others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in a degree passing every
previous experience: especially as, to this direct gratification of it, there
must be added that reflex gratification of it, which results from the
preference being witnessed by unconcerned persons. Further, there is the

allied emotion of self-esteem. To have succeeded in gaining such
attachment from, and sway over, another, is a practical proof of power, of
superiority, which cannot fail agreeably to excite the amour propre.”
This is well expressed, but the names are obviously not well chosen. It is
hardly correct to intimate that the “love of approbation” and “self-esteem”
constitute two of the group of emotions which we call Love. What the lover
feels is not a “love of approbation,” etc., but the emotion of Pride at having
conquered and gained possession of so desirable a prize.

IX.—EMOTIONAL HYPERBOLE

The lover sees, thinks, and feels only in superlatives. His eyes are no
longer mere “windows of the soul,” but microscopes which magnify all the
beloved’s merits on the scale of seven square miles to the inch. And the
hyberbolic imagery which constitutes the essence of love-poetry is his
everyday food—with a special menu on Sundays.

X.—MIXED MOODS—MAJOR AND MINOR

It is in Love that “confusion makes his masterpiece.” The lover is so
incessantly tossed on the ocean of turbulent emotion that he soon ceases to
know or care which is up and which down, and all that remains is an all-
engrossing sense of love-sickness.

“Angels call it heavenly joy,
Infernal torture the devils say;
And men? They call it—Love.”—Heine.

XI.—ADMIRATION OF PERSONAL BEAUTY

This is the æsthetic overtone of Love; and so prominent is it that it is
commonly heard before and above all the others. “Beauty provoketh thieves
sooner than gold,” says Shakspere; and if you tell twenty of your male
acquaintances that you have been introduced to a young lady, nineteen of
them will ask immediately, “Is she pretty?” No reporter ever writes about a

girl murdered by a tramp or burnt in a house, without describing her as a
model of beauty, in order to double the reader’s interest and quintuple his
pity. Madame de Staël confessed that she would have gladly exchanged her
literary genius for beauty. With the Greeks already the words Love and
Beauty were inseparably associated; and even the Chinese, who are not
embarrassed by an excess of beauty, have a proverb, “With one smile she
overthrew a city, with another a kingdom.”
This completes the preliminary analysis of Love. I regret exceedingly
that I have been able to discover only eleven “overtones” in Modern Love:
but inasmuch as at least six of these—Nos. V. to X.—are only about a
thousand years old, there is reason to hope that some fine morning in May a
new one will be born to make up the round dozen. If so, it is to be hoped it
will assume in men the form of an absolute insistance on feminine health,
and an instinctive detestation of the hideous and love-killing fashions with
which women still persist in ruining their beauty.

HERBERT SPENCER ON LOVE

For the sake of comparison I may cite Mr. Spencer’s summary of the
elements which he thinks compose Love: “Round the physical feeling
forming the nucleus of the whole there are gathered the feelings produced
by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence,
of love of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of freedom, of
sympathy. All these, each excited in the highest degree, and severally
tending to reflect their excitement on each other, form the composite
psychical state which we call Love. And as each of these feelings is in itself
highly complicated, uniting a wide range of states of consciousness, we
may say that this passion fuses into an immense aggregation, nearly all the
elementary excitations of which we are capable; and that from this results
its irresistible power.”
Let us now see how many of the characters of true Romantic Love are to
be found in the courtship of animals and savages.

LOVE AMONG ANIMALS

As comparative psychology is the youngest branch of philosophy, there
are still among us thousands of excellent but ignorant folks who cling to the
old mythologic notion that animals are animated machines or things
“which” are devoid of intellect and feeling, and guided by a metaphysical
fetish called “instinct.” To such the undertaking of a search for Love—real
Romantic Love—among animals, will seem not only absurd, but a sort of
high treason against human conceit. To mitigate any possible indignation on
the reader’s part, it may be advisable, therefore, to begin by giving a few
illustrations demonstrating the existence of various family affections and
friendship in the animal world; after which, the possibility of finding traces
of Love proper will appear less remote.
Paternal, filial, brotherly, and sisterly love, comparatively weak and
undeveloped in man, are indeed almost absent in the lower animals. Birds
of the same brood do not recognise each other after they have left their nest;
and a dog will not hesitate to attack his own brother as a stranger after a
year’s separation. The part which a male bird takes in feeding and
protecting the young is, as Horwicz suggests, an element of his conjugal
rather than his paternal feeling; and a young animal that would risk its own
life in defence of its mother or father is yet to be heard from.
Friendship, however, does exist between animals, as we have already
seen; and not only among animals of the same species, but of different
species. “Happy families” of animals commonly hostile to each other have
been known outside of the showman’s cage. Büchner cites instances of
friendship between a robin and a cat; a fox and duck; dog and deer; cat and
mouse; and even such absurdly incongruous cases of attachment as between
a crow and a bull; a dog and an elephant; a cat and a rattlesnake. But the
deepest feeling of friendship which any animal is capable of feeling is
undoubtedly the dog’s love of his master. “Professor Braubach,” says
Darwin, “goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a
god.” “It is said,” he adds in a footnote, “that Bacon long ago, and the poet
Burns, held the same notion.”
Maternal and conjugal affection, however, are, as in man, so in animals,
the two strongest forms of family attachment. A French author, M. Menault,

has written a special treatise on L’Amour Maternel chez les Animaux, and
Dr. Büchner exclaims, à propos: “If a human mother, with certain
destruction staring in her face, dashes into a burning house to save her
imperilled child, and thus finds her own death, this sacrifice is no greater,
no more heroic, than that of a stork-mother who, after vain efforts to save
her brood, is voluntarily burnt up with them in her nest; or of those
elephant-mothers who, as Schweinfurth narrates, in the African hunting
expeditions, when the bushes along the shore are ignited in order to drive
out the elephants, seek to save their young ones by filling their trunks with
water and sprinkling it over them, while they themselves are roasting.”
How low down in the scale of animal life traces of conjugal attachment
are to be found is shown by the following case cited by Darwin: “An
accurate observer, Mr. Lonsdale, informs me that he placed a pair of
landsnails, one of which was weakly, into a small and ill-provided garden.
After a short time the strong and healthy individual disappeared, and was
traced by its track of slime over a wall into an adjoining well-stocked
garden. Mr. Lonsdale concluded that it had deserted its sickly mate, but
after an absence of twenty-four hours it returned, and apparently
communicated the result of its successful exploration, for both then started
along the same track and disappeared over the wall.” Again, the naturalist,
Mr. Bate, experimented on the conjugal feelings of Gammarus marinus, or
the sandskipper common on English shores, by separating a male from its
female, and imprisoning both in the same vessel with many individuals of
the same species. “The female, when thus divorced, soon joined the others.
After a time the male was put again into the same vessel; and he then, after
swimming about for a time, dashed into the crowd, and without any fighting
at once took away his wife. This fact shows that in the Amphipoda, an order
low in the scale, the males and females recognise each other, and are
mutually attached.”
Concerning birds, Darwin remarks: “It has often been said that parrots
become so deeply attached to each other that when one dies the other pines
for a long time; but Mr. Jenner Weir thinks that with most birds the strength
of their affection has been much exaggerated. Nevertheless, when one of a
pair in a state of nature has been shot, the survivor has been heard for days
afterwards uttering a plaintive call; and Mr. St. John gives various facts
proving the attachment of mated birds. Mr. Bennett relates that in China
after a drake of the beautiful mandarin Teal had been stolen, the duck

remained disconsolate, though sedulously courted by another mandarin
drake, who displayed before her all his charms. After an interval of three
weeks the stolen drake was recovered, and instantly the pair recognised
each other with extreme joy.” “Dr. Buller says (Birds of New Zealand) that a
male king lory was killed, and the female ‘fretted and moped, refused her
food, and died of a broken heart.’”
But there are exceptions to this rule of conjugal attachment and fidelity,
as is shown in the following quotation, which completes the curious
analogy between human and bird love connubial: “Mr. Harrison Weir has
himself observed, and has heard from several breeders, that a female pigeon
will occasionally take a strong fancy for a particular male, and will desert
her own mate for him. Some females, according to another experienced
observer, Riedel, are of a profligate disposition, and prefer almost any
stranger to their own mate. Some amorous males, called by our English
fanciers ‘gay birds,’ are so successful in their gallantries that, as Mr. H.
Weir informs me, they must be shut up on account of the mischief which
they cause.”
So there are Don Juans even among pigeons!
Intermarriages or mixed unions also occur among birds. Says Darwin:
“It is certain that distinct species of birds occasionally pair in a state of
nature and produce hybrids. Many instances could be given: thus
Macgillivray relates how a male blackbird and female thrush ‘fell in love
with each other,’ and produced offspring. Several years ago eighteen cases
had been recorded of the occurrence in Great Britain of hybrids between the
black grouse and pheasant.... A male widgeon, living with females of the
same species, has been known to pair with a pintail duck. Lloyd describes
the remarkable attachment between a shield-drake and a common duck.
Many additional instances could be given; and the Rev. E. S. Dixon remarks
that ‘those who have kept many different species of geese together, well
know what unaccountable attachments they are frequently forming, and that
they are quite as likely to pair and rear young with individuals of a race
(species) apparently the most alien to themselves, as with their own stock.’”
In their marriages animals have anticipated man in every possible
arrangement—promiscuity, polygamy, monogamy, polyandry. According to
Darwin, “Many mammals and some few birds are polygamous, but with
other animals belonging to the lower classes I have found no evidence of
this habit.” He has not “heard of any species in the Orders of Cheiroptera,

Edentata, Insectivora, and Rodents being polygamous, excepting that
among the Rodents the common rat, according to some rat-catchers, lives
with several females.” Among the terrestrial carnivora the lion seems to be
the only polygamist, while the marine carnivora are “eminently
polygamous.”
Domestication sometimes has the bad effect of converting wild birds to
Mormonism. Thus “the wild duck is strictly monogamous, the domestic
duck highly polygamous.”
It is among wild birds in general that the most remarkable cases of
conjugal attachment in the animal world are found. And since most birds
are monogamous, pairing sometimes even for life, we may hence draw the
important conclusion that among animals, as among men, monogamy seems
to favour the development of conjugal love. Polygamy, on the other hand,
everywhere introduces jealousies, rivalries, discords. Among Oriental
nations where polygamy prevails, each wife must have her own apartments,
and no one would dare to taste food prepared by another, for fear of poison.
On some animals polygamy seems to have a similar effect, for we read that
“Mr. Bartlett believes that the Lophophorus, like many other gallinaceous
birds, is naturally polygamous, but two females cannot be placed in the
same cage with a male, as they fight so much together.”

COURTSHIP

The foregoing illustrations, many of which show the gross injustice
lurking in our expression “animal passion,” will have prepared the reader’s
mind for the search after the elements of romantic or pre-nuptial Love in
animals.
The development of romantic, as distinguished from conjugal love,
depends on the existence of a more or less prolonged period of courtship.
Where this is absent Love is absent, as among the ancient nations and those
of the moderns who lock up their women until they are ready to be sold to a
husband, at sight.
Among animals the young females are not locked up or chaperoned.
They are free to meet the young males and fall in love with the one that
pleases them most.

As a rule the preliminaries to animal marriages are doubtless brief. If a
healthy, vigorous male comes across a mature, healthy female, it is usually
a case of mutual veni, vidi, vici.
In other cases, however, courtship is a more prolonged affair, owing
partly to the coyness of the female, partly to the rivalries among the male
suitors.
Animal courtship is carried on either by single pairs in the romantic
shades of the forests, or else at special nuptial mass meetings, resembling
those held by some primitive tribes whose unmarried young people
assemble on certain days in the year to select partners. Of the common
magpie, for instance, Darwin relates that “Some years ago these birds
abounded in extraordinary numbers, so that a gamekeeper killed in one
morning nineteen males, and another killed by a single shot seven birds
roosting together. They then had the habit of assembling very early in the
spring at particular spots, where they could be seen in flocks, chattering,
sometimes fighting, bustling, and flying about the trees. The whole affair
was evidently considered by the birds as one of the highest importance.
Shortly after the meeting they all separated, and were then observed by Mr.
Fox and others to be paired for the season.”
This was known as the “great magpie marriage.” In Germany and
Scandinavia similar assemblages of black game are so common that special
names have been given to them. “The bowers of the bower-birds are the
resort of both sexes during the breeding season; and here the males meet
and contend with each other for the favours of the females, and here the
latter assemble and coquet with the males.”
Two more cases may be cited: “With one of the vultures (Cathartes aura)
of the United States parties of eight, ten, or more males and females
assemble on fallen logs, ‘exhibiting the strongest desire to please mutually,’
and after many caresses each male leads off his partner on the wing.
Audubon likewise carefully observed the wild flocks of Canada geese, and
gives a graphic description of their love-antics; he says that the birds which
had been previously mated ‘renewed their courtship as early as the month
of January, while the others would be contending or coquetting for hours
every day, until all seemed satisfied with the choice they had made, after
which, although they remained together, any person could easily perceive
that they were careful to keep in pairs. I have observed also that the older
the birds the shorter were the preliminaries of their courtship. The bachelors

and old maids, whether in regret or not caring to be disturbed by the bustle,
quietly moved aside and lay down at some distance from the rest.’”
Separate courtship may be illustrated by the following cases, the first of
which is also interesting as showing that it is not among men alone that the
female occasionally becomes the wooer; and the second as showing how
early in the scale of animal life a primitive sort of courtship may be found.
Concerning a wild duck brought up in captivity Mr. Hewitt says that “After
breeding a couple of seasons with her own mallard, it at once shook him off
on my placing a male pintail on the water. It was evidently a case of love at
first sight, for she swam about the newcomer caressingly, though he
appeared evidently alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From
that hour she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring
the pintail seemed to have become a convert to her blandishments, for they
nested and produced seven or eight young ones.”
The second case relates to the landsnail, concerning which Agassiz says:
“Quiconque a eu l’occasion d’observer les amours des limaçons ne saurait
mettre en doute la séduction déployée dans les mouvements et les allures
qui préparent et accomplissent le double embrassement de ces
hermaphrodites.”
The opportunities for prolonged Courtship being thus given, the question
arises, “Do animals, while a-wooing, experience the same feelings as a
human lover?” In other words, Are any of the overtones of Romantic Love
present in the amorous passion of animals?
Several of them no doubt are habitually absent. Animals have not
sufficient imagination to meditate consciously on their probable success or
failure in Courtship; and this lack of imaginative power excludes those
“overtones” which are chiefly dependent on that faculty; notably Sympathy
with the beloved’s feelings, Pride of Conquest and Possession, Hyperbolic
Adoration, Voluntary Self-Sacrifice for the other, and the Woful Ecstasy of
Mixed Moods. That Gallantry, or the Desire to Please, may be present is
shown by the words I have italicised in the quotation just made regarding
the courtship of vultures, and is further shown by the display of their
ornamental plumage by male birds to excite the attention of the female.
Exclusiveness of affection is indicated by the occasional indifference of the
wooer to every rival; and when we read of the German blackcock’s love-
dances, during which, “the more ardent he grows the more lively he
becomes, until at last the bird appears like a frantic creature”; and that “at

such times the blackcocks are so absorbed that they become almost blind
and deaf, but less so than the capercailzie,” so that “bird after bird may be
shot on the spot, or even caught by the hand”—when we read this, we feel
tempted to credit these birds even with those highest and most specialised
forms of lover’s madness which lead to oblivion—Self-Sacrifice and
Ecstatic Adoration.
The four traits of Romantic Love which are doubtless present in the
passion of animals are Jealousy, Coyness, Individual Preference, and
Admiration of Personal Beauty.
(a) Jealousy.—Volumes might be filled with accounts of the tragedies
brought about through animal rivalry and jealousy during the season of
love. “The courage and the desperate conflicts of stags have often been
described,” says Darwin; “their skeletons have been found in various parts
of the world, with the horns inextricably locked together, showing how
miserably the victor and vanquished had perished.” “Male sperm-whales
are very jealous” at the season of love; “and in their battles ‘they often lock
their jaws together, and turn on their sides and twist about’; so that their
lower jaws often become distorted.”
When birds gaze at themselves in a looking-glass, as they often do, the
same authority inclines to the belief that they do it from jealousy of a
supposed rival; and Mr. Jenner Weir, he states, “is convinced that birds pay
particular attention to the colours of other birds, sometimes out of jealousy,
and sometimes as a sign of kinship;” while “many naturalists believe that
the singing of birds is almost exclusively ‘the effect of rivalry and
emulation,’ and not for the sake of charming their mates.”
Animal Jealousy is apparently dependent on the immediate presence of
the rival and the female; while the Jealousy of a human lover is also a
matter of the imagination, and smarts even more intensely during Her
absence; for his morbid fancy then loves to picture Her in the arms of his
victorious rival. He does not, however, except in some southern countries,
emulate the jealous lion by seeking to devour his rival, but is contented if he
can ward him off by stratagem, or make him appear in a disadvantageous
light in Her eyes.
(b) Coyness.—Just as the Jealousy displayed by two animals fighting for
a female is a gross, primitive emotion, so the Coyness of female animals is
crude and clumsy compared with the delicious subtlety with which a human

maiden veils a Yes under an apparent No. Yet it plays a prominent rôle in
the courtship of animals.
A human lover would often consider it a special privilege to be eaten up,
skin, bones, and all, by his mistress; but it is doubtful whether spiders are
ever madly enough in love to relish the conduct of their females, as
described by Darwin: “The male is generally much smaller than the female,
sometimes to an extraordinary degree, and he is forced to be extremely
cautious in making his advances, as the female often carries her coyness to
a dangerous pitch. De Geer saw a male that ‘in the midst of his preparatory
caresses was seized by the object of his attentions, enveloped by her in a
web, and then devoured’; a sight which, as he adds, filled him with
indignation and horror. Female fishes also are apt to give a cannibal tinge to
their coyness by eating up the smaller males—actions to which remote
human analogies may be found in the coyness of mediæval dames, who sent
their lovers to wars and into lions’ dens as conditions of enjoying their
favours; or, conversely, in the habits of those Australians who eat their
wives after they have ceased to be either ornamental or useful.”
Indubitable evidences of Coyness are found as low down as among
insects; as, for example, in the species called Smynthurnus luteus,
“wingless, dull-coloured, minute insects, with ugly, almost misshapen heads
and bodies,” concerning which Sir John Lubbock remarks: “It is very
amusing to see these little creatures coquetting together. The male, which is
much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another
standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful
lambs. Then the female pretends to run away, and the male runs after her
with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again;
then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker and more active, scuttles round
too, and seems to whip her with his antennæ; then for a bit they stand face
to face, play with their antennæ, and seem to be all in all to one another.”
The Coyness of birds is illustrated by the following cases cited by
Büchner from Brehm and A. and K. Müller: “A genuine coquette is the
female cuckoo, who answers the call of the male with a peculiar resonant,
tittering or laughing love-call. ‘The call is seducing, promising in advance,
and its effect on the male simply enchanting.’ But how long the lovers
pursuing the siren have to wait before she accepts one of them! A wild
flight begins, among bushes and tree-tops, while the female encourages the
pursuers with repeated calls, and finally gets them into a state of erotic

excitement bordering on madness. At the same time the female is no less
excited than her frantic suitors. Her favourite, no doubt, is the most eager of
the lovers, and her apparent resistance simply the desire to excite him still
more!... The female of the icebird (Alcedo ispida) often teases her lover half
a day at a time, by repeatedly approaching him, screaming at him, and
flying away again. At the same time she never loses sight of him, but in her
flight casts glances at him backwards and sidewise, moderates the rapidity
of her flight, and returns in a wide curve if the male suddenly ceases from
his pursuit.”
Could anything be more naïvely, more humanly, more exquisitely
feminine? If a lover, says a French philosopher, fails in his suit, let him
desist for a moment, and she will presently call him back.
No inquiry has ever been made by naturalists, so far as I am aware, as to
the origin of Coyness among animals. Two probable sources of this feeling
may therefore be here suggested. The first is a vague instinctive
presentiment (based on inherited cerebral impressions) that with mating the
labours of life will begin: the painful laying of eggs; the loss of liberty
during incubation—an incalculable loss to these most active of all animals;
and the care of the young, which, again, is not a trifling matter, inasmuch as
a family of starlings, for example, needs for its daily food more than eight
hundred snails, caterpillars, etc.; and birds sometimes perish from
exhaustion in the attempt to feed their offspring.
The second source of Coyness is probably another instinctive feeling
(based on inherited experience) which induces the female to defer her
choice until the combats and manœuvres of the males have shown which
one is the most energetic, courageous, and persistent: for he will obviously
be best able to support her brood, and protect it as well as herself against
enemies. Hence, during the combats of rival males, the female is commonly
a passive spectator, and at the end quietly marches or flies off with the
victor. All of which, by the way, shows that among animals already
masculine love is deeper than feminine. Indirectly, it is true, feminine
Coyness is the cause of Love—but only of masculine Love; for if the
female animal always accepted the first male who asked her—

“My pretty maiden, may I venture
To offer you my arm and escort?”

there would be no opportunity for the growth of pre-matrimonial passion.
(c) Individual Preference.—Owing to our scant information concerning
the courtship of animals in a state of nature, Darwin did not succeed in
discovering any cases among mammals of decided preference shown by a
male for any particular female; and regarding domesticated quadrupeds,
“The general impression amongst breeders seems to be that the male
accepts any female; and this, owing to his eagerness, is, in most cases,
probably the truth.” A few cases of special preference or antipathy in dogs,
horses, bulls, and boars, were, however, communicated to him. Concerning
birds Darwin remarks that “In all ordinary cases the male is so eager that he
will accept any female, and does not, as far as we can judge, prefer one to
the other, but ... exceptions to this rule apparently occur in some few
groups. With domesticated birds, I have heard of only one case of males
showing any preference for certain females, namely, that of the domestic
cock, who, according to the high authority of Mr. Hewitt, prefers the
younger to the older hens.”
This, however, is at best only a polygamous sort of Preference, which,
after all, lacks the essential traits of Individualisation and Exclusiveness.
With the long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), M. Ekström says, “It has
been remarked that certain females are much more courted than the rest.
Frequently, indeed, one sees an individual surrounded by six or eight
amorous males.” Whether this statement is credible Darwin does not know;
but the Swedish sportsmen, he adds, shoot these females and stuff them as
decoys.
In female animals, on the other hand, the “overtone” of Individual
Preference appears to be more frequently present. Darwin even asserts that
“the exertion of some choice on the part of the female seems a law almost
as general as the eagerness of the male;” but this is not borne out by the
numerous illustrations given by himself, showing that when two or more
males are engaged in jealous combat, “the female looks on as a passive
spectator,” and finally goes off with the victor, whichever of the rivals he
may prove to be, without showing the slightest concern for the vanquished.
An Australian forest-maiden might behave similarly under these
circumstances, but a civilised maiden would cling to the one who had made
the deepest impression on her previous to the combat; and if wounded,
would adore him all the more; for in her Love pity is a stronger ingredient
than even the love of prowess.

That female birds, however, sometimes exert a choice is admitted even by
Mr. A. R. Wallace (Tropical Nature, p. 199); and a few of the cases referred
to by Darwin may here be cited: “Audubon—and we must remember that
he spent a long life in prowling about the forests of the United States and
observing the birds—does not doubt that the female deliberately chooses
her mate; thus, speaking of a woodpecker, he says the hen is followed by
half a dozen gay suitors, who continue performing strange antics ‘until a
marked preference is shown for one.’ The female of the red-winged starling
(Agelæus phœniceus) is likewise pursued by several males, ‘until, becoming
fatigued, she alights, receives their addresses, and soon makes a choice.’ He
describes also how several male nightjars repeatedly plunge through the air
with astonishing rapidity, suddenly turning, and thus making a singular
noise; ‘but no sooner has the female made her choice than the other males
are driven away.’”
Concerning domesticated birds we have seen that that gallinaceous
sultan, the domestic cock, shows a decided preference for the younger hens
in his harem. But the female is not a bit less frivolous and capricious; for,
according to Mr. Hewitt, she almost invariably prefers the most vigorous,
defiant, and mettlesome male; hence it is almost useless, he adds, “to
attempt true breeding if a game-cock in good health and condition runs the
locality, for almost every hen on leaving the roosting-place will resort to the
game-cock, even though that bird may not actually drive away the male of
her own variety.”
(d) Personal Beauty and Sexual Selection.—Mr. Wallace, who discovered
the law of Natural Selection independently of Darwin, admits, as just stated,
that “in birds the females do sometimes exert a choice”; but he adds that
“amid the copious mass of facts and opinions collected by Mr. Darwin as to
the display of colour and ornaments by the male birds, there is a total
absence of any evidence that the females admire or even notice this display.
The hen, the turkey, and the pea-fowl go on feeding while the male is
displaying his finery; and there is reason to believe that it is his persistency
and energy rather than his beauty which wins the day.”
Briefly stated, the difference between the views of these two eminent
naturalists is this: Darwin believes that in those cases where the sexes are
not alike, the differences are due to the males, originally plain, having
become modified through Sexual Selection for ornamental purposes; while
Mr. Wallace believes that colour is a normal product in animal integuments,

proportionate to their vitality, and that the sexual differences in
ornamentation are due to the females having been modified through Natural
Selection for the sake of protection.
Perhaps the best brief résumé Darwin has made of his views on this
subject is given on page 421 of the Descent of Man (London edition, 1885),
which may therefore be here cited in full: "If an inhabitant of another planet
were to behold a number of young rustics at a fair courting a pretty girl, and
quarrelling about her like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he
would, by the eagerness of the wooers to please her and to display their
finery, infer that she had the power of choice. Now with birds the evidence
stands thus: they have acute powers of observation, and they seem to have
some taste for the beautiful both in colour and sound. It is certain that the
females occasionally exhibit, from unknown causes, the strongest
antipathies and preferences for particular males. When the sexes differ in
colour or in other ornaments, the males with rare exceptions are the more
decorated, either permanently or during the breeding season. They
sedulously display their various ornaments, exert their voices, and perform
strange antics in the presence of the females. Even well-armed males who,
it might be thought, would altogether depend for success on the law of
battle, are in most cases highly ornamented; and their ornaments have been
acquired at the expense of some loss of power. In other cases ornaments
have been acquired at the cost of increased risk from birds and beasts of
prey. With various species many individuals of both sexes congregate at the
same spot, and their courtship is a prolonged affair. There is even reason to
suspect that the males and females within the same district do not always
succeed in pleasing each other and pairing.
“What then are we to conclude from these facts and considerations? Does
the male parade his charms with so much pomp and rivalry for no purpose?
Are we not justified in believing that the female exerts a choice, and that
she receives the addresses of the male who pleases her most? It is not
probable that she consciously deliberates; but she is most excited or
attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males. Nor need it
be supposed that the female studies each stripe or spot of colour; that the
peahen, for instance, admires each detail in the gorgeous train of the
peacock—she is probably struck only by the general effect. Nevertheless,
after hearing how carefully the male Argus pheasant displays his elegant
primary wing-feathers, and erects his ocellated plumes in the right position

for their full effect; or again, how the male goldfinch alternately displays
his gold-bespangled wings, we ought not to feel too sure that the female
does not attend to each detail of beauty.”
Now it was this very case of the Argus pheasant that first shook Mr.
Wallace’s “belief in ‘sexual,’ or, more properly, ‘female’ selection. The long
series of gradations by which the beautifully-shaped ocelli on the secondary
wing-feathers of this bird have been produced are clearly traced out; the
result being a set of markings so exquisitely shaded as to represent ‘balls
lying loose within sockets’—purely artificial objects of which these birds
could have no possible experience. That this result should have been
attained through thousands and tens of thousands of female birds all
preferring those males whose markings varied slightly in this one direction,
this uniformity of choice continuing through thousands and tens of
thousands of generations, is to me absolutely incredible. And when, further,
we remember that those who did not so vary would also, according to all
evidence, find mates and have offspring, the actual result seems quite
impossible of attainment by such means.”
According to Darwin’s own admission (Descent of Man, p. 211), he
advanced the theory of Sexual Selection because, in his opinion, Natural
Selection did not account for the various ornaments and attractions of the
males in question. Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, believes that Sexual
Selection does not, while Natural Selection does account for these
ornaments; so, in place of Darwin’s view that the beauty of certain male
animals leads the females to prefer them to their less ornamented rivals, he
substitutes the theory that it is the superior vitality, persistence, and vivacity
of the favoured males that fascinate the females, and that masculine beauty
is simply a natural result of superior vigour and superabundant health.
Darwin doubtless errs in claiming an æsthetic sense for animals so low in
the scale of life as butterflies and other insects, and in attributing to it such
extraordinary effects in the development of personal beauty. What Mr.
Wallace has done in Tropical Nature is to show simply that it is quite
unnecessary to invoke the aid of so questionable an agency as Sexual
Selection in order to account for the ornaments of animals; and that the
fundamental principle of Darwinism, Natural Selection, accounts for
everything.
He maintains that colour is a normal product of organisation, and that not
so much its presence as its absence needs accounting for. White and black

are comparatively rare and exceptional in nature, while the various tints of
red, blue, green, etc., are continually appearing spontaneously and
irregularly in the integuments of animals. These irregular colours, if
injurious to the species, will be at once eliminated by Natural Selection; but
if useful for purposes of identification or protection, they will be preserved
and intensified.
Now colour, Mr. Wallace continues, is proportionate to integumentary
development, and is most conspicuous in the wings of butterflies and the
feathers of birds, for the reason that, just as “the spots and rings on a soap-
bubble increase with increasing tenuity,” similarly the delicately-organised
surface of feathers and scales is highly favourable to the production of
varied colour-effects.
Colour being thus proportionate to integumentary development, we find
next that integumentary development is, in turn, proportionate to vigour and
vitality; the strongest animals having the largest feathers, scales, horns, etc.
Hence the most vigorous and healthy animals are also the most beautiful,
the most brilliantly coloured. And this correlation between healthful vigour
and beauty is still more strikingly shown in this, that “The colours of an
animal usually fade during disease or weakness, while robust health and
vigour adds to their intensity.... In all quadrupeds a ‘dull coat’ is indicative
of ill-health or low condition; while a glossy coat and sparkling eye are the
invariable accompaniments of health and energy. The same rule applies to
the feathers of birds, whose colours are only seen in their purity during
perfect health; and a similar phenomenon occurs even among insects, for
the bright hues of caterpillars begin to fade as soon as they become inactive
preparatory to their undergoing transformation. Even in the vegetable
kingdom we see the same thing: for the tints of foliage are deepest, and the
colours of flowers and fruits richest, on those plants which are in the most
healthy and vigorous condition.”
Add to all these considerations that “this intensity of coloration becomes
most developed during the breeding season, when the vitality is at a
maximum,” and we shall be prepared for Mr. Wallace’s summing up of his
case:—
“If now we accept the evidence of Mr. Darwin’s most trustworthy
correspondents, that the choice of the female, so far as she exerts any, falls
upon ‘the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male’; and if we further
believe, what is certainly the case, that these are as a rule the most highly-

coloured and adorned with the finest developments of plumage, we have a
real and not a hypothetical cause at work. For these most healthy, vigorous,
and beautiful males will have the choice of the finest and most healthy
females; and will be able best to protect and rear those families. Natural
Selection, and what may be termed Male Selection, will tend to give them
the advantage in the struggle for existence; and thus the fullest and the
finest colours will be transmitted, and tend to advance in each succeeding
generation.”
By this strong chain of reasoning (to which my brief >résumé of course
cannot do justice) Mr. Wallace shows that Darwin needlessly introduced the
principle of Sexual Selection into animal courtship; and at the same time
furnishes a new confirmation of Darwin’s compliment that he has “an
innate genius for solving difficulties.”
What makes Mr. Wallace’s argument the more cogent is the fact that
Darwin himself, in speaking of the lowest classes of animals, explains their
beauty on the same principles as those which Mr. Wallace applies to the
higher animals. Thus he says: “We can, in our ignorance of most of the
lowest animals, only say that their bright tints result either from the
chemical nature or the minute structure of their tissues, independently of
any benefit thus derived.” “It is almost certain that these animals have too
imperfect senses, and much too low mental powers, to appreciate each
other’s beauty or other attractions, or to feel rivalry.” “Nor is it at all
obvious how the offspring from the more beautiful pairs of hermaphrodites
would have any advantage over the offspring of the less beautiful, so as to
increase in number, unless indeed vigour and beauty generally coincided.”
And once more, “The sedentary annelids become duller-coloured, according
to M. Quatrefages, after the period of reproduction; and this I presume may
be attributed to their less vigorous condition at that time.”
So far we have only considered the origin of animal colours in general.
Mr. Wallace, however, has not only made clear the general connection
between beautiful and vivid colours and health, but, by utilising his own
researches and those of Mr. Bates and other naturalists, he has been able to
show to what a great extent we can explain even the particular colours of
the various classes of animals. He distinguishes four classes of animal
colours—Protective, Warning, Sexual, and Typical.
(1) Protective Colours.—These “are exceedingly prevalent in nature,
comprising those of all the white arctic animals, the sandy-coloured desert

forms, and the green birds and insects of tropical forests. It also comprises
thousands of cases of special resemblance—of birds to the surroundings of
their nests, and especially of insects to the bark, leaves, flowers, or soil on
or amid which they dwell. Mammalia, fishes, and reptiles, as well as
mollusca, present similar phenomena; and the more the habits of animals
are investigated, the more numerous are found to be the cases in which their
colours tend to conceal them, either from their enemies or from the
creatures they prey upon.”
(2) Warning Colours.—In this class, on the other hand, the object is not
to conceal the animal, but to make it conspicuous. Certain species of
gorgeously-coloured butterflies, e.g. are never eaten by birds, spiders,
lizards, or monkeys, who eagerly feed on other butterflies. “The reason
simply is that they are not fit to eat, their juices having a powerful odour
and taste that is absolutely disgusting to all these animals. Now we see the
reason of their showy colours and slow flight. It is good for them to be seen
and recognised, for then they are never molested; but if they did not differ
in form and colouring from other butterflies, or if they flew so quickly that
their peculiarities could not be easily noticed, they would be captured, and
though not eaten, would be maimed or killed.”
Mimicry is the name given to a second and still more marvellous class of
Warning Colours. They belong to defenceless creatures which so closely
resemble other brightly-coloured but nauseous or dangerous animals that
they are mistaken for the latter, and therefore left alone. E.G. “Wasps are
imitated by moths, and ants by beetles; and even poisonous snakes are
mimicked by harmless snakes, and dangerous hawks by defenceless
cuckoos.”
(3) Typically-coloured animals are those species which are brilliantly
coloured in both sexes, “and for whose particular colours we can assign no
function or use.” This group “comprises an immense number of showy
birds, such as Kingfishers, Barbets, Toucans, Lories, Tits, and Starlings;
among insects most of the largest and handsomest butterflies,” etc. “It is a
suggestive fact that all the brightly-coloured birds mentioned above build in
holes or form covered nests, so that the females do not need that protection
during the breeding season which I believe to be one of the chief causes of
the dull colour of female birds when their partners are gaily coloured.”
(4) Sexual Colours, comprising those cases in which the sexes differ, and
with which Darwin’s theory of Sexual Selection is directly concerned.

Through no direct fault of his own, Darwin leaves on his readers the
impression—which has become almost a commonplace of conversation—
that it is the general rule among animals for the males of each species to be
more ornamented than the females. The truth is, however, that “with the
exception of butterflies, the sexes are almost alike in the great majority of
insects. The same is the case in mammals and reptiles; while the chief
departure from the rule occurs in birds, though even here in very many
cases the law of sexual likeness prevails.”
The reason why I have devoted so much space to Mr. Wallace’s colour
theories is to emphasise the truth contained in this last sentence; the fact,
namely, that even if Sexual Selection were accepted as an active principle, it
would account in only a very limited number of cases for the personal
beauty of animals, and the reader of Mr. Wallace’s Tropical Nature and his
Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection cannot fail to be convinced
that Sexual Selection does not even hold good in this limited number of
cases, but that “the primary cause of sexual diversity of colour is the need
of protection, repressing in the female those bright colours which are
normally produced in both sexes by general laws.”
Incidentally Mr. Wallace mentions as an additional function of colour the
fact that it may serve as a means of recognition to the sexes. “This view
affords us an explanation of the curious fact that among butterflies the
females of closely-allied species in the same locality sometimes differ
considerably, while the males are much alike; for, as the males are the
swiftest, and by far the highest flyers, and seek out the females, it would
evidently be advantageous for them to be able to recognise their true
partners at some distance off.”
To me it seems that this function of colour is, next to Protection, its most
important object, and that Mr. Wallace does not give it sufficient
prominence. He says, in speaking of Typical Colours, that we can assign
“no function or use for them.” But why should they not serve the sexes as a
means of recognition at at a distance? especially as colours can be
recognised at a greater distance than forms. Many years before Darwin and
Mr. Wallace wrote on this subject, Schopenhauer’s genius anticipated this
view of the matter. “The extremely varied and vivid colours of the feathers
of tropical birds,” he wrote, “have been explained in a very general way,
with reference to their efficient cause, as due to the strong effect of the
tropical light. As their final cause I would suggest that these brilliant plumes

are the gala uniforms by means of which the species, which are so
numerous there and often belonging to the same genus, recognise each
other; so that every male finds his female. The same is true of the butterflies
of different zones and latitudes” (Welt als Wille u. V., ii. 381).
Schopenhauer of course errs in attributing, in his ignorance of Protective,
Warning, and other colours, all the hues of birds and butterflies to this
agency. But it is probable that whenever colours and other ornaments do not
serve for purposes of protection (as e.g. the lion’s mane and the horns of
beetles, vide Tropical Nature, p. 202), they serve the purpose of sexual
recognition of species. A case cited by Darwin to prove that quadrupeds
take notice of colour, is very suggestive in this connection: “A female zebra
would not admit the addresses of a male ass until he was painted so as to
resemble a zebra, and then, as John Hunter remarks, she received him very
readily.”
It is probable, therefore, that in many cases the unique spots and stripes
and colours of animals subserve the special use of facilitating the finding of
a partner; and in this way they relate directly to the courtship and Romantic
Love of animals. Thus we see how the Love affairs of animals may
indirectly affect their Personal Beauty in a way quite different from that
suggested by Darwin.

LOVE-CHARMS AND LOVE-CALLS

The same reasoning applies to the music of animals, vocal and
instrumental, on which Darwin lays great stress. In his opinion, the music of
some male animals serves to charm the females æsthetically, and thus gives
to the best musicians special advantages through Sexual Selection. But the
instances cited by him hardly warrant this conclusion, and seem rather to
point to the inference that the function of animal music is chiefly to
facilitate courtship, by making it easy for the females to discover the
whereabouts of a male of the same species. The evidence tends to show that
it is not the male whose voice is most mellow and melodious that catches
the female, but rather the one who is most vigorous and persistent and has
the loudest organ. As Jaques says in As You Like It: “Sing it: ’tis no matter
how it be in tune, so it make noise enough!”

Darwin himself quotes a naturalist’s statement, that “the stridulation
produced by some of the Locustidæ is so loud that it can be heard during the
night at the distance of a mile;” and such cases as “the drumming of the
snipe’s tail, the tapping of the woodpecker’s beak, the harsh, trumpetlike
cry of certain water-fowl,” though Darwin tries to dispose of them on the
ground of a difference in æsthetic taste, nevertheless incline one to the
belief that the music of the forest troubadours is not so much intended to
gratify the æsthetic taste of the female as to guide her to the spot where the
male awaits her; for, contrary to common opinion, it is the female in these
cases that searches for a male and not vice versâ. Montagu, for instance,
asserts that “males of song-birds and of many others do not in general
search for the female, but, on the contrary, their business in spring is to
perch on some conspicuous spot, breathing out their full and amorous notes,
which, by instinct, the female knows, and repairs to the spot to choose her
mate.” And Dr. Hartman, speaking of the American Cicada septemdecim,
says: “The drums are now heard in all directions. This I believe to be the
marital summons from the males. Standing in thick chestnut sprouts about
as high as my head, where hundreds were around me, I observed the
females coming around the drumming males.” And, says Darwin, “the spel
of the blackcock certainly serves as a call to the female, for it has been
known to bring four or five females from a distance to a male under
confinement; but as the blackcock continues his spel for hours during
successive days, and in the case of the capercailzie ‘with an agony of
passion,’ we are led to suppose that the females which are present are thus
charmed.”
There appears to be no direct evidence, however, that female birds are
more charmed by one male than another, and prefer him on account of his
superior song, as the theory of Sexual Selection postulates. And when we
remember that likewise there is no evidence that birds, etc., are ever
influenced in their choice by the superior colours of certain males, and that
in fact it is the rule for the female to follow passively the most vigorous and
victorious male, we are brought back to the conclusion with which we set
out—that it is not the superior songster who wins the female by charming
her, but the loudest and most persistent songster, by guiding her to the
courting-place.
Darwin himself evidently felt the weakness of his position, for he
constantly speaks of “love-charms or love-calls” in the same sentence.

Thus, “the true song of most birds and various strange cries are uttered
chiefly during the breeding-season, and serve as a charm, or merely as a
call-note, to the other sex.” Again: “It is often difficult to conjecture
whether the many strange cries and notes uttered by male birds during the
breeding-season serve as a charm or merely as a call to the female.” The
distinction between love “charms” and mere “calls” is of course of the
utmost importance. For if male song charms the females and influences
them in their choice, we have Sexual-æsthetic-female Selection. But if the
male song merely serves as a call to the female and as a sign of species-
recognition, then Natural Selection accounts for everything, because the
most vigorous, loudest, and most persistent male will have the choice of the
most numerous females brought to his side by his musical efforts.

LOVE-DANCES AND DISPLAY

There is one more important link in the chain of Darwin’s reasoning,
which must be broken before his theory of Sexual Selection can be regarded
as demolished. The mad antics of the blackcock and other birds have been
already referred to; and some of the lower animals seem to endeavour to
surpass them, as, for example, the male alligator, who strives to attract the
attention of the female by splashing and roaring in the water; “swollen to an
extent ready to burst, with its head and tail lifted up, he spins or twirls
round on the surface of the water, like an Indian chief rehearsing his feats of
war.” “To suppose,” says Darwin, “that the females do not appreciate the
beauty of the males, is to admit that their splendid decorations, all their
pomp and display, are useless; and this is incredible.”
But are there no other ways of accounting for all this “pomp and
display”? Certainly, several of them. We have seen that the most vigorous
males are those which are most highly ornamented, and that it is the vigour
and vivacity of the males that seems to decide the choice of the females
where there is any. Now instinct, i.e. inherited experience, teaches the
female the connection between vigour and display of ornament, and
influences her choice accordingly. Again, the males indulge in their display
for the purpose of arousing the attention of the passive female. This
supposition is rendered the more probable by Darwin’s admission that “we

must be cautious in concluding that the wings are spread out solely for
display, as some birds do so whose wings are not beautiful.”
A third motive of display is the need of finding an outlet for overflowing
nervous energy and excitement. To this Mr. Wallace refers as follows: “At
pairing time the male is in a state of excitement and full of exuberant
energy. Even unornamented birds flutter their wings or spread them out,
erect their tails or crests, and thus give vent to the nervous excitability with
which they are overcharged.” “It is not improbable,” he continues,—and
this suggests a fourth use of display—"that crests and other erectile feathers
may be primarily of use in frightening away enemies, since they are
generally erected when angry or during combat."
A fifth motive of display is suggested by an analogy furnished by human
butterflies and birds of Paradise. Among animals where the sexes differ, it is
commonly the male who is adorned the most. With us it is the women. But
woman’s fineries are not intended to charm the eyes of men, but to excite
one another’s rivalry and envy. Now it seems that male birds, with whose
plumes our heartless women are so fond of decking themselves, are guilty
of an analogous weakness. They will sometimes display their ornaments,
says Darwin, “when not in the presence of the females, as occasionally
occurs with grouse at their holy places, and as may be noticed with the
peacock; this latter bird, however, evidently wishes for a spectator of some
kind, and, as I have often seen, will show off his finery before poultry or
even pigs. All naturalists who have closely attended to the habits of birds,
whether in a state of nature or under confinement, are unanimously of
opinion that the males take delight in displaying their beauty.” And, once
more, “with birds of Paradise a dozen or more full-plumaged males
congregate in a tree to hold a dancing-party, as it is called by the natives;
and here they fly about, raise their wings, elevate their exquisite plumes,
and make them vibrate; and the whole tree seems, as Mr. Wallace remarks,
to be filled with waving plumes.”
But if it be the unanimous opinion of naturalists who have closely studied
the habits of birds, “that the males take delight in displaying their beauty,”
why should not the females also take pleasure in witnessing this display?
Perhaps they do, sometimes; for even Mr. Wallace admits that “the display
of the various ornamental appendages of the male during courtship may be
attractive” to the female. But there is a world-wide difference between this
assertion and the doctrine that the females are so greatly and so constantly

influenced by their æsthetic taste that they always prefer among males those
that are slightly more beautiful than the others, thus increasing their
personal beauty by transmission. This is an assumption unsupported by
facts, and rendered unnecessary because Natural Selection accounts for all
the phenomena in question.
Admiration of Personal Beauty does not appear, therefore, to enter
noticeably into animal love, except in so far as a slight amount of æsthetic
taste may be admitted in birds. This taste may be strengthened by the sight
of the brilliant masculine ornaments during the season of love being
associated with the remembered pleasures of courtship.
Indirectly, however, female animals promote the cause of beauty by
preferring the more healthy and vigorous individuals, who are commonly
also the most beautiful ones. And is not the same true of females of the
human persuasion, who likewise are much less influenced in their choice by
the beauty than by the boldness, energy, vivacity, and “manliness” of their
suitors? It seems to hold true throughout nature that the female’s Love is
weak in the æsthetic element, her taste being little developed and too often
neutralised by unconscious utilitarian considerations.

LOVE AMONG SAVAGES

STRANGERS TO LOVE

In passing from animals to human beings we find at first not only no
advance in the sexual relations, but a decided retrogression. Among some
species of birds, courtship and marriage are infinitely more refined and
noble than among the lowest savages; and it is especially in their treatment
of females, both before and after mating, that not only birds but all animals
show an immense superiority over primitive man; for male animals only
fight among themselves, and never maltreat the females.
This anomaly is easily explained. The intellectual power and emotional
horizon of animals are limited; but in those directions in which Natural
Selection has made them specialists, they reach a high degree of
development, because inherited experience tends to give to their actions an
instinctive or quasi-instinctive precision and certainty. Among primitive
men, on the other hand, reason begins to encroach more on instinct, but yet
in such a feeble way as to make constant blunders inevitable: thus proving
that strong instincts, combined with a limited intellectual plasticity, are a
safer guide in life than a more plastic but weak intellect minus the
assistance of stereotyped instincts.
If neither intellect nor instinct guide the primitive man to well-regulated
marital relations, such as we find among many animals, so again his
emotional life is too crude and limited to allow any scope for the domestic
affections. Inasmuch as, according to Sir John Lubbock, gratitude, mercy,
pity, chastity, forgiveness, humility, are ideas or feelings unknown to many
or most savage tribes, we should naturally expect that such a highly-
compounded and ethereal feeling as Romantic Love could not exist among
them. How could Love dwell in the heart of a savage who baits a fish-hook
with the flesh of a child; who eats his wife when she has lost her beauty and
the muscular power which enabled her to do all his hard work; who

abandons his aged parents, or kills them, and whose greatest delight in life
is to kill an enemy slowly amid the most diabolic tortures?
Or how could a primitive girl love a man whose courtship consists in
knocking her on the head and carrying her forcibly from her own to his
tribe? A man who, after a very brief period of caresses, neglects her, takes
perhaps another and younger wife, and reduces the first one to the condition
of a slave, refusing to let her eat at his table, throwing her bones and
remains, as to a dog, or even driving her away and killing her, if she
displeases him? These are extreme cases, but they are not rare; and in a
slightly modified form they are found throughout savagedom.
That Love is a sentiment unknown to savages has been frequently noted
in the works of anthropologists and tourists. When Ploss remarks that the
lowest savages “know as little of marriage relations as animals; still less do
they know the feeling we call Love,” he does a great injustice to animals, as
those who have read the preceding chapter must admit. Letourneau, in his
Sociologie, remarks: “Among the Cafres Cousas, according to Lichtenstein,
the sentiment of love does not constitute a part of marriage. ‘The idea of
love, as we understand it,’ says Du Chaillu, in speaking of a tribe of the
Gabon, ‘appears to be unknown to this tribe.’” Monteiro, speaking of the
polygamous tribes of Africa, says: “The negro knows not love, affection, or
jealousy.... In all the long years I have been in Africa I have never seen a
negro manifest the least tenderness for or to a negress.... I have never seen a
negro put his arm round a woman’s waist, or give or receive any caress
whatever that would indicate the slightest loving regard or affection on
either side. They have no words or expressions in their language indicative
of affection or love.”
Mr. Spencer, in commenting on this passage, remarks that “This
testimony harmonises with testimonies cited by Sir John Lubbock, to the
effect that the Hottentots ‘are so cold and indifferent to one another that you
would think there was no such thing as love between them’; that among the
Koussa Kaffirs there is ‘no feeling of love in marriage’; and that in Yariba,
‘a man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn—
affection is altogether out of the question.’”
Mr. Winwood Reade, on the other hand, informed Darwin that the West
Africans “are quite capable of falling in love, and of forming tender,
passionate, and faithful attachments.” And the anthropologist Waitz,
speaking of Polynesia, says that “examples of real passionate love are not

rare, and on the Fiji Islands it has happened that individuals married against
their will have committed suicide; although this has only happened in the
higher classes.” Unfortunately in these cases we are left in doubt as to
whether the reference is to Conjugal or to Romantic Love; conjugal
attachment, being of earlier growth than Romantic Love, because the
development of the latter was retarded by the limited opportunities for
prolonged Courtship and free Choice.

PRIMITIVE COURTSHIP

In his anxiety to find cases of Romantic Love among North American
and other primitive peoples, Waitz is obliged to fall back on legends of
Lovers’ Leaps and Maiden Rocks, and on a poem about a South American
maiden who committed suicide on her lover’s grave to avoid falling into the
hands of the Spaniards. Legends and poems, unfortunately, do not count for
much as scientific evidence. At the same time, it would doubtless be
incorrect to assert on the strength of some of the authorities just quoted that
Love does not exist at all among savages, and therefore to make the chapter
on Love among Savages as brief as that chapter on Snakes in Ireland. We
shall find, on the contrary, that several of Love’s “overtones” are
occasionally present; and that though full-fledged cupids may never appear
with their poisoned arrows, mischievous amourettes sometimes do flit
across the field of vision. For the goddess of Love is ever watchful of an
opportunity for one of her emissaries to bag some game.
Romantic Love is dependent on opportunities for Courtship. Among
savages and semi-civilised nations we find three grades of Courtship—
Capture, Purchase, and Service. These must be briefly examined in turn.
(1) Capture.—One of the most curious features of savage life is the
widely-prevalent custom called by M‘Lennan Exogamy, or marrying out.
This custom compels a man who wishes a wife of his own to steal or
purchase her of another tribe, private marriage within his own tribe being
considered criminal and even punishable with death. To this rule of
Exogamy Sir John Lubbock traces the origin of Monogamy. In his view
women were at first, like other kinds of property, held in common by the
tribe, any man being any woman’s husband ad libitum. No man could
therefore claim a woman for himself without infringing on the rights of

others. But if he stole a woman from another tribe, she became his
exclusive property, which he had a right to guard jealously, and to look
upon with the Pride of Conquest—a pride, however, quite distinct from that
which intoxicates a civilised lover when he finds, or fondly imagines, that
his goddess has chosen him among all his rivals. The primitive man’s pride
is more like that of the warrior who wears a large number of scalps in his
belt; and as in his case marriage immediately follows Capture, this feeling,
moreover, belongs more properly to the sphere of conjugal sentiment than
to that of Love.
This primitive form of courtship, it is obvious, is very much ruder than
that which prevails in the animal kingdom, where the males alone maltreat
one another, while in this early human courtship the woman, if she resists,
is simply knocked on the head, and her senseless body carried off to the
captor’s tent. Diefenbach relates concerning the Polynesians that “if a girl
was courted by two suitors, each of them grasped one arm of the beloved
and pulled her toward him; the stronger one got her, but in some cases not
before her limbs had been pulled out of joint.” And Waitz says that “the
girls were commonly abducted by force, which led frequently to most
violent fights, in which the girl herself was occasionally wounded, or even
killed, to prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy.”
Mr. E. B. Tylor, after stating that marriage by Capture may be seen at the
present day among the fierce forest tribes of Brazil, continues: “Ancient
tradition knows this practice well, as where the men of Benjamin carry off
the daughters of Shiloh dancing at the feast, and in the famous Roman tale
of the rape of the Sabines, a legend putting in historical form the wife-
capture which in Roman custom remained as a ceremony. What most
clearly shows what a recognised old-world custom it was, is its being thus
kept up as a formality where milder manners really prevailed. It had passed
into this state among the Spartans, when Plutarch says that though the
marriage was really by friendly settlement between the families, the
bridegroom’s friends went through the pretence of carrying off the bride by
violence. Within a few generations the same old habit was kept up in Wales,
where the bridegroom and his friends, mounted and armed as for war,
carried off the bride; and in Ireland they used even to hurl spears at the
bride’s people, though at such a distance that no one was hurt, except now
and then by accident, as happened when one Lord Howth lost an eye, which
mischance seems to have put an end to this curious relic of antiquity.”

Moreover, we are told that “in our own marriages the ‘best man’ seems
originally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of
capture.”
In a modified form “wife-capture” cannot be said to be extinct even in
this advanced age. Elopement is the modern name for it When the parents
dissent and the couple are very young, this climax of courtship doubtless is
often reprehensible. But in those cases where the consent of all parties has
been obtained, it ought to be universally adopted. Sudden flight and an
impromptu marriage would add much to the romance of the honeymoon,
and would enable the bridal couple to avoid the terrors and stupid
formalities of the wedding-day, the anticipation of which is doubtless
responsible for the ever-increasing number of cowardly bachelors in the
world.
(2) Purchase represents a somewhat higher stage of Courtship than
Capture. Like Capture this custom has existed among the peoples of the five
continents, and is still retained in some parts of Africa and elsewhere. In
Holstein, Germany, it prevailed in all its purity, according to Ploss, till the
end of the fifteenth century. Nor would it be doing facts great violence to
class our frequent money-marriages under this head.
There are two grades of the custom of Purchase. In the first the girl has
no choice whatever, but is sold by her father for so many cows or camels, in
some cases to the highest bidder. Among the Turcomans a wife may be
purchased for five camels if she be a girl, or for fifty if a widow; whereas
among the Tunguse a girl costs one to twenty reindeer, while widows are
considerably cheaper. In the second class of cases the purchased girl is
allowed a certain degree of liberty of choice, as we shall see directly, under
the head of Individual Preference.
(3) Service.—On the custom of securing a wife by means of services
rendered her parents, Mr. Spencer remarks: “The practice which Hebrew
tradition acquaints us with in the case of Jacob, proves to be a widely-
diffused practice. It is general with the Bhils, Ghonds, and Hill tribes of
Nepaul; it obtained in Java before Mahometanism was introduced; it was
common in ancient Peru and Central America; and among sundry existing
American races it still occurs. Obviously, a wife long laboured for is likely
to be more valued than one stolen or bought. Obviously, too, the period of
service, during which the betrothed girl is looked upon as a future spouse,
affords room for the growth of some feeling higher than the merely

instinctive—initiates something approaching to the courtship and
engagement of civilised peoples.”

INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE

All the cases thus far referred to relate to what might be called indirect or
mediate courtship. When a girl is captured and knocked on the head she can
hardly be said to be courted and consulted as to her wishes; and the man
too, in such cases, owing to the dangers of the sport, is apt to pay no great
attention to a woman’s looks and accomplishments, but to bag the first one
that comes along. In courtship by Purchase, again, the girl is rarely
consulted as to her own preferences, the addresses being paid to the father,
who invariably selects the wealthiest of the suitors, and only in rare cases
allows the daughter a choice, as among the Kaffirs if the suitors happen to
be equally well off. And thirdly, in courtship by Service, the suitor’s work is
not done to please the daughter, but to recompense the parents for losing
her.
Yet there appear to be some instances of real courtship, in the modern
sense of the word, among the lower races, where the lovers pay their
addresses directly to the girl and she chooses or rejects at will. Thus, among
the Orang-Sakai, on the Malayan peninsula, the following custom prevails,
as described by Ploss: “On the wedding-day, the bride, in presence of her
relatives, and those of her lover, and many other witnesses, is obliged to run
into the forest. After a fixed interval the bridegroom follows and seeks to
catch her. If he succeeds in capturing the bride she becomes his wife,
otherwise he is compelled to renounce her for ever. If therefore a girl
dislikes her suitor, she can easily escape from him and hide in the forest
until the time allowed for his pursuit has expired.”
Darwin remarks, in trying to prove the existence of Sexual Selection
among the lower races, that “in utterly barbarous tribes the women have
more power in choosing, rejecting, and tempting their lovers, or of
afterwards changing their husbands, than might have been expected;” and
he cites the following cases, among others: “Amongst the Abipones, a man
on choosing a wife, bargains with the parents about the price. But ‘it
frequently happens that the girl rescinds what has been agreed upon
between the parents and the bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very

mention of marriage.’ She often runs away, hides herself, and thus eludes
the bridegroom. Captain Musters, who lived with the Patagonians, says that
their marriages are always settled by inclination; ‘if the parents make a
match contrary to the daughter’s will, she refuses, and is never compelled to
comply.’ In Tierra del Fuego a young man first obtains the consent of the
parents by doing them some service, and then he attempts to carry off the
girl; ‘but if she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods until her admirer
is heartily tired of looking for her, and gives up the pursuit; but this seldom
happens.’”

PERSONAL BEAUTY AND SEXUAL SELECTION

Evidence proving that primitive women are influenced in their choice of
a mate by æsthetic considerations appears to be almost as scant as among
animals. Darwin, however, tries to prove that men owe their beards to
sexual or female selection; and the following more general instances may
be cited for what they are worth: Azara “describes how carefully a Guana
woman bargains for all sorts of privileges before accepting some one or
more husbands; and the men in consequence take unusual care of their
personal appearance.” Among the Kaffirs “very ugly, though rich men, have
been known to fail in getting wives. The girls, before consenting to be
betrothed, compel the men to show themselves off first in front and then
behind, and ‘exhibit their paces.’”
In general, however, it seems that the women choose, not the handsomest
men, but those whose boldness, pugnacity, and virility promise them the
surest protection against enemies, and general domestic delights. Thus, we
read that “before he is allowed to marry, a young Dyack must prove his
bravery by bringing back the head of an enemy;” and that when the
Apaches warriors return unsuccessful, “the women turn away from them
with assured indifference and contempt. They are upbraided as cowards, or
for want of skill and tact, and are told that such men should not have
wives.”
It must be remembered, however, that (as we have seen in the case of
plants and animals) the greatest amount of health, vigour, and courage
generally coincide with the greatest physical beauty; hence the continued
preference of the most energetic and lusty men by the superior women who

have a choice, has naturally tended to evolve a superior type of manly
beauty.
In the case of men it seems much more probable that they frequently
select their wives in accordance with an æsthetic standard. The chiefs of
almost every tribe throughout the world have more than one wife; and Mr.
Mantell informed Darwin that until recently almost every girl in New
Zealand who was pretty, or promised to be pretty, was tapu to some chief;
while among the Kaffirs, according to Mr. C. Hamilton, “the chiefs
generally have the pick of the women for many miles round, and are most
persevering in establishing or confirming their privilege.” In the lower
tribes, where “communal marriage” and marriage by Capture alone prevail,
æsthetic choice is of course out of the question, and cannot make its
appearance till we come to less pugnacious tribes, such as the Dyacks,
whose children “have the freedom implied by regular courtship,” or the
Samoans, whose children “have the degree of independence implied by
elopements when they cannot obtain parental assent to their marriage”
(Spencer).
In general, however, among the lower races, Sexual or æsthetic Selection
leads to sorry results, owing to the bad taste of the selectors. The standard
of primitive taste is not harmonious proportion and capacity for expression,
but Exaggeration. The negro woman has naturally thicker lips, more
prominent cheek-bones, and a flatter nose than a white woman; and in
selecting a mate, preference is commonly given to the one whose lips are
thickest, nose most flattened, and cheek-bones most prominent: thus
producing gradually that monster of ugliness—the average negro woman.
What right we have to set ourselves up as judges, and claim that our taste is
superior to the negro’s, is a question which will be discussed in a
subsequent section of this treatise.
One other point, however, may be referred to here, namely, that although
the æsthetic overtone of Love—the Admiration of Personal Beauty—may
enter into a savage’s amorous feelings, it is only the sensuous aspect of it
that affects him, the intellectual and moral sides being unknown to him. His
admiration is purely physical. He marries his chosen bride when she is a
mere child, and before the slightest spark of mental charm can illumine her
features and impart to them a superior beauty; and subsequently, when
experience has somewhat sharpened her intellectual powers, hard labour
has already destroyed all traces of her physical beauty so that the

combination of physical and mental charms which alone can inspire the
highest form of Love is never to be found in primitive woman.

JEALOUSY AND POLYGAMY

The moral mission of Jealousy, as stated on a preceding page, is, by
means of watchfulness and the inspiring of fear, to ensure fidelity and
chastity. Darwin says that from the strength of the feeling of jealousy all
through the animal kingdom, as well as from the analogy of the lower
animals, especially those which come nearest to man, he “cannot believe
that absolutely promiscuous intercourse prevailed in times past, shortly
before man attained to his present rank in the zoological scale.” This may
be true, yet it is astonishing to find how many of the lower tribes are utterly
unconcerned regarding the morals both of married and unmarried women. A
vast number of cases illustrating this absence of jealousy are collected in
Waitz’s Anthropology, Spencer’s Sociology, the works of Lubbock, and
especially in Ploss’s Das Weib, i. 205-214. In some cases girls are allowed
to do as they please until after marriage, when they are jealously guarded;
in other cases the reverse is true. In some parts of Africa a breach of faith on
the wife’s part is regarded as an attack not on the husband’s honour but on
his property; hence a pecuniary compensation is all that is required.
Lubbock enumerates a large number of races among whom the lending of a
wife or daughter is a common and obligatory form of hospitality. And the
Chibchas of South America went so far in their indifference to virginity that
they considered a virgin bride to be unfortunate, “as she had not inspired
affection in men.”
Jealousy for the possession of a woman, however, was much sooner
developed than jealous regard for her conduct. The statement of Sir John
Lubbock about the men of an Indian tribe, that they “fight for the
possession of the women, just like stags,” and similar statements regarding
other savages, imply that, just like stags, these men feel the pangs of
primitive Jealousy.
Among polygamous nations the women, too, often fight for the men,
whose favourites in their absence are apt to suffer much at the hands of
jealous rivals. It is among the polygamous semi-civilised nations in general
that Jealousy asserts itself in the most shrill and dissonant manner. It is not

that bitter-sweet romantic Jealousy which by its constant fluctuations
between hope and doubt fans a modern lover’s passion into brighter flames;
it is a more vicious kind of conjugal Jealousy which destroys domestic
peace and plots the ruin of rivals. In Madagascar, Mr. Spencer tells us, “the
name for Polygyny—‘fampovafesana’—signifies ‘the means of causing
enmity’”; and that kindred names are commonly applicable to it we are
shown by their use among the Hebrews: in the Mishna a man’s several
wives are called ‘tzârot,’ that is, troubles, adversaries, or rivals. In modern
Persia, where polygamy prevails, the same state of affairs is encountered.
Says Ploss: “If there are several women in the house, each one inhabits a
separate division; in the houses of the wealthy each wife, moreover, has her
own servants. Constantly apprehending evil intentions, no woman touches
the dishes of a rival.”
It is among the polygamous nations of the East, too, that history records
such a profusion of bloody wars of succession waged by half-brothers; for
how could fraternal or any other kind of domestic affection flourish in
families where the mothers are constantly goaded by Jealousy into deadly
hatred of one another?

MONOPOLY AND MONOGAMY

The United States being a “free country,” its government has sometimes
been blamed by “freethinkers” for attempting to repress Mormon
Polygamy. But a free country is not one in which social experiments
injurious to public welfare are to be necessarily allowed. Readers of history
and anthropology know that polygamy is an experiment which has been
tried so often with disastrous social results, that it may be looked upon
safely as criminal and treated accordingly. Even the forcible argument of
that spiteful old pessimist, Schopenhauer, that polygamy should be
introduced because it would rid the world of old maids, does not save the
institution; since it is well—for the prospects of Beauty, at any rate—that
some women should be “eliminated” in the form of old maids.
Among the causes which tended to make polygamy the commonest form
of marriage among savages, four may be briefly enumerated: (1) The
constant wars among the tribes decimated the men, leaving a larger
proportion of women than men, although this was to some extent

neutralised by the habit of female infanticide, which the women indulged in
to make themselves more cherished through scarcity and, possibly, to
preserve their beauty; (2) The women being commonly secured as booty in
war, it was naturally looked on as an honour and a sign of valour to have
more than one wife; (3) Women being regarded and treated as slaves, the
more a man had of them the more they could, by their combined labour,
increase his wealth and influence in the tribe; (4) The rapid decay of the
youthful beauty of primitive woman, naturally inclined her husband, whose
affection was solely based on those physical charms, to add a second or
third, younger woman to his harem.
As woman’s position improved with advancing civilisation, these
influences favouring polygamy were gradually weakened; and as in treating
of Love among Animals, we found the most remarkable instances of
affection—conjugal and romantic—among birds, who are mostly
monogamous; so, among the lower races of man, monogamy is commonly a
sign of superior culture and higher development of the affections. And this
might have been foreseen a priori, inasmuch as monogamy is the only
marital relation compatible with that Monopoly of affection which is one of
the conditions of Romantic Love. How could a man feel an exclusive
amorous interest in his bride, knowing that in a few months or years another
would come to claim half his interest? or how could the bride concentrate
all her Love on a man of whom she knew that he could give her only half or
a smaller fraction of his affection?
A similar view is taken by Mr. Spencer. Monogamic unions, he says,
“tend in no small degree indirectly to raise the quality of adult life, by
giving a permanent and deep source of æsthetic interest. On recalling the
many and keen pleasures derived from music, poetry, fiction, the drama,
etc.; and on remembering that their predominant theme is the passion of
love, we shall see that to monogamy, which has developed this passion, we
owe a large part of the gratifications which fill our leisure hours.”

PRIMITIVE COYNESS

Among the Samoiedes, says Klemm, “a man purchases a wife for a
number of reindeer, varying from five to twenty; the bride, as is the case
also in Greenland, struggles violently against leaving the paternal house,

and commonly she has to be caught forcibly and bound on the bridegroom’s
sledge.” In some of the Bedouin tribes the destined bride runs from tent to
tent to escape being brought to the bridegroom. When an Esquimaux girl is
asked in marriage, says Kranz (quoted by Mr. Spencer), she “directly falls
into the greatest apparent consternation and runs out of doors, tearing her
bunch of hair; for single women always affect the utmost bashfulness and
aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they should lose their reputation
for modesty.” So among the Bushmen a lover’s attentions “are received
with an affectation of great alarm and disinclination on her part”; while an
Arab bride “defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the
young men, even though she does not dislike the lover; for according to
custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she
is applauded ever after by her own companions.”
Obviously these glacier, forest, and desert belles have a somewhat cruder
way than our city belles of hiding their feelings.
Mr. Spencer refers to the Coyness of these maidens as one motive or
cause of wife-capture, but he does not inquire into the origin of Coyness
itself, which is a much more interesting point in the psychology of Love.
The fear “lest they should lose their reputation for modesty,” mentioned
above, is the most obvious cause of this exaggerated resistance, as it is of
the excessive prudishness often encountered in some European civilised
countries of to-day. Again, the sight of the harsh treatment to which her
married sisters or friends are subjected, would make the primitive bride
naturally averse to exchange her maiden freedom for conjugal slavery.
It seems, however, that in most cases, the Coyness is less real than
simulated; and for this form of Coyness—reversing Mr. Spencer’s
reasoning—we may say that Exogamy, or Capture, is responsible. For since
Capture implies courage and valour on the part of the husband, it may have
been to secure the “prestige of a foreign marriage”—as fashionable
novelists would say—that the form of Capture was imitated in cases where
there was no opposition, either on the part of the girl or her parents.
Another explanation of sham Coyness is afforded by the following case:
Among the inhabitants of the Volga region, in Russia, the bride is
occasionally captured and carried off, though here too there is no opposition
on her part or from her parents. The cause of this procedure is the desire to
avoid the expenses of the marriage ceremony, which in that region are out
of all proportion to the means of the lower classes.

Finally it may be suggested that Coyness, so far as it really exists in the
primitive maiden, owes its origin to the instinctive perception that the men
value them more if they do not throw themselves into their arms on the first
impulse. And more than anything else, this attitude of reserve feeds the
flames of Romantic Love by transferring its delights and pangs to the
imagination.
Yet, after all, manifestations of Coyness must be the exception and not
the rule in the lower races, inasmuch as in the vast majority of cases, where
no choice is allowed the bride, there is little or no opportunity for the
exercise of such a trait.
Of Gallantry I have not succeeded in discovering any traces in the
records of savage life, except possibly in the case of the natives of
Kamtchatka, where the wooer has to go into service for his bride, and
during this time endeavours constantly to lighten her labours and make
himself agreeable to her. So far as Gallantry occurs, it is more likely to be a
feminine trait—as among one of the North American Indian tribes, where
the maiden cooks her suitor’s game, and sends him back the best morsels
with presents; or as with another tribe, the Osages, where the maidens pay
court to the warriors by offering them ears of corn.
As for the remaining characters of Romantic Love, which require a vivid
imagination and persistent emotions for their realisation, it would be useless
to look for them in Savagedom—except perhaps in those infinitesimal
proportions in which various chemical substances are found by analysts in
mineral waters. The following may be offered as an approximate list of the
ingredients in the Love of savage and semi-civilised peoples:—
Selfishness 25·7684
Inconstancy 20·3701
Jealousy 0 to 20·7904
Coyness ” 10·5523
Individual Preference ” 5·0073
Personal Beauty ” 5·7002
Monopoly ” 7·3024
Pride of Possession 4·5082
Sympathy 0·0000
Gallantry 0·0006

Self-Sacrifice Traces
Ecstatic Adoration ”
Mixed Emotions ”

CAN AMERICAN NEGROES LOVE?

It is a very interesting question how far the negroes transplanted to
America, who have adopted so many of the habits and ways of thinking of
their white neighbours, are capable of forming a true romantic attachment,
characterised by the various traits described in this work. I have not been
able to find any conclusive evidence on this head; and should any readers of
this book positively know any cases, I should be greatly obliged if they
would forward a detailed account of them to me, in care of the publisher.
As regards a negro’s capacity for falling in Love with a white woman, the
following interesting communication[1] appeared in the New York Nation,
12th February 1885: “In corroboration of ‘Bill Arp’s’ view, referred to in
No. 1020 of the Nation, that negroes, as a race, do not desire to ‘mix’ with
the white race, I may cite a remark recently made by a negro carpenter to a
friend of mine. The latter said to him, as a village belle passed them on the
street, ‘Charles, don’t you think that’s a very handsome young lady?’ ‘I
reckon so,’ he answered doubtfully, and immediately added, ‘Fact is, boss,
us coloured folks don’t think white ladies handsome; we like ’em coloured
the best.’
“Had it been otherwise there would, doubtless, have been innumerable
instances, in the North as well as at the South, of love-longings on the part
of negro men toward girls of the dominant race. Yet during all the years I
have spent in the Southern States, I never knew or heard of any instances of
this kind, and their exceptional character in the North must be known to all
your readers. The hopelessness of such attachments would, of course,
diminish their number; but fancy is always free, and ‘hopeless attachments’
among members of the same race are as common now as when Petrarch
sighed for Laura, and Tasso wrote ‘The throne of Cupid has an easy stair,’
himself having climbed it uninspired by hope. The existence of many
persons of mixed blood throughout the country affords no proof that the two
races feel toward each other the attraction of love; for the fathers, in these

cases, are almost invariably white, and the offspring cannot be called ‘love-
children,’ but the fruit of mere passion linked with opportunity.”

1. Signed Sue Harry Clagett.

HISTORY OF LOVE

It would be a profitless task to hunt for the first traces of the various
elements of Love in the records of all the nations of antiquity; for we meet
almost everywhere with the same old story of Romantic Love impeded in
its growth or its very existence by the degraded position of women, and by
the absence of opportunities for courtship, and for free matrimonial choice.
A few remarks, however, must be made concerning Love among the ancient
Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and our Aryan kinsfolk in India,
before passing on to Mediæval and Modern Love.

LOVE IN EGYPT

Dr. Georg Ebers, the Leipzig professor, and author of the popular series
of historic Egyptian novels, remarks that “if it is true that a nation’s degree
of culture can be estimated by the more or less favourable position accorded
its women, then Egyptian culture ranks above that of all other ancient
peoples.”
The women of ancient Egypt were not kept in seclusion like those of
Greece. They did their own marketing, and had other domestic and public
liberties and privileges which astonished the Greek historian Herodotus,
who also mentions that although polygamy was tolerated among them,
monogamy was the rule. Inasmuch as the Egyptians had an advanced

culture, invented many arts, promoted the sciences, and were industrial
rather than militant in their occupations, it is possible that several of the
more refined elements of Romantic Love may have existed among them;
for just as we have seen that some animals have higher notions of love,
conjugal and romantic, than some savages, although the latter represent a
later stage of evolution, so it seems probable that among the nations of
antiquity Love did not progress steadily, year by year; but that some nations
had more and some less of it; while the acquisitions of one period may have
been lost in evil and corrupt times following, as was certainly the case in
India.
Since we have no such extensive literature of Egypt as we have of the
Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews, it is not easy to arrive at definite
conclusions. But the Egyptian custom of forming “trial marriages” for one
year, and the ease with which a husband could divorce and expel his wife
by simply pronouncing three words in her presence do not harmonise with
our modern notions of Love. How scornfully a modern Romeo would reject
the very notion of such a trial-marriage! for does he not feel absolutely
certain that his Love is eternal and unalterable?
The institution of trial-marriages seems to point to the conclusion that the
Egyptians, like the Greeks, looked upon marriage primarily as a means of
augmenting the family and the state, and not as a union of loving souls—
children or no children—which is the modern ideal.
Professor Ebers of course has a right to make use of a poetic license in
painting the Love affairs of his Egyptian heroes and heroines in modern
colours, as Shakspere does in Antony and Cleopatra. At the same time it
would give an added flavour to historic romances if their pictures of
domestic and public life were characterised by emotional realism as well as
by general antiquarian accuracy. The elaborate analysis of Love, for the first
time attempted in the present monograph, should facilitate this task for
novelists.

ANCIENT HEBREW LOVE

It is almost startling to find, on consulting a Concordance of the Old and
New Testaments, that in the whole of the Bible there is not a single
reference to Romantic Love. Had this sentiment existed among the ancient
Hebrews as it does among their descendants to-day, it is obvious that it
could not possibly have been ignored in the Book of Books, which so
eloquently and poetically discourses of everything else that is of vital
interest to man. Conjugal Love (which apparently antedates Romantic Love
in every nation) is indeed repeatedly referred to and enjoined, as well as the
other family affections; but in the remaining cases the word Love is always
used in the sense of religious veneration, or of regard for a neighbour or an
enemy.
This absence of any reference to Romantic Love is all the more
surprising in view of the fact that among the ancient Hebrews woman was
held more in honour than with any other Oriental nation, ancient or modern.
Thus we are told in M‘Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia of Biblical etc.
Literature, that “the seclusion of the harem and the habits consequent upon
it were utterly unknown in early times, and the condition of the Oriental
woman, as pictured to us in the Bible, contrasts most favourably with that
of her modern representative. There is abundant evidence that women,
whether married or unmarried, went about with their faces unveiled. An
unmarried woman might meet and converse with men, even strangers, in a
public place; she might be found alone in the country without any reflection
on her character; or she might appear in a court of justice.” The wife
“entertained guests at her own desire in the absence of her husband, and
sometimes even in defiance of his wishes.”
Since, therefore, the Hebrew woman was not “the husband’s slave but his
companion,” how are we to account for the absence of Love?
Some light is thrown on the matter by the prevalence of polygamy,
which, as we have seen, is inimical to the growth of Love. Polygamy,
though not universal, was sanctioned by the Mosaic law, except in the case
of priests. “The secondary wife was regarded by the Hebrews as a wife, and
her rights were secured by law.” In the cases of Abraham and Jacob,
polygamy was resorted to at the request of their own wives, “under the idea
that children born to a slave were in the eye of the law the children of the
mistress.” Now if a woman advises her own husband to take another wife,
there must be a total absence of Jealousy and Monopoly—the two elements

of Romantic Love which pass into conjugal affection without diminution of
force.
Again, although Hebrew women are said to have had considerable liberty
of going about alone in town and country, this probably refers in most cases
to the privilege of tending sheep and of fetching water at the well. “From all
education in general,” says Ploss, “as well as from social intercourse with
men, woman was excluded; her destination being simply to increase the
number of children, and take care of household matters. She lived a quiet
life, merely for her husband, who, indeed, treated her with respect and
consideration, but without feeling any special tenderness toward her.”
It is the line which I have italicised in the above quotation that suggests
the principal reason of the non-existence of Love in Biblical times: There
were no meetings of the young, no opportunities for Courtship, the
indispensable condition of Love, which requires time and opportunity for its
growth. And not only were there no regular opportunities for Courtship, but
if they offered themselves casually, the young folks could not derive much
benefit, from them; for not only the daughter’s choice, but even the son’s
was neutralised by the parental command. “Fathers from the beginning
considered it both their duty and prerogative to find or select wives for their
sons (Gen. xxiv. 3; xxxviii. 6). In the absence of the father, the selection
devolved upon the mother (Gen. xxi. 21). Even in cases where the wishes of
the son were consulted, the proposals were made by the father (Gen. xxxiv.
4, 8); and the violation of this parental prerogative on the part of the son
was ‘a grief of mind’ to the father (Gen. xxvi. 35). The proposals were
generally made by the parents of the young man, except when there was a
difference of rank, in which case the negotiations proceeded from the father
of the maiden (Exod. ii. 21), and when accepted by the parents on both
sides, sometimes also consulting the opinion of the adult brothers of the
maiden (Gen. xxiv. 51; xxxiv. 11), the matter was considered as settled,
without requiring the consent of the bride” (M‘Clintock and Strong).
But how about the Song of Solomon—the Song of Songs? Is not that a
song of Love, and an exception to our general statement? It appears so at
first sight; and the German writer Herder, in his detailed and glowing
analysis of it, declares that it depicts love “from its first origin, from its
tenderest bud, through all stages and conditions of its growth, its flowering,
its maturing, to the ripe fruit and new offshoot.” Herder, however, is a very
unsafe and shallow guide in this matter. An attempt has lately been made to

rehabilitate him in Germany, where his fame has become almost extinct; but
in vain, for his pompous, stilted rhetoric and imagery cannot conceal from
modern readers his lack of ideas and limited knowledge of facts. He asserts
that, as there is only one Goodness, one Truth, so there is but one Love (or
Affection). If you do not love your wife, he says, you will not love your
friend, parents, or child. A writer whose notions of the psychology of love
are so excessively crude cannot be considered a trustworthy judge in the
matter in question. So far as love is referred to in the Song of Solomon, it is
probable that conjugal affection is meant.
It is a curious fact that of the famous German, English, and French
theologians who have written commentaries on the Song of Songs, no two
seem to agree in their interpretation of its plot and significance. It is now
generally agreed, too, that the Song was not written by Solomon, but some
time after him. It seems, indeed, incredible that a monarch who had a
thousand wives, and whose affections must have been torn into a thousand
shreds, and cannot have been very lasting, should have written these
marvellous lines: “For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many
waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should
give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”
This passage has a remarkably modern and romantic sound—so modern
and romantic that it would not seem out of place in Shakspere. But it needs
no knowledge of Hebrew to see that the responsibility for this modern
sound rests with the English translators. Luther’s more literal version
appears much less modern. Indeed, throughout the Song of Solomon the
English translators have idealised the language of passion, in harmony with
modern notions on the subject; so that it is only on reading Luther’s version
that one begins to understand why the Talmudists did not allow the Jews to
read this book before their thirtieth year.
Perhaps the most ingenious and consistent of the numerous
interpretations of the Song of Solomon is that given by M. Chas. Bruston in
the Encyclopædie des Sciences Religieuses (ii. 610-612). The repetition of
the flatteries occurring in the poem he explains by showing that the second
time they refer, not to the Sulamite, but to a princess of Lebanon whom
Solomon married. Hence, he insists, the repetition is not so much a literary
blemish as an indication “combien est vil et méprisable l’amour sensuel et

polygame, qui prodigue indifférement les mêmes flatteries a des femmes
différentes.”
The imaginative and poetic terms in which feminine charms are depicted
in the Song of Songs show that, nevertheless, at least the sensuous phase of
the overtone of Personal Admiration was strongly developed among the
ancient Hebrews; not strongly enough, however, to lead them, as it led other
ancient nations, to embody their ideals of feminine and masculine beauty in
marble monuments of sculpture.

ANCIENT ARYAN LOVE

As it is among the Aryan or “Indo-Germanic” races of Europe and
America that Modern Love has produced its most beautiful blossoms, it is,
even more than in the case of the non-Aryan Jews and Egyptians, of interest
to know something concerning its prevalence among the Asiatic peoples
who appear as the nearest modern representatives of our remote Aryan
ancestors.
In no country, perhaps, has the position of woman differed so greatly at
various epochs as in India. Previous to the introduction of Brahminism,
women were held in esteem, enjoyed diverse privileges, and were allowed
free social intercourse with the men, while monogamy was the recognised
form of marriage. The Brahmins, however, introduced polygamy, setting a
good example by sometimes marrying a whole family, “old and young,
daughters, aunts, sisters, and cousins”; and one case is known of a Brahmin
who had 120 wives, according to Schweiger Lerchenfeld. Family feeling
was subordinated to considerations of caste, and by a sophistical
interpretation of ancient laws the Brahmins introduced the custom of Suttee,
or the burning alive of widows on the deceased husband’s funeral pyre. This
habit is sometimes regarded as the very apotheosis of conjugal affection,
but it was simply what is known in modern psychology as an epidemic
delusion; the poor women being rendered willing to sacrifice themselves by
the doctrine that to die in this way was something specially voluptuous and

meritorious; while those who refused to be immolated were treated as social
outcasts who were not allowed to marry again or to adorn their persons in
any way.
The references to women in the laws of Manu show in what low esteem
they came to be held in India. A few of the maxims contained in this work
may be cited: “Of dishonour woman is the cause; of enmity woman is the
cause; of mundane existence woman is the cause; hence woman is to be
avoided.” “A girl, a maiden, a wife shall never do anything in accordance
with her own will, not even in her own house.” “A woman shall serve her
husband all life long, and remain true to him even after death; even though
he should deceive her, love another, and be devoid of good qualities, a good
wife should nevertheless revere him as if he were a god; she must not
displease him in anything, neither in life nor after his death.” So wretched,
indeed, became woman’s lot that Indian mothers, it is said, “often drown
their female children in the sacred streams of India, to preserve them from
the fate awaiting them in life.” Letourneau states that “up to modern times
Hindoo laws and manners have been modelled after the sacred precepts.
When Somerat made his voyage, it was considered improper for a
respectable woman to know how to read or dance. These futile
accomplishments were left to the courtesan, the Bayadere.”

HINDOO LOVE MAXIMS

That such a state of affairs was not favourable to Romantic Love is
obvious. Nevertheless there appears to have been a period—about 1200 or
1500 years ago—when some of the inhabitants of India were familiar with
most of the emotions which enter into Modern Love. This evidence is
contained in the Seven Hundred Maxims of Hâla, a collection of poetic
utterances dating back not further than the third century of our era, and
comprising productions by various authors, including as many as sixteen of
the female persuasion. They are written in a sister-language of Sanscrit, the
Prâkrit; and their form indicates that they were intended to be sung. Herr
Albrecht Weber remarks in the Deutsche Rundschau with reference to this
collection: “At the very beginning of our acquaintance with Sanscrit
literature, towards the end of the last century, it was noticed, and was
claimed forthwith as an eloquent proof of antique relationship, that Indian

poetry, especially of the amatory kind, is in character remarkably allied to
our own modern poetry. The sentimental qualities of modern verse, in one
word, were traced in Indian poetry in a much higher degree than they had
been found in Greek and Roman literature; and this discovery awakened at
once, notably in Germany, a sympathetic interest in a country whose poets
spoke a language so well known to our hearts, as though they had been born
among ourselves.”
Some of these maxims apparently depict the family life of the lower
classes; others appear rather as if they had been intended to be sung by the
Bayaderes, or singing and dancing girls of the Buddhist temples, who
emancipated themselves from the domestic and educational restrictions
placed on other women, and sought to fascinate men with their wit, love,
and æsthetic accomplishments. This suggestion is borne out by the fact that
most of the maxims are feminine utterances, and often of questionable
moral character. Although, therefore, some of these revelations of early
Aryan Love have an unpleasant by-flavour, they are yet extremely
interesting as showing how dependent Romantic Love is on the freedom
and the intellectual and æsthetic culture of woman.
We find in the maxims of Halâ evidences of that important overtone of
Love, Ecstatic Adoration or Poetic Hyperbole, which we have not
encountered elsewhere, so far. What could be more modern than this:—
“Although all my possessions were burnt in the village fire, yet is my
heart delighted, since he took the buckets from me when they were passed
from hand to hand.”
Or this:—
“O thou who art skilled in cookery, restrain thy anger! The reason why
the fire refuses to burn, and only smokes, is that it may the longer drink in
the breath of your mouth, fragrant as the red potato-blossoms.”
The following two show how Personal Beauty was appreciated:—
“He sees nothing but her face, and she too is quite intoxicated by his
looks. Both, satisfied with each other, act as if in the whole world there
were no other women or men.”
“Other beauties likewise have in their faces beautiful, wide black eyes,
with long lashes,—but no one else understands as she does how to use
them.”
How Love establishes his Monopoly in heart and mind, tolerating no
other thought, is thus shown:—

“She stares without a (visible) object, draws a deep sigh, laughs into
empty space, mutters unintelligible words—forsooth, there must be
something on her heart.”
Ovid himself might have written the following, showing Love’s
inconstancy:—
“Love departs when lovers are separated; it departs when they see too
much of each other; it departs in consequence of malicious gossip; aye, it
departs also without these causes.”
The nature of Coyness is evidently understood, for the lover is thus
admonished:—
“My son, such is the nature of love, suddenly to get angry, to make up
again in a moment, to dissemble its language, to tease immoderately.”
And yet the poet deems it necessary to tell a sweetheart that—
“By forgiving him at first sight, you foolish girl, you deprived yourself of
many pleasures,—of his prostration at your feet [a trace of Gallantry], of a
kiss passionately stolen.”
The sadness of separation thus finds utterance:—
“As is sickness without a physician; as living with relatives when one is
poor,—as the sight of an enemy’s prosperity,—so is it difficult to endure
separation from you.”
Thus we find in Ancient Aryan Love some of the leading features of
modern romantic passion.

GREEK LOVE

The Greeks, too, were Aryans, and they were the most refined and
æsthetic nation of antiquity; yet we look in vain in their literature for
delineations of that Romantic Love which, according to our notions, ought
to accompany so high a degree of culture.

FAMILY AFFECTIONS

Conjugal tenderness and the other family affections appear; indeed, to
have been known and cherished by the Greeks at all times, in the days of
Athenian supremacy, when women were kept in entire seclusion, no less
than in Homeric times, when they seem to have enjoyed more liberty of
action. Plutarch tells us in his Conjugal Precepts that “With women
tenderness of heart is indicated by a pleasing countenance, by sweetness of
speech, by an affectionate grace, and by a high degree of sensitiveness;”
and Mr. Lecky thus eloquently sums up the evidence that the Greeks
appreciated the various forms of domestic affection:—
“The types of female excellence which are contained in the Greek poems,
while they are among the earliest, are also among the most perfect in the
literature of mankind. The conjugal tenderness of Hector and Andromache;
the unwearied fidelity of Penelope, awaiting through the long revolving
years the return of her storm-tossed husband, who looked forward to her as
the crown of all his labours; the heroic love of Alcestis, voluntarily dying
that her husband might live; the filial piety of Antigone; the majestic
grandeur of the death of Polyxena; the more subdued and saintly resignation
of Iphigenia, excusing with her last breath the father who had condemned
her; the joyous, modest, and loving Nausicaa, whose figure shines like a
perfect idyll among the tragedies of the Odyssey—all these are pictures of
perennial beauty, which Rome and Christendom, chivalry and modern
civilisation, have neither eclipsed nor transcended. Virgin modesty and
conjugal fidelity, the graces as well as the virtues of the most perfect
womanhood, have never been more exquisitely portrayed.”

NO LOVE-STORIES

But Mr. Lecky, ignoring, like most writers, the enormous difference
between conjugal and romantic love, forgets to notice the absolute silence
of Greek literature on the subject of pre-matrimonial infatuation. Not one of
the Greek tragedies is a “love-drama”; romantic love does not appear even
in the writings of Euripides, who has so much to say about women, and
who named most of his plays after his heroines. Had Love been known to
Sophokles and Euripides, as it was known to Shakspere and Goethe, we
should no doubt have a Greek Romeo and Juliet and a Greek Faust. For
although there were certain limitations as to the scope and the dramatis

personæ of a Greek play, there was nothing whatever to exclude a love-
story. And when we consider how the sentiment of Love colours all modern
literature; how almost impossible it is for a play or a novel to succeed
unless it embodies a love-story: the absolute ignoring of this passion in
Greek literature forces on us the inevitable conclusion that Romantic Love
was unknown to them, or only so faintly developed as to excite no interest
whatever.
And this conclusion harmonises with the dictum of the best Greek
scholars. It is true that Becker, in his Charikles, referring to the frequency
with which the comedians introduce a youth desperately enamoured of a
girl, faintly objects to the statement that “There is no instance of an
Athenian falling in love with a free-born woman, and marrying her from
violent passion,”—made by Müller in his famous work on the Dorians. But
he makes the fatal admission that “Sensuality was the soil from which such
passion sprang, and none other than a sensual love was acknowledged
between man and wife.” No one, of course, would deny that sensual passion
prevailed in Athens; but sensuality is the very antipode of Romantic Love.

WOMAN’S POSITION

How are we to account for this anomaly—the absence of sexual romance
in a nation which was so passionately enamoured of Beauty in its various
forms?
The answer is to be found in the non-existence of opportunities for
courtship, and the degraded position of woman. The following sentences,
culled at random from Becker’s classical work, show how the Greek men
regarded their women, whom they considered inferior to themselves in
heart as well as in intellect. Iphigenia herself is made to admit by Euripides
that one man is worth more than a myriad of women:—

εἶς γ’ ανὴρ κρείσσων γυναικῶν μυρίων.

“The ἀρετή (virtue) of which a woman was thought capable in that age
differed but little from that of a faithful slave.” “Except in her own
immediate circle, a woman’s existence was scarcely recognised.” “It was
quite a Grecian view of the case to consider a wife as a necessary evil.”
"Athenians, in speaking of their wives and children, generally said τέκνα

καὶ γυναῖκας, putting their wives last: a phrase which indicates very clearly
what was the tone of feeling on this subject" (Smith).
Women “were not allowed to conclude any bargain or transaction of
consequence on their own account,” though Plato urged that this concession
should be made to them; and it was even “enacted that everything a man did
by the counsel or request of a woman should be null.” “There were no
educational institutions for girls, nor any private teachers at home.” “Hence
there were no scientifically-learned ladies, with the exception of the
Hetæræ.”

CHAPERONAGE VERSUS COURTSHIP

In such an arid, rocky soil Love of course could not grow or even
germinate. Still more fatal to the romantic passion, however, was the
absolute seclusion of the sexes, precluding all possibility of courtship and
free choice among the young. Greek women were not allowed to enjoy the
society of men, nor to attend “those public spectacles which were the chief
means of Athenian culture,” and which would have afforded the young
folks an opportunity of seeing and falling in love with one another. The wife
was not even permitted to eat with her husband if male visitors were
present, but had to retire to her private apartments, so absurd was the
jealousy of the men. “The maidens lived in the greatest seclusion till their
marriage, and, so to speak, regularly under lock and key,” which had the
“effect of rendering the girls excessively bashful, and even prudish,” and so
stupid, in all probability, that no wonder the men considered marriage a
punishment, and sought entertainment with the educated Hetæræ—as to-
day in France. Even young married women were obliged to have a
chaperon. “No respectable lady thought of going out without a female
slave.” “Even the married woman shrank back and blushed if she chanced
to be seen at the window by a man.”

PLATO ON COURTSHIP

It is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of Love and of social
philosophy that Plato, the most modern of all ancient thinkers, foresaw the
importance of pre-matrimonial acquaintance as the basis of a rational and

happy marriage choice long before any other writer. Making allowance for
the fact that Greek notions as to what is within “the rules of modesty”
differed from our own, the following passage cannot be too deeply
pondered: “People,” Plato tells us in the sixth book of the Laws (p. 771),
“must be acquainted with those into whose families and to whom they
marry and are given in marriage; in such matters as far as possible to avoid
mistakes is all-important, and with this serious purpose let games be
instituted, in which youths and maidens shall dance together, seeing and
being seen naked, at a proper age and on a suitable occasion, not
transgressing the rules of modesty.”

PARENTAL VERSUS LOVERS’ CHOICE

Marriages in Greece were often arranged for girls while they were mere
children, of course without any reference to their choice, since they were
looked upon as the property of the father, who could dispose of them at his
pleasure. Besides these early betrothals there was an obstacle to free choice
in the Athenian law which forbade a citizen under very severe penalties to
marry a foreigner. And again, “In the case of a father dying intestate, and
without male children, his heiress had no choice in marriage; she was
compelled by law to marry her nearest kinsman, not in the ascending line....
Where there were several co-heiresses, they were respectively married to
their kinsmen, the nearest having the first choice”—a law resembling one in
the Jewish code, and exemplified by Ruth, as pointed out in Smith’s
Dictionary.
How Sexual Selection was rendered impracticable in Greece is further
shown in the following citations from Becker: “The choice of the bride
seldom depended on previous, or at least on intimate acquaintance. More
attention was generally paid to the position of a damsel’s family, and the
amount of her dowry, than to her personal qualities.” "It was usual for a
father to choose for his son a wife, and one perhaps whom the bridegroom
had never seen." “Widows frequently married again; this was often in
compliance with the testamentary dispositions of their husbands, as little
regard being paid to their wishes as in the case of girls.”
Thus we see that three causes combined to prevent the growth of
Romantic Love in Greece—the degraded position of women, the absence of

direct Courtship, and the impossibility of exercising Individual Preference.

THE HETÆRÆ

That the absolute seclusion and chaperonage of the young women, and
their consequent ignorance and insipidity, were the reasons why they could
neither feel nor inspire Romantic Love, is shown by the fact that there
existed in Greece in the time of Perikles a mentally superior class of women
who appear to have aroused Love, or something very like it, by means of
the artistic and intellectual charms which they united with their physical
beauty. These women were called Ἡταίραι, or companions, evidently to
distinguish them from the domestic women who were no “companions”
after the first charm of novelty had worn away: a state of affairs for which
of course the men themselves, who gave them no education and locked
them up, were to blame.
What seems paradoxical is that these women, who were morally inferior
to the others, should have been the first to inspire in men a more refined sort
of Love; but the paradox is rendered the more probable by the circumstance
that in India, likewise, we found the first traces of Romantic Love among
the Bayaderes, a class corresponding to the Hetæræ.
There is reason to believe that Aspasia, who aided the greatest statesman
of antiquity in writing his stirring speeches, inspired not only him but other
great contemporaries with true Romantic passion—which they were
enabled to feel because men of genius are not only intellectually but also
emotionally ahead of their time.
Diotima was another of these women. She was also revered as a
prophetess, and is credited by Plato with having given Sokrates, and
through him Greece, the first adequate discourse on Love—a discourse, we
may add, in which some flashes of true modern insight are mingled with the
curiously confused notions of the Greeks on the subject of Love and
Friendship. What these notions were is best seen by briefly considering the
peculiarities of

PLATONIC LOVE

On this subject the most incorrect and absurd notions universally pervade
modern literature and conversation. As commonly understood, “Platonic
Love” means a friendship between a man and a woman from which all
traces of passion are excluded. Such a notion is utterly foreign to Plato’s
way of thinking, and is nowhere referred to in his writings. Platonic love
has nothing to do with women whatever. It is an attachment between a man
and a youth, which may be defined as friendship united with the ecstatic
ardour which in modern life is associated only with Romantic Love.
Mr. George Grote thus describes what he calls the “truly Platonic
conception of love”. It is “a vehement impulse towards mental communion
with some favoured youth, in view of producing mental improvement,
good, and happiness to both persons concerned: the same impulse
afterwards expanding, so as to grasp the good and beautiful in a larger
sense, and ultimately to fasten on goodness and beauty in the pure Ideal.”
Once more, Platonic love might be defined as creative friendship, which
has for its object the conception of great ideas,—of works of art, literature,
philosophy. Such a friendship, Plato tells us, should be formed between a
man and a youth, not too young, but when his beard begins to grow and his
intellect to develop; and such a friendship is apt to last throughout life.
Perhaps the most striking instance in Greek literature of Platonic love is
that given in Plato’s Symposium as existing between the pure-minded
Sokrates, who kept aloof from all Greek vices, and the beautiful young
Alkibiades. This youth thus describes the effect which the discourse of
Sokrates has on him: “When I hear him, my heart leaps in my breast, more
than it does among the Korybantes, and tears roll down my cheeks at his
words, and I notice that many others have the same experience. When I
heard Perikles and other excellent orators, I came to the conclusion that
they spoke well; but this experience was different from the other, and my
soul did not lose its control or gnash its teeth like a prostrate slave, but by
this Marsyas (= Sokrates) I was put into such a mood that the condition in
which I found myself did not seem praiseworthy.”
He further describes Sokrates as being always “in love with beautiful
youths, and talking with them, and being quite beside himself”; hence when
he (Alkibiades) appears at the Symposium, and finds Sokrates sitting next
to the most beautiful man in the company, he chides him in words which
have exactly the sound of Jealousy inspired by Romantic Love: “And why
did you recline here and not next to Aristophanes, or some other wit, or

would-be wit, but, instead, crowded forward in order to be next to the
handsomest?”
To which Sokrates replies: “Agathon, come to my assistance; for my love
for this person has cost me dearly. Ever since I have loved him, I have not
been allowed to look at anybody, or to talk with any one who is beautiful, or
else this youth, in his jealousy and envy, does unheard-of-things, and chides
me, and hardly refrains from violence. Be on your guard, therefore, that he
may not resort to violence now, and reconcile us, or if he dares to become
unruly, assist me; for I very much fear his madness and infatuation.”
Although this was probably said in the playful tone common to Sokrates,
it yet is noticeable how closely the language used resembles the language of
modern Romantic Love.

SAPPHO AND FEMALE FRIENDSHIP

To this form of Platonic or mono-sexual love there existed a female
counterpart, as shown in some of the lyric effusions of Greek poets. Some
of these poets, it is true, especially Anakreon, knew naught of the
imaginative side of Love—of its protracted tortures and intermittent joys.
Like a butterfly that kisses every flower on its way, he “cared only for the
enjoyment of the passing moment.” But Sappho apparently wrote of Love
in terms worthy of Heine or Byron, as shown even in this crude translation
of one of her poems:—

“While gazing on thy charms I hung,
My voice died faltering on my tongue,
With subtle flames my bosom glows,
Quick through each vein the poison flows;
Dark dimming mists my eyes surround,
My ears with hollow murmurs sound.
My limbs with dewy chillness freeze,
On my whole frame pale tremblings seize,
And losing colour, sense, and breath,
I seem quite languishing in death.”

Longinus calls this the most perfect expression in all ancient literature of
the effects of Love. It happens, however, to have nothing to do with Love.
For, as Plato’s “love” is merely ecstatic friendship between man and youth,
so Sappho’s love is friendship between two women. This is the opinion of
Bode and Müller, and it is entirely borne out by the language of the original
text.
It has been suggested that Sappho, being a woman, and a Greek woman,
could not have addressed such glowing words to a man without violating
the current notions of decorum; and hence wrote as if she were a man
addressing a woman. But Sappho was one of the Æolian women who had
greater liberty than the Athenians; and she was, moreover, a blue-stocking
who would not have stuck at such a trifle as shocking Greek notions
regarding woman’s privileges. And in some of her poems she does mention
a youth “to whom she gave her whole heart, while he requited her passion
with cold indifference” (Müller).
One of the Platonists, Maximus Tyrius (dis. 24, p. 297), takes the same
view regarding Sappho. “The love of the Lesbian poet,” he says, “what can
it be, if we may compare remote with more recent things than the Sokratic
art of love? For both appear to promote the same Friendship, she among
women, he among men. They both confess they love many, and are
captivated by all beauties. For what Alkibiades and Charmides are to
Sokrates, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anaktoria are to Sappho.” “Even Sokrates
confesses that it was from Sappho that he partly derived his noble views of
the enthusiastic love of mental beauty” (Phædon, c. 225).
To one of the girls just referred to, Sappho addresses these words: “Again
does the strength-dissolving Eros, that bittersweet, resistless monster,
agitate me; but to thee, O Atthis, the thought of me is importunate; thou
fliest to Andromeda.” “It is obvious,” says Müller, “that this attachment
bears less the character of maternal interest than of passionate love; as
amongst Dorians in Sparta and Crete analogous connections between men
and youths, in which the latter were trained to noble and manly deeds, were
carried on in a language of high-wrought and passionate feeling, which had
all the character of an attachment between persons of different sexes. This
mixture of feelings, which among nations of a calmer temperament have
always been perfectly distinct, is an essential feature of the Greek
character.”

Greek Love, i.e. Friendship, being thus tinged and strengthened, as we
see in the cases of Sokrates and Alkibiades, Sappho and Atthis, by jealousy,
ecstatic adoration, exclusiveness, admiration of personal beauty, and other
qualities which modern civilisation has transferred to Romantic Love, we
are enabled to understand why Friendship was so much more potent and
prevalent in antiquity than it is now, when, having lost these traits through
the differentiation of emotions, it seems “insipid to those who have tasted
Love.”
The lesson to be learned from this whole discussion on Greek Friendship
is of extreme importance to the psychology of Love. It is this: The Greeks
were too intellectual and refined not to have at least a vague presentiment of
the higher possibilities and charms of imaginative Love. But Greek women
—with the rare exceptions referred to—were too stupid to enable the men
to realise their vague ideal. Hence they sought it in ardent attachments to
youths, who were quick-minded and able to sympathise with their
intellectual aspirations. And thus Greek Love became identical with male
friendship—the female friendship referred to being a sort of compensating
echo.
Greek Love is symbolised in the mythic youth Narcissus, who scorns all
the beautiful nymphs that are eager for his caresses, and falls in love with
his own image reflected in the water.

GREEK BEAUTY

It even seems as if, apart from Love, the Greeks admired youthful
masculine beauty more than feminine charms; and many of them would
probably have agreed with Schopenhauer that men are more beautiful than
women. Certain it is that, as the most eminent critic of Greek art,
Winckelmann, points out “the supreme beauty of Greek art is male rather
than female.”
The following citation from Grote’s famous work on Plato suggests some
reasons for this fact, besides reflecting further light on points discussed in
the preceding pages:—
“In the Hellenic point of view, upon which Plato builds, the attachment
of man to woman was regarded as a natural impulse and as a domestic,
social sentiment; yet as belonging to a commonplace rather than to an

exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of enthusiasm which
overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole man, and aims either at
the joint performance of great exploits, or the joint prosecution of
intellectual improvement by continued colloquy. We must remember that
the wives and daughters of citizens were seldom seen abroad; that she had
learned nothing except spinning and weaving; that the fact of her having
seen so little and heard as little as possible, was considered as rendering her
more acceptable to her husband; that her sphere of duty and exertion was
confined to the interior of the family. The beauty of women yielded
satisfaction to the senses, but little beyond. It was the masculine beauty of
youth that fired the Hellenic imagination with glowing and impassioned
sentiment. The finest youths, and those, too, of the best families and
education, were seen habitually uncovered in the Palæstra and at the public
festival-matches; engaged in active contention and graceful exercise, under
the direction of professional trainers. The sight of the living form in such
perfection, movement, and variety, awakened a powerful emotional
sympathy, blended with æsthetic sentiment, which in the more susceptible
natures was exalted into intense and passionate devotion. The terms in
which this feeling is described, both by Plato and Xenophon, are among the
strongest which the language affords—and are predicated even of Sokrates
himself. Far from being ashamed of this feeling, they consider it admirable
and beneficial, though very liable to abuse, which they emphatically
denounce and forbid. In their view it was an idealising passion, which
tended to raise a man above the vulgar and selfish pursuits of life, and even
above the fear of death. The devoted attachments which it inspired were
dreaded by the despots, who forbade the assemblage of youths for exercise
in the Palæstra.”
Another reason for the Greek preference of masculine beauty is
suggested by Mr. Lecky, who attributes it to the fact that the principal art of
the Greeks, sculpture, is “especially suited to represent male beauty, or the
beauty of strength”; whereas “female beauty, or the beauty of softness,”
became the principal object of the painters, after Christianity had won
attention for the feminine virtues of gentleness and delicacy. (For further
remarks on Greek Beauty, see the chapters on “Four Sources of Beauty,”
and “The Nose.”)

CUPID’S ARROWS

Possibly some of my readers have not yet quieted all their doubts
regarding the existence of real Love among the Greeks; for did they not
have special deities of love—Aphrodite and Eros, Venus and Cupid? Quite
so; but those familiar with Greek history know that the cult of Venus had
but a remote connection with imaginative or Romantic Love, which alone is
here under consideration. Yet our modern poets owe a vast debt of gratitude
to the ancient bards for these mythic deities, whom they have simply taken
and idealised, like Love itself. There is, especially, the mischievous Dan
Cupid, who, in his modern metamorphosis, is still “the anointed sovereign
of sighs and groans.” This little fellow seems to have been taken very
seriously indeed by the earliest Greeks. He has one attribute—wings—
which we readily understand, as Love is inconstant ever; but another of his
attributes would excite the greatest surprise in our minds were we not so
accustomed to it as to accept it as a matter of course, namely, his arrows. It
would seem more in accordance with modern notions that he should
produce his magic effects by means of Love-potions or other Love-charms,
rather than with such a warlike weapon as an arrow.
A German feuilletonist, Dr. Michael Haberlandt, has lately advanced an
ingenious theory to account for this weapon. The ancient Greeks had the
peculiar belief that all diseases were caused by the invisible poisoned
arrows of evil or angry deities; as in the well-known case of the offended
Apollo sending his pest-laden arrows among the Hellenes. Now love, in the
irresistible and maddening, though primitive form known to the early
Greeks, was doubtless looked on as a real, mysterious affliction, and not
merely as love sickness in the figurative modern sense: what more natural
therefore than to attribute it to the arrows of a mischievous deity?
In course of time poetic fancy added to the image of Cupid other
attributes that naturally suggested themselves: the wings to symbolise
fickleness; a bandage to indicate blindness; while the arrows were
represented as dipped in poison, gall, or honey. The curious fact may be
added that the ancient East Indians, whose deities numbered 330,000,000
(in round numbers), likewise had a god of love armed with bow and arrows:
a conception which they seem to have originated independently of the
Greeks.

ORIGIN OF LOVE

Plato’s Symposium contains two curious theories of the cause and origin
of love, which, in conclusion, may be briefly summarised, as they help to
characterise Greek notions on this subject. The first is placed in the mouth
of Sokrates, who says he heard it of the Hetaira Diotima. What, she asks, is
the cause of this love-sickness, this anxiety of men and animals, first to get
a mate, and then to take care of the offspring? It is, she replies, the desire to
perpetuate themselves. For just as the famous heroes and heroines—
Alkestis, Achilles, Kadros—would not have so nobly sacrificed their lives
had they not been sustained by the thought that their fame and glory would
survive among future generations; so the fact that parents in the affection
for their young will even go so far as to sacrifice their own lives to protect
them, is due to their craving for immortality in their offspring.
This theory may be regarded as a vague foreshadowing of
Schopenhauer’s, which will be considered in another place.
The second theory of the origin of love is attributed by Plato to
Aristophanes, who relates it in the form of a myth. Human nature, he
begins, was not always as it is now. At the beginning there were three sexes:
one, the male, descended of the sun-god; the second, female, descended of
the earth; and the third, which united the attributes of both sexes, descended
of the moon. Each of these beings, moreover, had two pairs of hands and
legs, and two faces, and the figure was round, and in rapid motion revolved
like a wheel, the pairs of legs alternately touching the ground and
describing an arc in the air.
These beings were fierce, powerful, and vain, so they attempted to storm
heaven and attack the gods. As Zeus did not wish to destroy them—since
that would have deprived him of sacrifices and other forms of human
devotion—he resolved to punish them by diminishing their strength. So he
directed Apollo to cut each of them into two, which was done; and thus the
number of human beings was doubled. Each of these half-beings now
continually wandered about, seeking its other half. And when they found
each other, their only desire was to be reunited by Vulcan and never be
parted again. “And this longing and striving after union—this is what is
meant by the name of Love.”
The waggish Aristophanes appends a caution to human beings not to
offend Zeus again, because it was that god’s intention, on a repetition of the

offence, to split human beings once more, so that they would have to hop
about on one leg!
One of the metaphors used by the comic poet is very pretty, even if
translated into terms of Modern Love. He compares the two divided halves
of one human being to the dice which among the ancients were used as
marks of hospitality, being broken into two pieces, of which each person
received one, and which were afterwards fitted together in token of
recognition. A pair of lovers, then, are like these halved dice, naturally
belonging to each other, and craving to be reunited.

ROMAN LOVE

WOMAN’S POSITION

Among the Romans the domestic position of women was on the whole
much more favourable to the growth of feminine culture than in Greece.
They were not jealously guarded in special apartments, but were allowed to
retain their seat at the table and join in the conversation when guests
arrived, as Cornelius Nepos points out with a pardonable sense of
superiority. Becker, in his Gallus, thus states the difference between Greek
and Roman treatment of women: “Whilst we see that in most of the Grecian
states, and especially in Athens, the women (i.e. the whole female sex) were
little esteemed and treated as children all their lives, confined to the
gynaikoreitis, shut out from social life and all intercourse with men and
their amusements, we find that in Rome exactly the reverse was the case.
Although the wife is naturally subordinate to the husband, yet she is always
treated with open attention and regard. The Roman housewife always
appears as the mistress of the whole household economy, instructress of the
children, and guardian of the honour of the house, equally esteemed with
the paterfamilias both in and out of the house.”
“Walking abroad was only limited by scruple and custom, not by a law or
the jealous will of the husband. The women frequented public theatres as

well as the men, and took their places with them at festive banquets.” "Even
the vestals participated in the banquets of the men." Although “learned
women were dreaded,” a knowledge of Greek and the fine arts was in later
times counted an essential part of feminine culture. “Certain advantages
accrued to those who had many children, jus trium liberorum.” Masculine
“voluntary celibacy was considered, in very early times, as censurable and
even guilty;” and from Festus “we learn that there was a celibate fine.” The
statement apparently credited by Mr. Lecky that for 520 years there was no
case of divorce in Rome, has been shown to rest on a misconception of a
passage in Gellius. Yet “manners were so severe, that a senator was
censured for indecency because he had kissed his wife in the presence of
their daughter.” It was also considered “in a high degree disgraceful for a
Roman mother to delegate to a nurse the duty of suckling her child.”

NO WOOING AND CHOICE

Yet amid all these domestic virtues and family affections we search in
vain for the prevalence of Romantic Love. We have already seen that for the
growth of this sentiment something more is needed than domestic affection,
and that something is comprised in the word Wooing. There was no wooing
at Rome. In most cases, the father took his daughter’s heart in his hand, and,
treating it as a piece of personal property, bestowed it on the suitor who best
“suited” him. “From the earliest times,” says Ploss, “it was customary in
Rome to marry girls when they had barely reached their twelfth or
thirteenth year; engagements were probably made at a still earlier age.
Although legally the daughter’s consent was required, in actual practice she
exercised no choice; her extreme youth in itself preventing this. Often a
marriage contract was a mere matter of agreement between two families in
which love and personal favour were disregarded; nor did even the betrothal
bring the future couple into closer intimacy.” With reference to the laws of
the Twelve Tablets, M. Legouvé remarks, in his Histoire Morale des
Femmes, that “Rome was worthy of Athens. Not only did a Roman father
dispose of his daughter against her inclination, but he even had the right to
dissolve a marriage into which she had entered, and to take away from his
daughter the husband he had given her, whom she loved, and by whom she
had children.” In justice, however, it must be added that this latter right was

rarely exercised; but the fact that the Romans could tolerate the very notion
of such a law shows what little account was made of love.
Another absurd impediment to personal choice was raised by the
Theodosian Code, which compelled a girl to marry a man who had the same
calling as her father—a custom which, indeed, seems to prevail in parts of
Europe to the present day, and which is as incompatible with Love as the
ancient Hebrew rule that the oldest daughter must be married first—a rule
which compelled Jacob to marry Leah before he could get his beloved
Rachel, for whom he had laboured seven years. “First come first served” is
a rule which Cupid rarely heeds in the case of several sisters.
In the case of the men it is possible that Sexual Selection occasionally
came into play, when early betrothals did not prevent it; for the old Romans
were too rational to anticipate the silly and criminal French custom of
bargaining for a bride before they had even seen her. In such a case, if the
bride was attractive, the suitor’s imagination, dwelling on the fact that this
vision of loveliness was to be his own, exclusively, for ever, may have been
warmed for a moment with something very like romantic sentiment. But
beauty in Rome, Ovid informs us, was very rare—"How few are able to
boast it!"—so that even with the men who had a choice, Individual
Preference based on Personal Beauty could have been rarely exercised. And
as for the women who had no choice, they may have felt a temporary
elation on first meeting their destined husbands; but this feeling was merely
the manifestation of a vague instinct, comparable to the “love” which a
bevy of modern boarding-school “buds” show for the only man they are
allowed to see regularly,—their ugly teacher,—and the unreality and
silliness of which they laugh at themselves when they are at last allowed to
meet the man of their own, individual, free choice, who teaches them the
feeling of real Romantic Love.

VIRGIL, DRYDEN, AND SCOTT

Nevertheless, compared with Greek literature, the works of the Roman
poets show an advance in their conception of Love; for they avoid at least
the Hellenic confusion of love with friendship. Compared with the best
modern poets, however, who labour with the pure gold of Love alone, the
Roman poet’s productions still show much of the base ore from which the

modern gold has been extracted. It is interesting, in this connection, to read
what Dryden has to say concerning Virgil’s conception of Love, and Scott’s
comments on Dryden.
In his dedication of the Æneid, Dryden speaks of Book IV. as "This noble
episode, wherein the whole passion of love is more exactly described than
in any other poet. Love was the theme of his fourth book; and though it is
the shortest of the whole Æneis, yet there he has given its beginning, its
progress, its traverses, and its conclusion; and had exhausted so entirely his
subject, that he could resume it but very slightly in the eight ensuing books.
“She was warmed with the graceful appearance of the hero; she
smothered those sparkles out of decency; but conversation blew them up
into a flame. Then she was forced to make a confidante of her whom she
might best trust, her own sister, who approves the passion, and thereby
augments it: then succeeds her public owning it; and after that the
consummation. Of Venus and Juno, Jupiter and Mercury, I say nothing; for
they were all machining work; but, possession having cooled his love, as it
increased hers, she soon perceived the change, or at least grew suspicious of
a change; this suspicion soon turned to jealousy, and jealousy to rage; then
she disdains and threatens, and again is humble and entreats, and nothing
availing, despairs, curses, and at last becomes her own executioner. See
here the whole process of that passion, to which nothing can be added.”
Sir Walter Scott, however, does add, in a foot-note to his edition of
Dryden: “I am afraid this passage, given as a just description of love, serves
to confirm what is elsewhere stated, that Dryden’s ideas of the female sex
and of the passion were very gross and malicious.”

OVID’S ART OF MAKING LOVE

Gross and malicious also are the ideas of the female sex and the passion
frequently encountered in the poems of Ovid; not so coarse and cynical,
indeed, as in Martial and Catullus, but sufficiently so to have confounded
the æsthetic judgment of the present generation, and spread the notion that
Virgil and Horace are greater poets than Ovid, whereas, from the point of
view of originality and imaginativeness, by far the greatest of the three is
Ovid, who also had much more influence on the great writers of the best

period of English literature than his rivals, as Professor W. Y. Sellar has
pointed out.
Both these circumstances are to be regretted—the undervaluation of
Ovid’s genius as well as his frequent frivolity on which it is based. For Ovid
was unquestionably the first poet who had a conception of the higher
possibilities of Love; in fact he was the greatest, and the only great, Love-
poet before Dante. His rare genius enabled him to anticipate and depict the
modern imaginative side of Love, even while he seemed wholly devoted to
the ancient sensual side. And, in reading his poems, great caution is
necessary, lest these emotional anticipations of his quasi-modern genius be
supposed to have been common and prevalent among less gifted Romans of
his time.
Ovid was a profound observer and psychologist, and had a most subtle
knowledge of contemporary feminine nature; Although the principal object
of his Ars Amoris is to teach men how to out-trump the natural cunning of
women, yet he does not forget his feminine readers, but gives them
numerous hints regarding the best way of fascinating fickle men. In the
Remedia Amoris he describes various remedies for healing Cupid’s wounds,
most of which are approved to the present day; and the Elegies and
Heroides, too, are full of pretty modern touches and flashes of insight. A
few of these points may be briefly alluded to.
Coyness, although often manifested by the Roman women in almost as
crude a manner as among savages, does not appear to have been appreciated
by all of them at its full value; so the poet frequently counsels them as to
the more subtle ways of exercising it; one of his rules for women being, that
if they have offended an admirer, the best way to make him forget it is to
pretend to be offended themselves, which will restore the equilibrium. How
the consciousness of being beautiful makes a woman courageous, coy, and
cruel is shown in another place. That eyes have a language plainer than
speech is not a modern discovery; and that a short absence favours, long
absence kills, passion was also known to Ovid. He warns men against the
danger of feigning love, because this may end in arousing genuine passion.
Men are informed that courage and confidence in one’s ability to win a
woman are half the battle. And disappointed lovers are assured that failure
sometimes turns into an advantage, for it may arouse pity, and love enter in
the guise of friendship.

The emotional hyperbole and mixed feelings of Love are not strangers to
Ovid. He compares the tortures of Love to the berries on the trees in
number, to the shells on the sea-beach; for true Love, he says, always
creates anguish and pain; and “the sweetest torment on earth is woman.”
Among the companions of Cupid are “flattery and illusion.” But “even if
the beloved deceives me with false words, hope itself will yield me great
enjoyment,” could only have been written by one who realised the
imaginative side of love. And in another passage the poet directly enjoins
the necessity of intellectual culture to take the place of the faded charms of
youth.
Hero’s Letter to Leander in the Heroides contains some pretty touches.
Leander has informed his love that when the storm prevents him from
swimming over to her, his mind yet hastens to meet her. But Hero is in great
trouble at his prolonged absence, and her deepest anguish is Jealousy of a
possible rival: in the absence of real grounds of apprehension, her
imagination invents them, as in a modern lover’s mind. She suspects that
his passion has lost the ardour which sustained him in his difficult feat; and,
too weak to quite swim over to him and back again, and anxious to save
him the double journey, she suggests that they should meet in the middle of
the sea, exchange a kiss, and each return to the shore whence they came.
Is there anything more exquisitely romantic or pathetic in all modern
Love-poetry—in Shakspere, Heine, Burns, or Byron?

BIRTH OF GALLANTRY

Becker says of the Greeks that “The men were very careful as to their
behaviour in the presence of women, but they were quite strangers to those
minute attentions which constitute the gallantry of the moderns.” This holds
true apparently of all other nations of antiquity; and to a student of the
history of Love it is therefore of exceeding interest to find in Ovid’s poetry
the first evidences of the existence of Gallantry—a disposition on the part
of the men to sacrifice their own comfort to the pleasures and whims of
women.
Mr. G. A. Simcox was the first writer, so far as I know, who pointed out
Ovid’s priority in this matter (in his History of Latin Literature). In Ovid, he
says, “The whole description of gallantry implies that the idea was a

novelty, and that the lover would require a great deal of encouragement to
enable him to make the sacrifice of paying such attentions as could be
commanded from a servant. This throws a new light on the habit the
Augustan poets have of calling their mistress domina, which is more
noteworthy, for they call no man dominus. One does not trace the idea at all
in Latin comedy, where the heroines are for the most part only too thankful
to be caressed and protected. One finds the word in Lucilius, but even in
Catullus it is hardly established.”
Instances of gallant behaviour are not rare in Ovid’s poetry; but the
didactic tone in which they are detailed makes it almost appear as if the
poet were recommending to his countrymen the value of a nice little
discovery of his own which would convert crude love-making into a fine
art. Never be so ungallant—he says in effect, though he does not use the
word—as to refer to a woman’s faults or shortcomings. Compliment her, on
the contrary, on her good points—her face, her hair, her tapering fingers,
her pretty foot. At the circus applaud whatever she applauds. Adjust her
cushion, put the footstool where it ought to be, and keep her comfortable by
fanning her. And at dinner, when she has tasted the wine, quickly seize the
cup and put your lips to the place where she has sipped.
Unfortunately this morning dawn of Romantic Love, as depicted in the
pages of Ovid, was soon hidden beneath the dark clouds of mediæval
barbarism, not to emerge again till a thousand years later.

MEDIÆVAL LOVE

CELIBACY VERSUS MARRIAGE

Were I asked to name the four most refining influences in modern
civilisation I would answer: Women, Beauty, Love, and Marriage. Were I
asked to name the essence of the early mediæval spirit I would say: Deadly
Enmity toward Women, Beauty, Love, and Marriage.

This pathologic attitude of the mediæval mind was at first a natural
reaction against the incredible depravity and licentiousness that prevailed
under the Roman Empire. But the reaction went to such preposterous
extremes that the resulting state of affairs was even more degrading and
deplorable than the original evil. It was like inoculating a man with leprosy
to cure him of smallpox. It was bad enough to treat marriage as a farce, as
did the later Romans, among whom there were women who had their eighth
and tenth husband, while one case is related of a woman “who was married
to her twenty-third husband, she herself being his twenty-first wife”; while
the public looked upon this case as a “match” in a double sense, the
survivor being publicly crowned and feted as champion. But a thousand
times worse was the mediæval notion that marriage is a crime. And this
preposterous notion—that a relation on which all civilisation is based,
which is sanctioned even by many animals and ignored by only the very
lowest of the savages—this criminal notion was foisted on the world by the
fanatical priesthood in whose hands unfortunately Christianity was placed
for centuries, to be distorted, vitiated, and utilised for political, criminal,
and selfish purposes.
“The services rendered,” says Mr. Lecky, “by the ascetics in imprinting
on the minds of men a profound and enduring conviction of the importance
of chastity, though extremely great, were seriously counterbalanced by their
noxious influence upon marriage. Two or three beautiful descriptions of this
institution have been culled out of the immense mass of patristic writings;
but in general it would be difficult to conceive anything more coarse and
more repulsive than the manner in which they regarded it.... The tender love
which it elicits, the holy and beautiful domestic qualities that follow in its
train, were almost absolutely omitted from consideration. The object of the
ascetic was to attract men to a life of virginity, and, as a necessary
consequence, marriage was treated as an inferior state.”
“The days of Chivalry were not yet,” we read in Smith’s Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities, “and we cannot but notice even in the greatest of the
Christian fathers a lamentably low estimate of woman, and, consequently,
of the marriage relationship.”
What an inexhaustible source of mediæval immorality this contemptuous
treatment of marriage by the most influential class of society proved, has
been so often depicted in glaring colours that these pages need not be
tainted with illustrations.

WOMAN’S LOWEST DEGRADATION

Woman was represented by the Fathers “as the door of hell, as the mother
of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a
woman; she should live in continual penance on account of the curses she
has brought upon the world. Women were even forbidden by a provincial
council in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to receive the
Eucharist into their naked hands. Their essentially subordinate position was
continually maintained” (Lecky).
Not even the Koran took such a degrading view of woman as these early
“Christian Fathers.” For the current notion that the existence of a soul in
woman is denied by the Mahometan faith is contradicted by several
passages in the Koran.
The lowest depths of feminine degradation and the sublimest heights of
fanatical folly and crime, however, were not reached in this early period,
but some centuries later, when the incredible brutalities of the witchcraft
trials began. The vast majority of the victims were women; and Professor
Scherr, in his Geschichte der Deutschen Frauenwelt, estimates that in
Germany alone at least one hundred thousand “witches” were burnt at the
stake. No one on reading the accounts of these trials can help feeling that
Shakspere made a mistake when he wrote that

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.”

He should have said,

“All the world’s a madhouse,
And all the men are fools and demons.”

More demons than fools, however. Superstition was, indeed, epidemic
during the Middle Ages; but those who superintended the witches’ trials—
the rulers and the clergy—were not the persons affected by it. If they did
execute 100,000 victims in Germany; if they did murder girls of twelve, ten,
eight, and even seven years, on the accusation of having borne children
whose father was Satan, or of having murdered persons who in some cases
were actually present at the trial—the reason of this was not because the
authorities believed this cruel nonsense. The real reason is given by Scherr:

“The circumstance that the property of those who were burnt at the stake
was confiscated, two-thirds of it getting into the hands of the landowner
(Grundherr), the other third into those of the judges, clergy, accusers, and
executioners, has beyond doubt kindled countless witch-fires.... During the
Thirty Years’ War, especially, the trials for witchcraft became a greedily-
utilised source of profit to many a country nobleman in reduced
circumstances, and no less to bishops, abbots, and councillors, who were in
financial straits. Indeed, as early as the sixteenth century, one of the
opponents of witches’ trials, Cornelius Loos, justly observed that the whole
proceeding was simply ‘a newly-invented alchemy for converting human
blood into gold.’”
What difference is there between these civilised savages and the
Australian who eats his wife when he gets tired of her? Let those who are
fond of seeking needles in haystacks search for traces of Romantic Love
under such circumstances.

NEGATION OF FEMININE CHOICE

Feudal legislation combined with clerical contempt and criminal
persecution in lowering woman’s position. There were numerous and
stringent enactments which “rendered it impossible for women to succeed
to any considerable amount of property, and which almost reduced them to
the alternative of marriage or a nunnery. The complete inferiority of the sex
was continually maintained by the law; and that generous public opinion
which in Rome had frequently revolted against the injustice done to girls, in
depriving them of the greater part of the inheritance of their fathers, totally
disappeared.” Beaumanoir says that “Every husband may beat his wife if
she refuses to obey his orders, or if she speaks ill of him or tells an untruth,
provided he does so with moderation.” Early German law permitted the
father, and subsequently the husband, to sell, punish, or even kill the wife;
and in England wife-beating has not yet died out.
“If, in the times of St. Louis,” says Legouvé, “a young vassal of some
royal fief was sought in marriage, it was necessary for her father to get his
seigneur’s permission for her marriage; the seigneur asked the king’s
consent to his permission, and not till after all these agreements (father,
seigneur, king) was she consulted regarding this contract which affected her

whole life.” How beautifully such a law must have fostered the sentiment of
Love which depends on Individual Preference and Special Sympathy!
Such laws no doubt were simply echoes of clerical teachings. “The girl,”
says St. Ambrose of Rebecca, whom he holds up herein as an example, “is
not consulted about her espousals, for she awaits the judgment of her
parents; inasmuch as a girl’s modesty will not allow her to choose a
husband” (!). Irish “bulls” appear to have crept even into ecclesiastic
enactments, for we read in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities that
“An Irish council in the time of St. Patrick, about the year 450 lays it down
that the will of the girl is to be inquired of the father, and that the girl is to
do what her father chooses, inasmuch as man is the head of the woman.”
“Even widows,” we read further, “under the age of twenty-five were
forbidden by a law of Valentinian and Gratian to marry without their
parents’ consent; and St. Ambrose desires young widows to leave the choice
of their second husbands to their parents.”
Compayré states in his History of Pedagogy that in the seventeenth
century “woman was still regarded as the inferior of man, in the lower
classes as a drudge, in the higher as an ornament. In her case intellectual
culture was regarded as either useless or dangerous; and the education that
was given her was to fit her for a life of devotion or a life of seclusion from
society.”
Still more, of course, was this the case in the times of St. Jerome, who in
his letter to Læta on the education of her daughter Paula, tells her that the
girl must never eat in public, or eat meat. “Never let Paula listen to musical
instruments.” Even her affections must be suppressed—all except the
devotional sentiments. She must not be “in the gatherings and in the
company of her kindred; let her be found only in retirement.” “Do not allow
Paula to feel more affection for one of her companions than for others.”
And this ascetic moralist even recommends uncleanliness as a virtue: “I
entirely forbid a young girl to bathe;” which may be matched with the
following, also cited from Compayré: “The first preceptors of Gargantua
said that it sufficed to comb one’s hair with the four fingers and the thumb;
and that whoever combed, washed, and cleansed himself otherwise was
losing his time in this world.”
In such a rough atmosphere of masculine ignorance, fanaticism, and
cruelty the feminine virtues of sympathy, tenderness, grace, and sweetness
could not have flourished very luxuriantly. Consequently there is doubtless

more than a grain of truth in mediæval proverbs about women, cynical and
brutal as some of them are. Here are a few specimens:—
“Women and horses must be beaten.”
“Women and money are the cause of all evil in the world.”
“Women only keep those secrets which they don’t know.”
“Trust no woman, and were she dead.”
“Between a woman’s yes and no there isn’t room for the point of a
needle.”
“If you are too happy, take a wife.”
When we read that “Montaigne is of that number, who, through false
gallantry, would keep woman in a state of ignorance, on the pretext that
instruction would mar her natural charms;” and that the same author
recommends poetry to women, because it is “a wanton, crafty art, disguised,
all for pleasure, all for show, just as they are”; we recall with a smile John
Stuart Mill’s sarcastic reference to the time, “Some generations ago, when
satires on women were in vogue, and men thought it a clever thing to insult
women for being what men made them.”

CHRISTIANITY AND LOVE

Christianity claims to be pre-eminently the religion of love, in the widest
sense of that term, including, especially, religious veneration of a personal
Deity and love of one’s enemy. It has been asserted by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and others that Christianity has done little or nothing in aid of
woman’s elevation; and it cannot be denied that much good would have
resulted if more emphasis had been placed by the Apostles on certain
phases of the domestic relations. That Romantic Love is not alluded to in
the New Testament need not cause any surprise, for that sentiment cannot
have existed in those days when Courtship and Individual Choice were
unknown. But there are passages in St. Paul’s writings which were probably
the seeds from which grew the mediæval contempt for marriage and
women. And although marriage is now zealously guarded by the Church,
Love of the romantic sort is no doubt looked upon even to-day by many an
austere clergyman as a harmless youthful epidemic—a sort of emotional
measles—rather than as a new æsthetico-moral sentiment destined to

become the strongest of all agencies working for the improvement of the
personal appearance, social condition, and happiness of mankind.
On the other hand, even agnostics must admit on reflection that
Christianity contained elements which, despite the vicious fanaticism of
many of its early teachers, slowly helped to ameliorate woman’s lot. In the
first place, Protestantism, as embodied in Luther, performed an invaluable
service by restoring and enforcing universal respect for the marriage-tie. He
set a good example by not only defying the degrading custom of obligatory
celibacy, but by marrying a most sensible woman—a nun who had escaped
with eight others from a convent at Nimtsch.
Mariolatry, or the cult of the Virgin Mary, is the second avenue through
which Christianity influenced the development of the tender emotions. The
halo of sanctity which it spread at the same time over virginity and
motherhood has been of incalculable value in raising woman in the
estimation of the masses.
A third way in which Christianity influenced woman’s position is
suggested by the following remarks of Mr. Lecky, who has done valuable
service to philosophy, in showing how emotions as well as ideas change
with time: “In antiquity,” he says, “the virtues that were most admired were
almost exclusively those which were distinctively masculine. Courage, self-
assertion, magnanimity, and, above all, patriotism, were the leading features
of the ideal type; and chastity, modesty, and charity, the gentler and the
domestic virtues, which are especially feminine, were greatly undervalued.
With the single exception of conjugal fidelity, none of the virtues that were
highly prized were virtues distinctively or pre-eminently feminine.” Now
the “religion of love,” by especially insisting on these “feminine virtues,”
became a powerful agent in undermining the coarse mediæval spirit with its
masculine, military “virtues,” alias barbarisms.

CHIVALRY—MILITANT AND COMIC

In the howling wilderness of mediæval masculine brutality and feminine
degradation there was one sunny oasis in which the flowers of Love were
allowed to grow undisturbed for a few generations,—until military ambition
trod them again underfoot. This brief episode of gentler manners is known
as the period of Chivalry.

Ever since the fifth century the worship of the Virgin Mary had increased
in ardour, and it was to be expected that at some favourable moment this
adoration would be extended to the whole female sex, or at least its nobler
representatives. This was the mission taken upon themselves by the knights
and poets of chivalrous times.
Chivalry, it is true, was so often a mixture of clownishness and
licentiousness, its practice was so much less refined than its theory, that in
opposition to those historians who have sung its praises others have doubted
whether its influence was on the whole for good or for evil. For, although
the knights vowed especially to protect widows and orphans, and respect
and honour ladies, yet it was precisely under their régime that, when cities
were taken and castles stormed, women were subjected to the most brutal
treatment.
The difficulty is best solved by distinguishing between two kinds of
Chivalry—the Militant and the Poetic. The militant type of knight-errantry
was less inspired by the desire to benefit womankind than by ambition to
gratify silly masculine vanity. So thoroughly was the mediæval mind
imbued with ideas of war that these knights could not conceive even of love
except in a military guise. So they rode about the country in quest of
adventure, ostensibly in the service of an adored mistress, but really to find
an outlet, in times of peace, for pent-up military energy and ambition.
Spain and Southern France were the principal home of Chivalry Militant,
because there a warm climate and smiling nature offered most favourable
conditions to wandering knights in quest of adventure. Fortunately the
world possesses, in Don Quixote, a lifelike picture of knight-errantry; for
although the aim of Cervantes was to make fun, not so much of Chivalry as
of trashy contemporaneous romances of Chivalry, yet in doing this he could
not avoid depicting the comic side of the institution itself, concerning which
it is indeed difficile satiram non scribere.
It appears to have been the custom of these knights to wander about the
country interfering in every quarrel, and, in default of a disturbance,
creating one.
Each knight had a Dulcinea, whom he had perhaps never seen, but in
whose honour and for whose love he engages in all these combats. And
whenever he meets another knight he forthwith challenges him to admit that
this Dulcinea, whom the other has of course never seen, is the most
beautiful lady in the world. The other knight echoes the challenge in behalf

of his Dulcinea; and the result is a combat in which the victor, by the
inexorable logic of superior strength, proves the superior beauty of his
chosen lady-love.
The vanquished knight is then sent as prisoner to the victor’s mistress
with a message of love.
The Germans do not often originate anything; but if they take up an idea
or institution they work it more thoroughly than any other nation. So with
the fantastic side of Chivalry, which was introduced after the second
crusade, during which German knights had come into close contact with
French knights.
“Spain,” says Professor Scherr, “has imagined a Don Quixote, but
Germany has really produced one.”
His name was Ulrich von Lichtenstein, and he was born in the year 1200.
“From his boyhood, Herr Ulrich’s thoughts were directed towards woman-
worship, and as a youth he chose a high-born and, be it well understood, a
married lady as his patroness, in whose service he infused method into his
knightly madness. The circumstance that meanwhile he himself gets
married does not abate his folly. He greedily drinks water in which his
patroness has washed herself; he has an operation performed on his thick
double underlip, because she informs him that it is not inviting for kisses;
he amputates one of his fingers which had become stiff in an encounter, and
sends it to his mistress as a proof of his capacity of endurance for her sake.
Masked as Frau Venus, he wanders about the country and engages in
encounters, in this costume, in honour of his mistress; at her command he
goes among the lepers and eats with them from one bowl.... The most
remarkable circumstance, however, is that Ulrich’s own spouse, while her
husband and master masquerades about the land as a knight in his beloved’s
service, remains aside in his castle, and is only mentioned (in his poetic
autobiography) whenever he returns home, tired and dilapidated, to be
restored by her nursing.”
When a German knight had chosen a Dulcinea, he adopted and wore her
colour, for he was now her love-servant, and stood to his mistress in the
same relation as a vassal to his master. “The beloved,” Scherr continues,
“gave her lover a love-token—a girdle or veil, a ribbon, or even a sleeve of
her dress; this token he fastened to his helmet or shield, and great was the
lady’s pride if he brought it back to her from battle thoroughly cut and hewn
to pieces. Thus (in Parzival) Gawan had fastened on his shield a sleeve of

the beautiful Olibet, and when he returned it to her, torn and speared, ‘Da
ward des Mägdlein’s Freude gross; ihr blanker Arm war noch bloss, darüber
schob sie ihn zuhand.’”
The attitude of the knight-errants may be briefly described as Gallantry
gone mad. We have seen that a few traces of Gallantry are found in the
pages of Ovid; but it was during the age of Chivalry that this overtone of
Love made itself heard for the first time distinctly and loudly. And as, when
a new popular melody appears, everybody takes it up and sings and whistles
it ad nauseam; so these knights, intoxicated with the novel idea of gallant
behaviour toward women, took it up and carried it to the most ridiculous
extremes.
The women, naturally enough, unused to such devotion, became as
extravagantly coy as the men were gallant. They subjected this Gallantry to
the most absurd and even cruel tests. The knights were sent to war, to the
crusades, into the dens of wild animals, to test their devotion; and few were
so manly as the knight in Schiller’s ballad, who, after fetching his lady’s
glove from the lion’s den, threw it in her face, instead of accepting her
willing favours.
It is with reference to these coy and cruel tests of Gallantry that Wolfram
von Eschenbach bitterly accuses Love of having caused the death of many a
noble knight.
Yet, despite these absurdities, the trials and procrastinations to which the
knights were subjected had one good result: they helped to give Love a
supersensual, imaginative basis. This fact is brought out clearly in the
following statement made by Dr. Bötticher in his learned work on Parzival.
When, he says, after the middle of the twelfth century, the Troubadour love-
poetry became known in Austria, “it was especially the idea of Minnedienst
(love-service) that was seized upon with avidity: the knight wooes and
labours for a woman’s love, but she holds back and grants no favours until
after a long trial-service. The final object of this service, the possession of
the beloved, is regarded as quite subordinate to the pangs and pleasures of
wooing and waiting.”
Here was a novelty in Love, indeed! And, as good luck would have it,
fashion lent its powerful aid to the innovation. The sentiment was that
“Whoever is not in the service of love is unworthy to be a courtier”; and
thus many a boor who would have very much preferred to continue treating

women as servants, had to put his head into the yoke of Gallantry, in order
to be “fashionable.”

CHIVALRY—POETIC

If these knights of Chivalry bestrode their warlike Rosinantes to show an
astonished world for the first time what could be done in the way of
Gallantry, the peaceful poets of Chivalry—the Troubadours and
Minnesingers—in turn mounted their winged Pegasus, and soared for the
first time to the dizzy heights of Ecstatic Adoration or Emotional
Hyperbole.
“Woman was regarded,” says Mr. Symonds, “as an ideal being, to be
approached with worship bordering on adoration. The lover derived
personal force, virtue, elevation, energy from his enthusiastic passion.
Honour, justice, courage, self-sacrifice, contempt of worldly goods flowed
from that one sentiment, and love united two wills in a single ecstasy. Love
was the consummation of spiritual felicity, which surpassed all other modes
of happiness in its beatitude. Thus, Bernard de Ventadour and Jacopo da
Lentino were ready to forego Paradise, unless they might behold their
lady’s face before the throne of God. For a certain period in modern history
this mysticism of the amorous emotion was no affectation. It formulated a
genuine impulse of manly hearts, influenced by beauty, and touched with
the sense of moral superiority in woman, perfected through weakness, and
demanding physical protection. By bringing the tender passions into accord
with gentle manners and unselfish aspirations, it served to temper the
rudeness of primitive society; and no little of its attraction was due to the
conviction that only refined natures could experience it. This new aspect of
love was due to chivalry, to Christianity, to the Teutonic reverence for
woman, in which religious awe seems to have blended with the service of
the weaker by the stronger.”
These remarks, though applicable to Chivalrous poetry in general, refer
especially to the Italian species. The most important varieties of Chivalrous
poetry, however, are those of the Provençal, or French, Troubadours, and
the German Minnesingers. These must be briefly considered in turn, as they
present national differences of importance to the history and psychology of
Love.

(a) French Troubadours.—As we live in a period in which the newspaper
has become the greatest of moral forces, we can most easily realise the
social influence of the Troubadours on reading, in Thierry, that “In the
twelfth century the songs of the troubadours, circulating rapidly from castle
to castle, and from town to town, supplied the place of periodical gazettes in
all the country between the rivers Isère and Vienne, the mountains of
Auvergne and the two seas.”
The wandering minstrels who wielded this poetic power were recruited
from all classes—nobility, artisans, and clergy. But, as Dr. F. Hueffer
remarks in his entertaining work on Provençal life and poetry, “By far the
largest number of the Troubadours known to us—fifty-seven in number—
belong to the nobility, not to the highest nobility in most cases, it is true. In
several instances, poverty is distinctly mentioned as the cause for adopting
the profession of a troubadour. It almost appears, indeed, as if this
profession, like that of the churchman, and sometimes in connection with it,
had been regarded by Provençal families as a convenient mode of providing
for their younger sons.”
In a time when distinctions of rank were so closely observed, it was
perhaps of special importance that these singers should be chiefly persons
of noble blood. Women, it is true, have at all times shown a disposition to
ignore rank in favour of bards and tenors; but the mediæval nobles might
have hesitated, frequently, to extend to commoners the unlimited hospitality
of their castles, and the privilege of adoring their wives in verse and action.
These husbands, in fact, appear to have shown remarkable forbearance
towards their poetic guests. No doubt it flattered their vanity (overtone of
Pride) to have the charms of their spouse sung by a famous poet in person;
and on account of the social influence wielded by the Troubadours, owing
to their successive appearance at all the castles in the land, it was,
moreover, wise not to forfeit their goodwill. Sometimes, however, Jealousy
held high carnival, as, in the case of Guillem, the hero of Hueffer and
Mackenzie’s opera, The Troubadour, who was murdered by the injured
husband, and the faithless wife compelled to drink of the wine called “the
poet’s blood,” adulterated in a horribly realistic manner. The women,
likewise, were frequently moved by Jealousy—not in behalf of their
husbands but of the Troubadours, of whose art and adoration they desired a
Monopoly, whereas these bards were very apt to transfer their fickle
affections to other women.

Fickleness, however, was not the greatest fault of these Troubadours.
Their great moral shortcoming was that they paid no attention to the
borderline between conjugal and romantic love. Dr. Hueffer does not
recollect a single instance amongst the numerous love-stories told in
connection with the Troubadours, in which the object of passion was not a
married lady—a strange point of affinity with the modern French novel to
which he calls the attention of those interested in national psychology. A
case in point is that of Guirant (1260), one of whose pastorals is analysed
by Hueffer: “The idea is simple enough: an amorous knight, whose
importunate offers to an unprotected girl are kept in check by mere dint of
graceful, witty, sometimes tart reply.” These offers of love are repeated at
intervals of two, three, seven, and six years, and finally transferred to the
woman’s daughter, always with the same bad luck. His own wife,
meanwhile, is never considered a proper object for his poetic effusions.
Concerning the German imitator of foreign customs—Ulrich von
Lichtenstein, mentioned a few pages back—we have likewise seen that his
wife never entered his mind except when he came home “tired and
dilapidated, to be restored by her nursing.”
Besides pastorals of the kind just referred to, the Troubadours had several
other classes of songs, among them the tensons, or contentions which were
“metrical dialogues of lively repartee on some disputed points of gallantry.”
These may have given ground for the myth that aristocratic ladies of this
period “instituted Courts of Love, in which questions of gallantry were
gravely discussed and determined by their suffrages,” as, e.g. whether a
husband could really love his wife. The question whether any such debating
clubs for considering the ethics and etiquette of love existed is still debated
by scholars; but the best evidence appears to be negative.
(b) German Minnesingers.—The German wandering minstrels also
belonged mainly to the aristocracy, and imitated their French colleagues in
paying their addresses chiefly to married women—a fact for which, in both
cases, the rigid chaperonage of the young must be held responsible; for man
will make love, and if not allowed to do so properly he will do it
improperly. Yet on the whole the Minnesingers, at least in their verse, were
less amorous than the Troubadours. As Mr. L. C. Elson remarks in his
History of German Song: “The Troubadour praised the eyes, the hair, the
lips, the form of his chosen one; the Minnesinger praised the sweetness, the

grace, the modesty, the tenderness of the entire sex. The one was concrete,
the other abstract.”
Abstractness, however, is not a desirable quality in poetry, the very
essence of which is concrete imagery. Accordingly we find that with few
exceptions the German Minnesingers are not as poets equal to their French
prototypes. It was Schiller himself who passed the severest judgment on
these early colleagues of his. “If the sparrows on the roof,” he once
remarked to a friend, “should ever undertake to write, or to issue an
almanac of love and friendship, I would wager ten to one it would be just
like these songs of love. What a poverty of ideas in these songs! A garden, a
tree, a hedge, a forest, and a sweetheart—these are about all the objects that
are to be found in a sparrow’s head. Then we have flowers which are
fragrant, fruits which grow mellow, twigs on which a bird sits in the
sunshine and sings, and spring which comes, and winter which goes, and
nothing that remains except—ennui.”
Schiller’s criticism, however, is too sweeping, for there were notable
exceptions to these sparrow-poets, concerning one of whom, Hadlaub, the
late Professor Scherer gives the following fascinating information in his
History of German Literature: "He introduces human figures into his
descriptions of scenery, and shows us, for instance, in the summer a group
of beautiful ladies walking in an orchard, and blushing with womanly
modesty when gazed at by young men. He compares the troubles of love
with the troubles of hard-working men, like charcoal-burners and carters.
“Hadlaub tells us more of his personal experiences than any other
Minnesinger. Even as a child, we learn, he had loved a little girl, who,
however, would have nothing to say to him, but continually flouted him, to
his great distress. Once she bit his hand, but her bite, he says, was so tender,
womanly, and gentle, that he was sorry the feeling of it passed away so
soon. Another time, being urged to give him a keepsake, she threw her
needle-case at him, and he seized it with sweet eagerness, but it was taken
from him and returned to her, and she was made to give it him in a friendly
manner. In later years his pains still remained unrewarded; when his lady
perceived him, she would get up and go away. Once, he tells us, he saw her
fondling and kissing a child, and when she had gone he drew the child
towards him and embraced it as she had embraced it, and kissed it in the
place where she had kissed it.”

The gradual change in woman’s position, social and amorous, is
indicated by the differences between the earlier and the later Minnesongs.
In the early poems Professor Scherer remarks, "The social supremacy of
noble woman is not yet recognised, and the man wooes with proud self-
respect.... Another refuses himself to a woman who desired his love.... A
fourth boasts of his triumphs. ‘Women,’ says he, ‘are as easily tamed as
falcons.’ In another song a woman tells how she tamed a falcon, but he flew
away from her, and now wears other chains....
“In the later Minnesongs it is the women who are proud, and the men
who must languish.”
A still more remarkable change is noticed in the German Folk-songs
which followed the periods of Minnesong proper. “The women of these
popular love-songs are not mostly married women; they are, as a rule,
young maidens” [at last, pure Romantic Love!] “who are not only praised
but also turned to ridicule and blamed. The woes of love do not here arise
from the capricious coyness of the fair one, but are called forth by parting,
jealousy, or faithlessness. Feeling is stronger than in the Minnesong, and
seeks accordingly for stronger modes of expression.”
It is not a mere accident that true Romantic Love should have first
appeared in these Folk-songs. For these were the products of gifted
individuals in the lower classes, where chaperonage—arch enemy of Love
—was less strict than among the higher classes.

FEMALE CULTURE

That the women were not ungrateful to the mediæval bards who first
discovered in them the possibilities of higher charms and virtues, is shown
by their treatment of Heinrich von Meissen, Minnesinger, who was called
Frauenlob, because he constantly sang the “praise of woman.” When he
died at Mainz in 1317 they carried his bier to church with their own hands,
and then, in accordance with the custom of the time, poured libations of
wine on his bier so freely that the whole floor of the church was covered.
And there is every reason to believe that the women of Frauenlob’s
period deserved his praises, because they were in æsthetic, moral, and
intellectual culture far superior to the women before or directly after their
time. We read in Gottfried von Strassburg’s poem how Tristan, while Isolde

healed his wound, instructed her in the arts and manners of court life. Isolde
knew French and Latin besides her own language. She played the violin and
the harp, and sang; she wrote letters and poems, and would indeed have
been a model of culture even at the present day. The twelfth century even
had a genuine blue-stocking, the nun Herrad von Landsberg, who wrote a
cyclopædia of all human knowledge, in the Latin tongue, called the Hortus
Deliciarum. Learning throughout the mediæval ages was all concentrated in
the monasteries; but at the period in question the monks did not retain
everything for themselves, but aided the knights and the poets in instructing
the women of the court and nobility.
Nor did these women neglect their domestic affairs or physical exercise.
They accompanied the men on their falcon-hunting parties, and at home
learned to spin, weave, sew, and make clothing for themselves and their
husbands and children. At the tournaments and other games they appeared
as Queens of Beauty to distribute prizes and inspire their admirers to heroic
deeds; and at banquets and other social gatherings they seem to have
supplied more of the wit and entertainment than the men, whose military
occupations left them less time for the cultivation of the arts.
At the same time one cannot help smiling at the elementary rules of
conduct which had to be given even to women of the nobility. You must not
stare at a man long, or refuse to return his salutation, young ladies were
told; nor must you in walking take too long or too short steps. A poet of the
middle of the thirteenth century (quoted by Mr. Hueffer) gives this advice to
a girl: “If a gentleman takes you aside and wishes to talk of courtship to
you, do not show a strange or sullen behaviour, but defend yourself with
pleasant and pretty repartees. And if his talk annoys you and makes you
uneasy, I advise you to ask him questions,” and contradict his statements, in
order “to give a harmless turn to the conversation.”
Like Greek and Roman civilisation, like the palmy days of Persian and
Arabian culture, this mediæval period of feminine ascendancy and
refinement unfortunately did not last many generations. Although,
undoubtedly, chivalry accomplished real good for the time being, most of
what went by that name was, after all, too much of a sham—less a matter of
actuality than of poetic fancy. “Sincere and beautiful as the chivalrous ideal
may have been,” says Mr. Symonds, “it speedily degenerated. Chivalry,
though a vital element of feudalism, existed, even among the nations of its
origin, more as an aspiration than a reality. In Italy it never penetrated the

life or subdued the imagination of the people. For the Italo-Provençal poets
that code of love was almost wholly formal.” Petrarch, like Alberti and
Boccaccio, indulges again in abuse of women as coarse and brutal as that of
the early “Christian Fathers”; and when we come to the sixteenth century,
the scholar Cornelius Agrippa complains of the old state of affairs—
woman’s complete subjection: “Unjust laws,” he says, “do their worst to
repress women; custom and education combine to make them nonentities.
From her childhood a girl is brought up in idleness at home, and confined to
needle and thread for sole employment. When she reaches marriageable
years, she has this alternative: the jealousy of a husband, or the custody of a
convent. All public duties, all legal functions, all active ministrations of
religion are closed against her.”
The manner in which a great English poet, much later still, treated the
women of his household was quite in consonance with the customs of
preceding times. As an English author wrote, forty years ago, “Milton
taught his daughters to pronounce Greek and Latin, so that they might read
the classics aloud for his pleasure, but forbade their understanding the
meaning of a word for their own—for which he deserved to be blind.”
Regarding France we read in Compayré that “Even in the higher classes,
woman held herself aloof from instruction, and from things intellectual.
Madame Racine had never seen played, and had probably never read, the
tragedies of her husband.” Mme. de Lambert “reproaches Molière for
having excluded women from recreation, pastime, and pleasure.” Fénelon
advised girls to learn to read and write correctly and to learn grammar,
which “surpassed in the time of Fénelon the received custom.” “No one
knew better than Fénelon the faults that come to woman through ignorance
—unrest, unemployed time, inability to apply herself to solid and serious
duties, frivolity, indolence, lawless imagination, indiscreet curiosity
concerning trifles, levity, and talkativeness, sentimentalism, and ... a mania
for theology: women are too much inclined to speak decisively on religious
questions.”

PERSONAL BEAUTY

Rarer even than feminine culture, Personal Beauty appears to have been
throughout the Middle Ages. Most of the portraits of women and men, as

well as the ideal heads and figures in paintings and sculpture, are
repulsively ugly and inexpressive of higher traits. The general causes of
mediæval ugliness—neglect of personal hygiene and sanitary measures,
hard manual labour, prevention of love-matches, etc.—will be considered
elsewhere. In this place only one cause need be alluded to. The old Church
Fathers, it is well known, were not only unæsthetic but positively anti-
æsthetic. Everything pleasing to the senses was denounced by them,
especially the physical beauty of women, which they looked upon as a
special gift of the devil. Such an attitude on the part of the leading social
class could hardly tend to encourage the cultivation of personal charms; and
during the trials for witchcraft special efforts appear to have even been
made to eliminate beauty forcibly; for the mere possession of unusual
beauty sometimes sufficed to bring a poor girl to trial, outrage, torture, and
death.
It may have been due partly to a natural reaction against asceticism,
partly to the rarity of spiritual beauty, that the mediæval poets in
enumerating the charms of their mistresses, confine themselves almost
exclusively to their physical features. Professor Scherr, after quoting
Ariosto’s description of his heroine Alcina in Orlando Furioso (vii. 11,
seq.), for comparison with similar efforts of German poets, observes: “It is
very remarkable that, as in this female portrait sketched by Ariosto, so with
mediæval poets in general, including those of Germany, the principal accent
is placed on the bodily charms of the women. Almost all sketches of this
kind are purely material. Intellectual beauty, as expressed in the features, is
barely mentioned. These old romanticists were much more sensual than
modern writers would have us believe.”

SPENSER ON LOVE

That Love, too, continued to be looked at from a material point of view,
long after the chivalric efforts to idealise it, is shown strikingly by the way
in which Spenser compares love with friendship and family affection. In the
fifth book of the Faery Queene he asks—

“Whither shall weigh the balance down; to wit,
The dear affection unto kindred sweet,
Or raging fire of love to womankind,
Or zeal of friends, combined by virtues meet?”

Like an ancient Greek he decides in favour of friendship—

“For natural affection soon doth cease,
And quenched is with Cupid’s greater flame,
But faithful friendship doth them both suppress,”
(for)
“Love of soul doth love of body pass.”

Could anything attest better than this the general mediæval ignorance of
the psychic traits or “overtones” which constitute Romantic Love?

DANTE AND SHAKSPERE

Long before the day of Spenser there lived, however, in Florence, a poet
whose transcendent genius enabled him to feel and describe for the first
time the real romantic sentiment of Love. It is true that some of the poets of
Chivalry had before him attempted to depict the supersensual, æthereal side
of the passion. But their portraits lacked the touch of realism: they
described what they imagined; Dante what he felt.
Dante was born in 1265: Modern Love was born nine years later—613
years ago. “Nine times already since my birth,” says Dante, “had the heaven
of light returned to the self-same point almost, as concerns its own
revolution, when first the glorious lady of my mind was made manifest to
mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice (she who confers blessing) by
many who knew not wherefore.... From that time onward, Love quite
governed my soul.... But seeing that were I to dwell overmuch on the
passions and doings of such early youth, my words might be counted
something fabulous, I will therefore put them aside,” etc.
These are the opening lines of the Vita Nuova, in which Modern Love is
for the first time portrayed with an air of sincerity, and concerning which
Professor C. E. Norton justly remarks that “so long as there are lovers in the

world, and so long as lovers are poets, will this first and tenderest love-story
of modern literature be read with appreciation and responsive sympathy.”
What a privilege to describe First Love not only in an individual but a
historic sense, as Dante did in this poem, which Rossetti calls “the auto-
biography or auto-psychology of Dante’s youth, till his twenty-seventh
year.”
After that first sight of Beatrice one of her sweet smiles was the highest
goal of his desires; but so powerful was the spell of her presence that he
was obliged to avoid her. “From that night forth the natural functions of my
body began to be vexed and impeded, for I was given up wholly to thinking
of this most gracious creature; whereby in short space I became so weak
and so reduced that it was irksome to many of my friends to look upon me
... the thing was so plainly to be discerned in my countenance that there was
no longer any means of concealing it.” Such words as “trembling,”
“confusion,” “weeping,” constantly occur as the narrative proceeds. Love,
he says, “bred in me such overpowering sweetness that my body, being all
subjected thereto, remained many times helpless and passive.” When for the
first time Beatrice denied him her smile, “I became possessed with such
grief that, parting myself from others, I went into a lonely place to bathe the
ground with most bitter tears.” And in one of the sonnets interspersed he
says—

“My face shows my heart’s colour,
No sooner do I lift mine eyes to look
Than the blood seems as shaken from my heart,
And all my pulses beat at once and stop.”

But by far the most remarkable thing in the Vita Nuova, is Dante’s own
indirect testimony that such Love as he felt, such supersensual, æsthetic
Love, was a novelty and a puzzle to his contemporaries. For he tells how he
met some ladies who gazed at him and laughed till one of them asked: “To
what end lovest thou this lady, seeing that thou canst not support her
presence? Now tell us this thing that we may know it: for certainly the end
of such a love must be worthy of knowledge.”
No doubt it was worth knowing; for, as the author of the admirable article
on “Poetry,” in the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1859),
remarks: “When in modern times the attempt was made to revive tragedy, it

proved totally unsuccessful until this principle (of romantic love) was
admitted into the drama to give it warmth and life. Of that species of
composition which in its proper sense is peculiar to the moderns, viz. the
novel and romance, it forms, as we all know, the moving power. In short, it
influences, more or less, every department in which the imagination has
exerted itself with success since the revival of literature.”
Once more it is well to state that there are geniuses in the emotional as in
the intellectual world. Dante was both; and the realistic descriptions he has
given of the effects of Romantic Love have helped to sustain the notion that
Love is immutable, and has existed at all times. But the indirect testimony
to the contrary just quoted, and the whole argument of this chapter on
Mediæval Love, make it apparent that Dante’s Love was the exception
which proves that among the others Love did not exist. And even Dante was
not entirely modern in his Love. A modern lover would not have attempted
to conceal the object of his Love, but would have made it apparent to all by
his foolish actions that he was in Love with this particular girl and no other;
he would perhaps have wooed more persistently, and his feelings would not
have remained unchanged after her marriage to another. Like Petrarch,
moreover, Dante cannot be quite acquitted of the suspicion that, after the
first flush of excitement, the excessive and persistent purification and
idealisation of his passion was based not so much on real amorous feelings
and motives, as on an author’s craving for an object on which to lavish his
literary art of embellishment.
Dante, in a word, hyper-idealised his passion. He became quite deaf to
the fundamental tone of Love, and heard only its overtones. And herein lies
his inferiority to Shakspere. It is in the works of Shakspere that the various
motives and emotions which constitute Love—sensuous, æsthetic,
intellectual—are for the first time mingled in proper proportions.
Shakspere’s Love is Modern Love, full-fledged, and therefore calls for no
separate analysis. It is a primitive passion, purified and refined by
intellectual, moral, and æsthetic culture. And though by no means universal,
or even common, at the present day, it is yet of frequent occurrence, and
will become more and more prevalent as time rolls on. To facilitate its
progress by pointing out its characteristics, its evolution, and the measures
that must be taken to foster it, is one of the principal objects of this
monograph.

MODERN LOVE

A BIOLOGIC TEST

Writers on evolution have a very simple and convenient way of verifying
their inferences, by applying the rule—which seems to hold true universally
—that the different stages through which an individual passes in his
development—physical and mental—correspond to the periods of
development through which the whole race has passed.
This principle, applied to our present problem, fits exactly, and proves
that the account given in the preceding pages of the development of Love is
correct.
Historically we have seen that of all affections Maternal Love is the
earliest and (until after Romantic Love appears) the strongest. Then
paternal, filial, and fraternal love are gradually developed, followed by
friendship (Greek), and finally by Love proper.
Just so with the individual. The baby’s first love is for its mother, whose
tender expression and beaming eyes throw the first reflected smile on its
face, and touch the first cord of sympathetic attachment. Then the father
comes in for his share of attention, followed by sisters and brothers. At
school begins the era of friendship, representing “classical” love, and often
as ardent and Love-like as among the ancient Greeks. Finally Romantic
Love appears on the scene, eclipsing every other emotion. And, like historic
Love, it generally passes through a blind, silly, chivalric stage, known as
“calf-love,” which at last is succeeded by real, intense romantic passion,
that leads to monogamous marriage, the central pillar of modern
civilisation.
Not only have we seen that Romantic Love is the latest and the strongest
of all affections, but the causes which retarded its development have been
indicated. Chief among these were the negation of Individual Preference,
and the absence of opportunities for Courtship, already deplored by Plato.
As long as women were captured, or bought, or disposed of by father or
mother without any reference to their own will, Sexual Selection on the
female’s part was of course out of the question; and on the man’s part it was
rendered impossible by the absence of Courtship. Wooing a woman was not

winning her favour, but impressing her father with a display of wealth or
social power. Thus there were no opportunities on her part for the display of
personal charms or the cunning art of Coyness, or for inflaming and feeding
his passion through Jealousy by bestowing an occasional mischief-making
smile on his rivals; there were no lover’s quarrels followed by sweet
reconciliations and an increase of Love; no short absences fanning Love
with sighs; no alternate feelings of hope and despair, inspired by his or her
fickle or uncertain actions; no chance for displays of Gallantry and mutual
Self-sacrifice and assistance; no sympathetic exchange and consequent
doubling of pleasures, real or anticipated; none, in fact, of the more subtle
traits and emotions which make Romantic Love what it is.

VENUS, PLUTUS, AND MINERVA

It cannot be said that these obstacles to Love have been as radically
removed as they ought to be. Oriental chaperonage is still rampant in
France, to the extinction of all true romantic sentiment. In other countries
Parental Tyranny has considerably abated, but the Goddess of Love still has
formidable rivals in Plutus, the god of wealth, and Minerva, the goddess of
“wisdom” or expediency. Thus it happens that even in the case of persons
who are refined enough to experience Love, it is too often absent when they
marry; and, as a German pessimist sneeringly points out, no one has yet
dared to tempt bride and bridegroom to perjury, by asking when the knot is
tied, “Do you love this woman?” “Do you love this man?”
Nevertheless public sentiment is continually making war on Plutus and
Minerva, and siding with Venus. Probably the mercantile element in
marriage will not die out till a few weeks before the millennium, although
Herbert Spencer is optimistic enough to believe it will sooner. “After wife-
stealing,” he says, “came wife-purchase; and then followed the usages
which made, and continue to make, considerations of property predominate
over considerations of personal preference. Clearly, wife-purchase and
husband-purchase (which exists in some semi-civilised societies), though
they have lost their original gross form, persist in disguised forms. Already
some disapproval of those who marry for money or position is expressed;
and this growing stronger may be expected to purify the monogamic union,
by making it in all cases real instead of being in some cases nominal.”

It is indeed a most hopeful sign of progress, this strong and growing
modern sentiment in favour of Romantic Love as against rival motives
matrimonial. Novelists, when the wills of the lovers and the parents clash,
invariably and unconsciously side with the lovers; and should a novelist
make an exception, many of his readers would close the book, and the
others would finish it under protest and disappointedly. Even when we read
a newspaper reporter’s thrilling and dramatic narrative of the elopement of
a foolish young couple, fresh from the high-school, our hearts throb with
sympathetic anxiety lest the irate parent should succeed in capturing the
runaway couple.
No doubt this instinctive modern prejudice in favour of Romantic Love
will ultimately throw a halo of sacredness around it, which will raise
Cupid’s will to the dignity of an Eleventh Commandment—a
consummation devoutedly to be wished; for although the conjugal affection
which grows out of Romantic Love is not always deeper than that which
results from unions not based on Love, the physical and mental qualities of
the children commonly show at a glance whether or not the parents were
brought together by Sexual Selection.

LEADING MOTIVES

The psychic elements of Love which thus far have been compared to
overtones, might also be regarded from a Wagnerian point of view as
Leitmotive or leading motives in the Drama of Historic Love. In the first
scenes, where the actors are animals and savages, followed by Egyptians,
Hebrews, Hindoos, Greeks, and Romans, and mediæval clowns and
fanatics, these leading motives are heard only as short melodic phrases, and
at long intervals, pregnant, indeed, with future possibilities, but isolated and
never combined into a symphony of Love. In the last act, however, which
we have now reached, all these motives appear in various combinations, in
the gorgeous and glowing instrumentation of modern poets, with all
possible figurative, harmonic, and dynamic nuances; and at the same time
so intertwined and interwoven that no one apparently has ever succeeded in
unravelling the poetic woof and distinguishing the separate threads. For us,
however, who have followed these motives from the moment when they
first appeared in a primitive form, it will be easy to distinguish them and

subject each one to a separate analysis. We shall first consider those which,
like Coyness and Jealousy, are already familiar and need only be considered
in their modern forms, and then pass on to those which are more and more
exclusively modern.

MODERN COYNESS

At least five sources or causes of modern female Coyness may be
suggested:—
(1) An Echo of Capture.—Why are modern city-folks so fond of picnics?
It was Mr. Spencer, I believe, who suggested somewhere that it is because
picnics awaken in civilised men and women a vague and agreeable
reminiscence of the time when their ancestors habitually took their meals on
meadows in the shade of a tree. If it is possible for such experiences to re-
echo, as it were, in our nervous system through so many generations, thanks
to the conservatism of oft-repeated cerebral impressions, then it does not
seem so very fantastic to suggest that one cause of female Coyness may be
a similar echo, or reminiscence, of the time when the primitive ancestresses
of modern women were “courted” by Capture or Purchase, and so badly
treated as wives that in course of time an instinctive impulse was formed in
their minds to shrink back and say No to man’s proposals.
(2) Maiden versus Wife.—It is hardly necessary, however, to rely upon
such a remote sociological echo, so to speak, for an explanation of a girl’s
hesitation to become a wife even if her suitor pleases her. The thought of
exchanging her maiden freedom for conjugal restrictions and duties; of
giving up the homage and admiration of all men for the possible neglect of
one; of probably soon losing her youthful beauty, etc.—such thoughts
would make many girls even more coy than they now are, did not the fear
of becoming an old maid act as a counterbalancing motive in favour of
marriage.
(3) Modesty.—Esquimaux girls, as we have seen, “affect the utmost
bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, lest they should lose
their reputation for modesty.” And the greatest analyst of the human heart
puts the same philosophy into the mouth of Juliet in a passage which,
although everybody knows it by heart, must yet be quoted here—

“O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully:
Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,
And therefore thou may’st think my ’haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ware,
My true love’s passion: therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.”

(4) Cunning to be Strange.—No huntsman (except a monarch) would
care to go to an enclosure and shoot the deer confined therein, nor a
fisherman to catch trout conveniently placed in a pond. But to wade up a
mountain brook all day long, climbing over slippery rocks, and enduring the
discomforts of a hot sun and wet clothes, with nothing to eat, and only a
few speckled trifles to reward him—that is what he considers “glorious
sport.”
The instinctive perception that a thing is valued in proportion to the
difficulty of its attainment is what taught women the “cunning to be
strange.” Seeing that they could not compete with man in brute force, they
acquired the arts of Beauty and of Coyness, as their best weapons against
his superior strength—the Beauty to fascinate him, the Coyness to teach
him that in Love, as in fishing, the pleasure of pursuit is the main thing.
At first this Coyness was manifested in a very crude manner, as among
the primitive maidens who hid in the forest; or among the Roman women
celebrated by Ovid, who locked their door and compelled the lover to beg
and whine for admission by the hour; or among the mediæval women who,
to gratify their caprices and enjoy the sense of a newly-acquired power, sent
their admirers to participate in bloody wars before recognising their
addresses. And so coarse-grained were the men that as soon as the women
ceased to tease they ceased to woo; as, for instance, in mediæval France,
about the time of the Chansons de Geste, “the man who desires a woman

yet does not appear as a wooer; for he knows he is certain of her favour,” as
we read in Ploss. Hence Cleopatra’s brief and pointed rejoinder to
Charmian when he advises her, in order to win Antony’s love, to give him
way in everything, cross him in nothing: “Thou teachest like a fool; the way
to lose him.”
(5) Procrastination.—Love at first sight is frequent at the present day, but
in ancient Greece and Rome marriage at first sight appears to have been
more common. The classical suitor’s wooing was generally comprised in
three words: Veni, Vidi, Vici; i.e. I Came, Saw the girl’s father, Conquered
his scruples by proving my wealth or social position. Sufficient brevity in
this, no doubt: but brevity is not the soul of Love.
“Tant plus le chemin est long dans l’amour, tant plus un esprit délicat
sent de plaisir,” says Pascal, announcing a truth of which ancient and
mediæval nations had no conception until female Coyness taught it them.
Goethe evidently had the same truth in mind when he mentioned as a phase
of ancient love (Roman Elegies)—

“In der heroischen zeit, da Götter und Göttinen liebten
Folgte Begierde dem Blick folgte Genuss der Begier.”

That is, in prose, there were no preliminaries in the love-drama, which
had only one act, the fifth, in which the marriage is celebrated.
Goldsmith on Love.—In Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World there is a
chapter on “Whether Love be a Natural or Fictitious Passion,” in which
reference is likewise made to the value of procrastination. As this passage
shows Goldsmith to have been the first author who had an approximate
conception of the development and psychology of Love, I will quote it
almost entire. It is in the form of a dialogue, and one of the speakers
remarks: "Whether love be natural or no ... it contributes to the happiness of
every society in which it is introduced. All our pleasures are short and can
only charm at intervals; love is a method of protracting our greatest
pleasure; and surely that gamester who plays the greatest stake to the best
advantage will, at the end of life, rise victorious. This was the opinion of
Vanini, who affirmed that ‘every hour was lost which was not spent in
love.’ His accusers were unable to comprehend his meaning; and the poor
advocate for love was burned in flames; alas! no way metaphorical. But
whatever advantages the individual may reap from this passion, society will

certainly be refined and improved by its introduction; all laws calculated to
discourage it tend to embrute the species, and weaken the state. Though it
cannot plant morals in the human breast, it cultivates them when there: pity,
generosity, and honour receive a brighter polish from its assistance; and a
single amour is sufficient entirely to brush off the clown.
“But it is an exotic of the most delicate constitution: it requires the
greatest art to introduce it into a state, and the smallest discouragement is
sufficient to repress it again. Let us only consider with what ease it was
formerly extinguished in Rome, and with what difficulty it was lately
revived in Europe: it seemed to sleep for ages, and at last fought its way
among us through tilts, tournaments, dragons, and all the dreams of
chivalry. The rest of the world, China only excepted, are, and have ever
been, utter strangers to its delights and advantages. In other countries, as
men find themselves stronger than women, they lay a claim to rigorous
superiority: this is natural, and love, which gives up this natural advantage,
must certainly be the effect of art—an art calculated to lengthen out our
happier moments, and add new graces to society.”
To this conclusion the lady interlocutor in the dialogue objects on the
ground that “the effects of love are too violent to be the result of an
artificial passion”; and suggests, by way of accounting for the absence of
love, that “the same efforts that are used in some places to suppress pity,
and other natural passions, may have been employed to extinguish love”;
and that “those nations where it is cultivated only make nearer advances to
nature.”
Goldsmith thus leaves it in doubt whether he considers Love a natural or
an artificial passion. In the three passages which I have italicised, he errs:
first, in saying that Love was “extinguished” in Rome, when in fact it never
existed there, except incompletely in the poetic intuition of Ovid and
possibly one or two other poets; secondly, he errs in remarking that it was
lately “revived” in Europe, when in fact it was newly-born; and his
excepting China, in speaking of the absence of Love, can only be looked on
in the light of a joke in view of the absolute subjection of women to
parental dictation, and the fact that, as one writer remarks, “a union
prompted solely by love would be a monstrous infraction of the duty of
filial obedience, and a predilection on the part of the female as heinous a
crime as infidelity.” But his definition of Love as “the effect of art—an art
calculated to lengthen out our happier moments and add new graces to

society” is exceedingly good. The art in question is known as Courtship:
and it is the latest of the fine arts, which even now exists in its perfection in
two countries only—England and America. The Italian language has no
equivalent for Courtship, as Professor Mantegazza tells us in his Fisiologia
dell’ Amore; and a German commentator on this passage in Mantegazza
comments dubiously: “Das Eutsprechende deutsche Wort dürfte wohl
Werbung sein;” “the corresponding German word is presumably Werbung.”
“Presumably” is very suggestive. Yet the Germans have another expression
of mediæval origin apparently, namely, “Einem Mädchen den Hof
machen”—"to pay court to a girl," which, though somewhat conversational,
has evidently the same historic origin as our word Court-ship; implying that
formerly it was the custom at court alone to prolong the agony of Love by
gallant attentions to women, which enabled them to exercise the “cunning
to be strange.”
Disadvantages of Coyness.—Beneficial as are no doubt the effects which
have been brought about by female Coyness in developing the art of
Courtship, there are corresponding evils inherent in that mental attitude
which make it probable that Coyness will gradually disappear and be
succeeded by something more modern, more natural, more refined.
There are four serious objections to Coyness, one from a masculine, three
from a feminine point of view.
Men, in the first place, can hardly approve of Coyness; for it certainly
indicates a coarse mediæval fibre in a man if he is obliged to confess that he
can love a girl not for her beauty and amiability, but only because she
tantalises and maltreats him:

“Spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,
The more it grows and fawneth on her still.”

Or, in Heine’s delightful persiflage of this attitude—

“Ueberall wo du auch wandelst,
Schaust du mich zu allen Stunden,
Und jemehr du mich misshandelst,
Treuer bleib ich dir verbunden.
“Denn mich fesselt holde Bosheit
Wie mich Güte stets vertrieben;
Willst du sicher meiner los sein
Musst du dich in mich verlieben.”

In one English sentence: Your amiability repels, your malice attracts me;
if you wish to get rid of my attentions, you must fall in love with me.
If a refined man can feel ardent affection for an animal, a friend, a
relative, without being “spurned” and consequently “fawning,” why should
not the same be true of his love for a beautiful girl? It is true; and hence the
cleverest women of the period, feeling this change in the masculine heart,
have adopted a different method of fascinating men and bringing them to
their feet, as we shall presently see.
Women, in turn, are injured by Coyness; first, because it makes them act
foolishly. French and German girls are systematically taught to take
immediate alarm at sight of a horrid man (whom they secretly consider a
darling creature, with such a moustache) and conceal themselves behind
their mamma or chaperon, like spring chickens creeping under the old hen
at sight of a hawk. This sort of spring-chicken coyness does infinitely more
harm than good; it makes the girls weak and frivolous, and as for the men,
if they are systematically treated as birds of prey, how can they avoid
falling in with their rôle? If men are to behave like gentlemen they must be
treated as gentlemen, as they are in England and America.
Coyness, again, makes women deceitful and insincere. “Amongst her
other feminine qualities,” says Thackeray of one of his characters, “she had
that of being a perfect dissembler.” And in another place, “I think women
have an instinct of dissimulation; they know by nature how to disguise their
emotions far better than the most consummate courtiers can do.” It cannot
be said that dissimulation is a virtue, though it may be a useful weapon
against coarse and selfish men. If not the same thing as hypocrisy, it is next
door to it; and it cannot have a beneficial effect on a woman’s general moral
instincts if she is compelled constantly to act a part contrary to her
convictions and feelings. Though as deeply in love as her suitor, she is

commanded to treat him with indifference, coldness, even cruelty,—in a
word, to do constant violence to her and his feelings, and to lacerate her
own heart perhaps even more than the unhappy lover’s. Thus instead of
mutually enjoying the period of Courtship, and indulging in harmless
banter, “they gaze at each other fiercely, though ready to die for love”; or, as
Heine puts it—

“Sie sahen sich an so feindlich,
Und wollten vor Liebe vergehen.”

And why all this perverseness, this unnaturalness, this emotional torture?
Simply because—once more be it said—the men of former days, the men
who lived on pork and port, who delighted in bear-baiting, cock-fights, and
similar æsthetic amusements, had nerves so coarse and callous that to make
any impression on them the women had to play with them as a cat does with
a mouse to make it tender and sweet.
Coyness lessens Woman’s Love.—One more charge, the gravest of all,
remains to be piled on top, as a last crushing argument against crude
Coyness. An emotion, like a plant, requires for its growth sunshine, light,
and open air; if kept in a dark cellar and stifled, it soon becomes weak and
pale and languishes. Man’s superior strength and selfish exercise of it have
compelled women to cultivate Coyness as an art of dissembling, hiding, and
repressing their real feelings. But to repress the manifestations of anger, of
pity, of Love, is to suppress them; hence Coyness has necessarily had the
effect of weakening woman’s Love. It weakens it in the same proportion as
it strengthens man’s. And hence, as I have said before, the current notion
that women love more ardently, more deeply, than men is an absurd myth.
The poets have always shown a predilection for this, as for all other myths;
and as it is still served up as a self-evident truth in a thousand books every
year, it is worth while to clear away the underbrush and let in some daylight
on the subject.
Masculine versus Feminine Love.—One thing may be conceded at the
outset: that woman’s Love, when once kindled, is apt to endure longer than
man’s. Shakspere’s “’Tis brief, my Lord, as woman’s love” is therefore a
libel on the sex. The difficulty is to get it under way. It takes so much of the
small kindling wood of courtship (“sparking” it is called) to set a female
heart aflame, that many men give it up in despair and remain bachelors; or

else, like the young man in Fidelio, they finally tell their girl, “If you will
not love me, at least marry me.”
It may also be conceded that Rousseau exaggerates when he says that
“Women are a hundred times sooner reasonable than passionate: they are as
unable to describe love as to feel it.” This may have been true in his day;
but that there have since been some female authors who have correctly
described Love, and thousands of women who have been deeply in Love, it
would be absurd to deny. All that is here maintained is that Love is of less
frequent occurrence in women than in men; and when it does occur in
women it is not usually so deep, so passionate, so maddening. The average
woman knows little of Romantic Love. She has read about it in novels, in
poems, and thinks how delightful it must be. The faintest symptom is taken
for an attack, just as in perusing a medical book people commonly fancy
they have symptoms of the disease they chance to be reading about. Thus it
happens that young girls so easily “fall in love,” as they imagine, and are
ready to elope with the first music teacher or circus rider that comes along
—

“A blockhead with melodious voice
In boarding-school may have his choice,
And oft the dancing-master’s art
Climbs from the toe to touch the heart.”—Swift.

It is quite probable that Coleridge was right when he wrote—

“For maids as well as youths have perished
From fruitless love too fondly cherished;”

although this does not seem to agree with the opinion of Shakspere and
Thackeray regarding the rarity of broken lovers’ hearts. Morselli’s work on
Suicide does not contain any definite statistics à propos; but I have seen the
statement in a newspaper that in Italy, during 1883, thirty-six men and nine
women committed suicide—four to one; and the proportion will appear
larger still if it is remembered that girls often commit suicide from an
anguish deeper than a refusal.
The myth that woman’s passion is deeper than man’s is commonly
expressed in the form given to it by Byron: that in man’s life love is only an
episode, whereas to a woman it is all in all. Allowing for poetic

exaggeration, it does not at all follow that because a man does not brood all
his life over Love, he therefore loves less. The fact that Goethe, the poet,
also wrote treatises on botany and physics, and made landscape sketches,
did not decrease the depth of his poetic feeling but added to it. For it is a
fundamental law of psychology—except in pathologic cases—that
continuous brooding over an emotion weakens and exhausts it; but after
intervals of rest it emerges more fresh than ever. The various objects and
ambitions that occupy man only serve to strengthen his feelings, his
capacity for Love. That women are more easily swamped and carried away
by emotions does not prove their feelings to be deeper, but themselves to be
weaker. One lake may be entirely full, and yet not contain half as much
water as a larger lake which is only half-full.
It was evidently with a vague desire to justify or excuse woman’s
comparative weakness in Love that Ninon de L’Enclos wrote “Women and
flowers are made to be loved for their beauty and sweetness, rather than
themselves to love.” And that intelligent observer Mrs. Childs adds the
weight of her feminine testimony by confessing her belief “That men more
frequently marry for love than women.”
To remove all lingering doubt, consider the “overtones” of Love
separately. Is woman ordinarily as absurdly or ferociously Jealous as man,
or quite so Proud of her conquest? Is she so deeply absorbed in Admiration
of his Personal Beauty? Is she as Gallant, and as ready for Sacrifices? or
does she not rather take his devoted services for granted, and consider them
rewarded by a smile or some other trifle? Indeed, the only element of Love
which in woman is stronger than in man is Coyness; and Coyness, as has
been shown, weakens woman’s Love in the same degree as it increases
man’s.
Of course it would be unjust to attribute to the effects of Coyness all the
difference between man’s and woman’s Love. Much is due to the
physiologic law that emotional capacity—amorous included—depends on
brain capacity (not on the “heart”); and man’s brain is more powerful than
woman’s. But crude mediæval Coyness must bear a large share of the
blame; and it is probable that now, having played its rôle of bringing men to
terms and making them gallant and polite towards women, it will disappear
gradually.
“Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit gethan, Der Mohr kann gehen.”

Already, however, there is, especially in America and England, a superior
class of women who, despising Coyness as crude, artificial, and silly, have
adopted in its place a much more refined method of making men fall in love
with them. In one word, they have substituted Flirtation for Coyness. As
this statement will to many appear paradoxical, if not absurd, it is necessary
first to distinguish between Flirtation and Coquetry before trying to justify
it.
Flirtation and Coquetry.—These two words are so constantly confused
by careless or ignorant writers that some girls are almost as much offended
if accused of Flirtation as of Coquetry. It was bad enough for Winthrop to
say that “A woman without coquetry is as insipid as a rose without scent,
champagne without sparkle, or corned beef without mustard” (!), but there
is no excuse whatever for “Ik Marvel’s” saying that “Coquetry whets the
appetite; flirtation depraves it. Coquetry is the thorn that guards the rose (!),
easily trimmed off when once plucked. Flirtation is like the slime on water-
plants, making them hard to handle, and when caught only to be cherished
in slimy waters.” No excuse, I say, because the dictionaries on our table tell
us the very reverse. Flirtation, in Webster, is simply “playing at courtship,”
without any cruel intentions; while Coquetry is an attempt “to attract
admiration, and gain matrimonial offers, from a desire to gratify vanity, and
with the intention to reject the suitor.”
That this is the correct definition is shown beyond question by the
adjectives which are commonly coupled with those nouns: a “harmless
Flirtation,” a “heartless Coquette.”
A Coquette seeks to fascinate for the sake of fascinating. Like a miser,
she mistakes the means for the end, and feeds on one-sided passion and
admiration, until one morning she wakes up and finds her beauty gone, and
herself the most disappointed and unamiable of old maids. Or again, she
might be compared to a bank clerk who refused his salary because he was
satisfied with the tinkling of the money which he heard all day long. The
Flirt, on the other hand, displays her accomplishments, her wit, and
personal charms, for the sake of enlarging the facilities of Courtship, the
possibilities of rational Choice.
One reason why Flirtation and Coquetry are so apt to be confounded is
because the English peoples alone have the word Flirtation—naturally
enough, as they alone allow their young people the blessings of Courtship
and rational choice promoted by it. Foreigners, not appreciating exactly

what is meant by the word, are apt to translate it as Coquetry. One
Frenchman, who has lived long in England, has tried to define Flirtation for
his countrymen by saying it consisted of “attentions without intentions.”
This definition was widely welcomed as very clever. Clever it may be, but it
is a definition of Coquetry not of Flirtation. For Flirtation never excludes
possible intentions.
Flirtation versus Coyness.—Flirtation, from the feminine point of view,
may be defined as the art of fascinating a man and leaving him in doubt
whether he is loved or not. There is no reason why a beautiful and bright
girl should not charm, i.e. flirt with, every man who interests her, and to
whom she has been properly introduced. No reason why she should not
dispense her sweet smiles with complete impartiality, until she has made up
her mind whom she wishes to marry. In so far as Coyness simply means
reserve and dignity, she will of course still be coy; but she will not run away
to conceal herself in the forest, or lock the front door, or hide behind a
chaperon’s back, or affect to be cynically indifferent to men, or treat the one
she likes best with affected cruelty. With refined men of the period Flirting,
i.e. fascinating and leaving in doubt, is quite as effective in kindling
adoration to ecstasy as crude Coyness was with the coarse-fibred men of the
past. Flirtation, indeed, is much more tantalising than Coyness, and
therefore a complete modern substitute for it.
There is a passage in Hume’s Dissertation on the Passions which, though
occurring in a different connection, strikes home the truth of the last
sentence most forcibly. “Uncertainty,” he says, “has the same effect as
opposition. The agitation of the thought, the quick turns which it makes
from one view to another, the variety of passions which succeed each other,
according to the different views: all these produce an agitation in the mind;
and this agitation transfuses itself into the predominant passion. Security, on
the other hand, diminishes the passions. The mind, when left to itself,
immediately languishes; and in order to preserve its ardour, must be
supported every moment by a new flow of passion.”
Of course to those of a girl’s admirers who are for a while left in doubt
and finally “get left” altogether, female flirtation may seem a cruel pastime.
But there is a sort of historic justice in this torture which, indeed, almost
amounts to an excuse for Coquetry; it is a species of feminine revenge for
the long centuries of slavery in which muscular man held weak woman.
Besides, no man has ever died of a broken heart, except in novels. And,

again, who is to blame a pretty girl for having fascinated an unsuccessful
lover? A rose yields its fragrance and beauty to all who wish to admire it. If
a conceited young man comes along, imagines that all its beauty is for him
alone, and tries to pluck it, he has only himself to blame if he feels the thorn
of disappointment.
When Lord Chesterfield wrote, “I assisted at the birth of that most
significant word ‘flirtation,’ which dropped from the most beautiful mouth
in the world,” he perhaps hardly realised how very significant a factor of
social life Flirtation was destined to become. Mr. Galton wrote, not long
ago, that without female Coyness “there would be no more call for
competition among the males for the favour of the females; no more
fighting for love in which the strongest male conquers; no more rival
display of personal charms in which the best-looking or best-mannered
prevails. The drama of courtship, with its prolonged strivings and doubtful
success, would be cut quite short, and the race would degenerate through
the absence of that sexual selection for which the protracted preliminaries
for love-making give opportunity.” When Mr. Galton wrote this, he did not
apparently realise the social revolution that is going on, or understand that
frank and natural Flirtation, which recognises every man as a gentleman
until he has proved the contrary, affords much better opportunity for Sexual
Selection and “protracted preliminaries of love-making” than crude,
hypocritical, unnatural Coyness, which regards every gentleman as a beast
of prey and a libertine.
Flirtation being the modern art of widening the field of amorous
competition and prolonging the duration of Courtship, it follows that there
cannot be too much of it—quantitatively speaking. Qualitatively it easily
degenerates into frivolity, as in the case of those girls who get engaged
repeatedly before marriage, which shows a lack of judgment, of tact, and
especially of delicacy, because a peach should never be touched on the tree
but allowed to retain its first blush for the man who is to eat it.
Refined flirtation, in truth, requires much more wit, more tact and
culture, than Coyness, or than Prudery, which is the north-pole of Coyness.
Prudery bears much resemblance to the artificial dignity of a certain class of
young men who, by means of persistent reticence, gain a reputation for
aristocratic and cynical superiority. Coquetry even is preferable to Prudery,
for it is at any rate entertaining.

To sum up this matter in one sentence: The coy Prude says No, even
when she means Yes; the cold Coquette says Yes and always means No; the
modest and refined Flirt says neither Yes nor No, but looks and smiles a
sweet “Perhaps—if you can win my Love.”
Modern Courtship.—What a grotesque and topsy-turvy parody of history
it is, this modern comedy of Courtship, in which the man is the slave and
walks on his knees! And how gracefully the newly-crowned girl-queen
plays her rôle, little suspecting that in the next act the husband will
probably throw away his self-assumed mask, and insist again on his historic
rights as lord and master of the household!
The shock which follows this transition from the romance of Courtship to
the realism of conjugal life is much the greatest in the case of the Prude.
The Coquette need not be considered; she was born without a heart, and
marriage will not give her one. But the Prude often owes her unnaturalness
solely to an absurd educational system, and may be at heart the best of
women. Previous to marriage she is taught to rely on passive Coyness to
arouse the desires of man. After marriage, when she yields herself up, body
and soul, she loses this weapon, the lover recovers his courage and lowers
the pitch of his devotional ecstasy. This alarms the girl, who eagerly
endeavours to recover the romantic Adoration by trying to please and coax
and caress. But pleasing—or active fascination—being an art which she
never has practised, she does it in a bungling way—overdoes it, in fact—
thus increasing the husband’s indifference. Had she learned the art of
refined Flirtation, i.e. active fascination with wit and accomplishments, this
domestic tragedy would never have been enacted. Her skill and tact would
then have enabled her to preserve her husband’s Gallantry, by supplying a
constant variety and novelty in those feminine charms and graces in which
a superior woman is as fertile as a man of genius in ideas.
By her extremely reserved and passive attitude during Courtship the
Prude not only mars the probabilities of conjugal happiness, she also
weakens her own Love directly, through Coyness, and indirectly, by making
the man too servile and over-anxious to worship. For if a man immediately
yields up his sword and proclaims himself fatally stabbed by a white
wench’s black eye, there can be in her mind none of those small obstacles
and doubts which, like short absences, increase Love. Love-making should
be a duel of wit and mutual fascination. The Flirt does her part of the
fencing; the Prude simply hides behind her shield and waits to see if the

man can break it, or coax her to throw it away. With a Flirt a man need not
be a servile worshipper, but he may be a Flirt likewise: which is a much
more desirable attitude, not only because male flirtation will fan the
woman’s Love into a brighter flame through the stimulus of uncertainty, but
also because it enables the man to preserve his dignity. Hence Beatrix’s
pointed advice to Henry Esmond: “Shall I be frank with you, Harry, and say
that if you had not been down on your knees, and so humble, you might
have fared better with me? A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by
gallantry and not by sighs and rueful faces. All the time you are
worshipping I know very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the
incense.”
The girl of the period is the girl who flirts, and who expects every
eligible man to take up her challenge for a tournament of wit and playing at
Courtship. The reason why there is much more Romantic Love in America
and England than in other countries is because there is more Flirtation,
more opportunity for Courtship. On the Continent young folks are too
constantly regarded from the marriage point of view. In Italy and France,
when a young lady comes back from boarding-school, she is married as
quickly as possible before she has had a chance to fall in love with a man of
her choice. Consequence: she falls in love after marriage, and not always
with her husband. In Germany a young lady is allowed to see young men
and even to walk with them in the street, in the daytime or in the evening, if
properly chaperoned; but under no circumstances will she take a young
man’s arm, for that would imply an engagement. In America it is otherwise;
but even there, in the South, it is taken for granted that if a young man calls
on a young lady three or four times he can have no other object than to
marry her. His object may be to marry, but not necessarily her. What he
wants is to become acquainted, and if acquaintance “by summer’s ripening
breath” blossoms into Love, so much the better; if not, it is a thousand times
better he should be allowed to depart in peace than that two beings should
be mated who do not feel really sympathetic and companionable. How is a
young man to find his Juliet if he is not allowed to see a number of women,
without being called fickle? And how is Juliet to find her Romeo, if mothers
frighten young men into bachelorhood by such absurd customs?
The word Courtship, in fact, should have a wider meaning than it has
now. It should be almost synonymous with Flirtation, which provides the
means of bringing together, from a wide circle of acquaintances, two beings

who are really suited to each other, instead of two whom blind chance, a
few “calls,” or the advantages of intimacy resulting from cousinship, have
fortuitously mated for a life of probable conjugal misery.
Plato’s advice that opportunity should be given to the sexes to become
acquainted before marriage is much more followed to-day than at any
previous time in the world’s history; but there is still vast room for
improvement.

MODERN JEALOUSY

Jealousy may be defined as a painful emotion on noticing, or imagining,
that some one dear to us loves another more than us. Unlike affection in
general, and like sympathy, it therefore necessarily refers to a sentient being
and a possible reciprocation of affection. It is a form of rivalry, of which
there are two kinds: rivalry for the possession of an object or a position; and
rivalry for the first place in a person’s affections. The first is not
incompatible with friendship, for two rival candidates for a political office
or a college fellowship are not necessarily personal enemies. But the second
kind, which, when allied with doubt is called Jealousy, is a deadly enemy of
good-will; and there is probably no cause that has broken so many
friendships as the “green-eyed monster,” among women no less than among
men.
Modern psychology agrees with St. Augustine that “he that is not jealous,
is not in love.” There can be no love without Jealousy—potential at any
rate, for in the absence of provocation it may perhaps never manifest itself.
But there can be Jealousy without love, i.e without sexual love; for that
passion is often aroused in connection with other kinds of affection—
parental, filial, etc. Stories are told of dogs practically committing suicide
by disappearing or pining away if displaced by a younger pet in the
affection of a family; and those who have seen specimens of canine
jealousy find nothing improbable in these stories. Yet as a rule all these
general forms of jealousy—as when a husband is jealous of his wife if the
children show her special favour, or as when a mother is jealous of a visitor
loved by her children—are mere trifles compared with sexual Jealousy,
romantic and conjugal. It is in painting this form of Jealousy that poets have
exhausted the strength of language. “Of all the passions in the mind thou

vilest art,” says Spenser of this “king of torments,” “the injured lover’s
hell.” With this, when once the lover’s mind is affected—

“’Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmixt, incessant gall.”

“But, O, what damnéd minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves.”

In the animal kingdom sexual Jealousy and rivalry play so important a
part that Darwin attributes to their agency the superior size and strength (in
most classes) of the male over the female. Among savages, as has been
pointed out, we see sometimes a curious absence of Jealousy, both as
regards brides and wives; whereas in other cases, the passion manifests
itself with brutal ferocity. Thus among the American Indians infidelity is
sometimes punished by cutting off the nose, sometimes by the shearing of
the hair, which is considered a great disgrace. On the Fiji Islands, Waitz
tells us, the wives of a polygamist “lead a life of bitter strife and commit ...
the most atrocious cruelties against one another from hate and Jealousy;
biting or cutting off the nose is quite a common occurrence.” Stanley, in his
work on the Congo, remarks that the Langa-Langa women scar their faces
and busts in a hideous manner, probably because compelled to do so by the
Jealousy of the men. In Hebrew literature the case of Jacob’s two wives
urging him of their own accord to become still further polygamous, presents
a strange example of this passion being neutralised by other motives. What
prompted the ancient Greeks, and what prompts Oriental nations to this day,
to keep their women under lock and key, was, and is, of course, simply a
perverse and ignorant feeling of Jealousy. In this feeling also, no doubt,
originated the Chinese custom compelling women to mutilate their feet to
prevent them from going about; as well as the custom indulged in until
recently by Japanese ladies of shaving off their eyebrows and blackening
their teeth after marriage—a custom which shows how much stronger
Jealousy must be than Admiration of Personal Beauty in the affection of
these nations. No doubt, however, all these excesses and cruelties of
Jealousy are counter-balanced by the good it has done in enforcing the laws
of morality.

Civilisation does not weaken sexual Jealousy, but only gives it a less
brutal form of manifesting itself. Conjugal Jealousy still produces the
greatest number of domestic tragedies, of which Othello is the immortal
type. It is already typified in Hera, for, as Zeus says in Homer, “She is
always meddling, whatever I may be about.” But then she had good cause
to meddle in the affairs of this Olympian Don Juan.
Lovers’ Jealousy.—As for Lovers’ Jealousy proper, there is reason to
believe that it will grow stronger and more common as general culture
advances. For the men who are most ahead of our century emotionally, the
men of genius, are usually very jealous. Heine’s Jealousy went so far that he
even poisoned a poor parrot of whom his Mathilde was extravagantly fond;
and it is probable that Byron’s savage attack on the Waltz was dictated by a
sort of wholesale Jealousy in regard to all pretty girls. For in Love Byron
was omnivorous.
The lover’s and the husband’s Jealousy are alike in their extreme
sensitiveness—

“Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ;”

nor is there probably any difference in the intenseness of their agony.
To the lover Jealousy is not only his greatest torture, but also his
deadliest enemy. With this fever in his blood even the man of the world who
knows his “Ars Amoris” by heart, is apt to ruin his cause by excess of blind
rivalry and clumsy passion: which perhaps explains why so many great men
have been refused by their best loves. To endure and ignore a rival is, as
Ovid already declared, the highest and most difficult achievement in the Art
of Love; as for himself, he frankly admits, he was unequal to it.
There are several ways in which lovers ruin their chances by awkward
excess of passion. It makes them appear selfish and unamiable; and the
pallor which Jealousy inspires is not that which makes a girl consider a man
“interesting,” and leads her through pity to Love. If the lover is not yet
accepted, his Jealousy arouses her opposition, because he seems to take it
for granted that he has a right to be jealous, and that she will necessarily
accept him. Again, his attitude repels her by suggesting that he would
indulge in impertinent supervision and tyrannical dictation after marriage.

Even if he has successfully proposed, she does not like to have him make
his victory and prospective ownership so conspicuous by his jealous
glances and manœuvres. Besides, a fascinating girl likes to preserve her
apparent freedom as long as possible, and let others admire her beauty
while it lasts.
Most fatal is it for a man to assume a jealous attitude towards a woman
before he has been able to inspire her with interest in him. Her indifference
will thus be inevitably changed into positive dislike. For, as Madame de
Coulanges says, “L’on ne veut de la jalousie que de ceux dont on pourrait
être jalouse”—We do not desire any jealousy except from those for whom
we could ourselves feel jealousy. Stendhal, who quotes this aphorism, adds
a reason why women may be gratified by a display of Jealousy: “Jealousy
may please proud women, as a new way of showing them their power.” And
to a woman in love and in doubt, the man’s Jealousy, which is so easily
detected, is of course a most welcome symptom of conquest.
For Jealousy is the first sign of Love, as it is also the last. If a man is in
doubt whether he is really in Love with a girl or only admires her beauty, let
him observe her when talking or dancing with another man: if he then feels
“queer”—from a mere uneasiness to a desire to pulverise the other fellow—
he may be assured that his emotion has passed the borderline which
separates disinterested æsthetic admiration from the desire for exclusive
possession which is popularly known as Love.
Conversely, if a man who has been repeatedly refused, or who for some
other reason endeavours to suppress his passion, feels in doubt whether the
cure is complete, he need only imagine his former love in the arms of
another man, or before the altar with him: if that does not make him turn
pale and frown and bite his lips, he is cured. This test, however, is not so
certain as the other, for sometimes Jealousy outlives Love; and Longfellow
believed that every true passion leaves an eternal scar.
Like Coyness, Jealousy is a discord in the harmony of Love. A little of it
is piquant and rouses desire. “Jealousy,” says Hume, “is a painful passion,
yet without some share of it the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to
subsist in all its force and violence.... Jealousy and absence in love compose
the dolce piccante of the Italians, which they suppose so essential to all
pleasure.”
Unfortunately, Jealousy is rarely content to remain “agreeably piquant,”
but is apt to grow into a tornado of passion which devastates body and soul,

and makes it the keenest agony known to mankind. It is often said that the
agony inspired by a refusal is the only thing that excuses tears in a man.
This agony is a mixed emotion, including wounded Pride and the sense of
having lost all that makes life worth living. But its keenest sting comes
from the green-eyed monster, who hisses into the lover’s ears that now a
rival will enjoy her sweetness and beauty. Dante did not correctly describe
the lowest depth of hell: it is this thought in the lover’s mind that “now
another will marry her.” It is that thought which drives lovers to lunatic
asylums and suicide.
“Some lines I read the other day,” Keats wrote to Fanny Brawne, "are
continually ringing a peal in my ears—

“To see those eyes I prize above mine own
Dart Favours on another—
And those sweet lips (yielding immortal nectar)
Be gently press’d by any but myself—
Think, think, Francesca, what a cursed thing
It were beyond expression.”

“Get thee to a nunnery,” would be every lover’s advice to the girl who
rejected him. If she obeyed, his agony would be diminished one-half.
But why, if he cannot have her, should she not make some one else
happy? Because Jealousy is the one absolutely selfish trait of Love. The
lover who in other respects is the very model of altruism and Self-Sacrifice
is in point of jealous rivalry for possession an absolute egotist to whom
even her happiness is torture if he cannot share it. Is this an aberration of
Lovers’ Sympathy, or does it mark its climax? The answer will be found in
the chapter on Sympathy.
Retrospective and Prospective Jealousy.—There are three kinds of
modern Jealousy—Retrospective, Present, and Prospective. The rejected
lover’s Jealousy is of the third kind; it refers not to what is, but to what will
or may be. Another variety of Prospective Jealousy is illustrated by a story
told in a Moscow journal of an old peasant who married a young girl of
whom he was very jealous. On his deathbed he expressed a desire to give
her a last kiss. But hardly had she touched him, when he seized her under
lip and fastened his teeth so tightly in it that a knife had to be used to pry

them open. With his dying breath he confessed that his object had been to
mutilate her, so that no one else might marry her.
Is it not possible that the custom of burning widows in India was at first
an outcome of the Jealousy of some influential ruler who set the fashion?
Present Jealousy does not call for any special remarks, but Retrospective
Jealousy has some curious features. It is entirely non-existent not only
among those savage tribes who scorn virgin brides, but among some semi-
civilised peoples in Africa and Asia where the men prefer to marry women
with a dowry, no matter how they may have earned it.
In modern love Retrospective Jealousy is often very strong, especially in
men who, though they do not hesitate to marry a girl who has been engaged
before, would not care to dwell on the details of the previous engagement.
Women, too, have been known to indulge in this futile form of Jealousy.
Thus Heine relates in one of his letters that at the special request of his
Mathilde, he got her a copy of the French edition of his Pictures of Travel.
“But hardly had she read a few pages, when she turned deadly pale,
trembled in all her limbs, and begged me for heaven’s sake to close the
book. She had come upon a love-scene in it, and jealous as she is, she does
not even want me to have adored another before her régime; indeed, I had
to promise her that in future I would not address any language of love even
to the imaginary ideal personages in my books.”
The trouble with Heine is that one never knows exactly when he is
relating facts and when indulging in fun and fiction. As a rule, certainly
women are not much troubled by Jealousy regarding the past. If the lover
promises to be a good boy in future and give them a monopoly of his
adoration, they are rarely disquieted by the question, “Has he been in love
before?” Indeed, there is a current notion that women admire a man all the
more for being a Don Juan or professional lady-killer. Perhaps, however,
this is putting the cart before the horse: for, instead of admiring him because
he is a lady-killer, is it not possible that he is a lady-killer because they all
admire him?
Yet some truth there seems to be in that old notion regarding gay
Lotharios; for the average woman’s ideal man still wears a certain mediæval
military cast: he is conceived as a muscular dare-devil, reckless, irresistible,
a universal conqueror of female hearts as well as of other fortresses.
Jealousy and Beauty.—As Love becomes more and more idealised, i.e.
transferred to the imagination, its overtones combine and produce various

new emotional clang-tints—sometimes agreeable, sometimes harsh and
dissonant. Among the Japanese and Chinese, as just stated, Jealousy
neutralises the Admiration of Personal Beauty to such an extent as to breed
indifference to shaved eyebrows, black teeth, deformed feet, and a
consequent utter absence of grace in gait. But there is a more subtle way in
which Jealousy may cast a cloud on Personal Admiration, even in a refined
Western imagination. Once in a while it happens to a sensitive man, a
worshipper of Beauty, that he beholds a vision of grace and loveliness—
perhaps in a ballroom, perhaps in a theatre or the street. But this sight
instead of delighting him, gives him a painful sting in the heart. Partly, this
paradoxical sadness of a discoverer may be due to the sudden fancy that this
fairylike being perhaps will never again cross his field of vision. Yet it
seems more likely that the tinge of pain which o’ercasts the rosy feelings of
Admiration is due to Jealousy, especially if she is seen in company with a
man. For a moment the Beauty-worshipper fancies himself in that man’s
place; the next moment the consciousness of isolation flashes on his mind,
and the reaction brings out the painful contrast between what is and what
might be. For man, as Mr. Howells has remarked, is still imperfectly
monogamous. He has occasional visions of a Mahometan heaven peopled
with black-eyed Houris; or envies the knight in Heine’s poem, who lies on
the beach and enjoys the caresses of the mermaids, who come and kiss him
because they know not that he only pretends to be asleep.
That the Beauty-worshipper’s sadness is due to a vague Jealousy seems
the more probable from the fact that the same feeling never tinges his
admiration of a living Apollo of masculine perfection. Whether women ever
have the same emotions remains for them to tell.

MONOPOLY OR EXCLUSIVENESS

In the case of this trait of Love, Priority of discovery obviously belongs
to the author of these lines—

“Love, well thou knowest, no partnership allows,
Cupid averse rejects divided vows.”

Monopoly, the imperious desire for exclusive devotion and possession, is
the mother of Jealousy. Though less grim and melancholy than her son, she

is equally presumptuous and meddlesome, and woe to the man who will so
much as breathe or smile upon what she claims as hers. Monopoly, like
Jealousy, is one of the selfish elements of Love. All lovers join hands and
declaim in unison the words of Jean Paul: “What pleases us is to see her
shrink from everybody else, growing hard and frozen to them on our
account, handing them nothing but ices and cold pudding, but serving us
with the glowing goblet of love.”
Historically, Monopoly is of the utmost significance, since in it is rooted
monogamy, which, as previously explained, probably originated in
exogamous Capture giving a man the right to exclusive possession of one
woman in communities where, as one writer puts it, every man might claim
“a thousand miles of wives.”
The desire for exclusiveness, for undivided worship, sometimes enters
into non-sexual affections; and an anonymous writer has suggested that the
main reason why Byron was so devoted to his dog was because the dog was
“a creature exclusively devoted to himself, and hostile to every one else.”
Yet all this is child’s play compared with the imperious form Monopoly
assumes in Modern Romantic Love. In the fever-heat of his passion the
lover’s chief desire is to be cast on a desert island, and remain there all
alone with her. “On ne se soucie plus de ce que dit le monde,” says Pascal;
public opinion is scorned; all social feelings annihilated. Relatives and
friends exist no longer—what are they to him? his pet occupations bore
him; and there is only one thought which fascinates—the picture of a small
and cosy house, all his own, a small parlour with one sofa, barely large
enough for two, a book of poems in very fine print, compelling two heads
to touch in reading from it, and a breakfast-table with only two chairs; all
visitors excluded from the unsocial atmosphere, because “three are a
crowd.” ’Tis a “double selfishness,” doubly as strong as single selfishness.
Surely Emerson—as the German professor did with the camel—evolved
his idea of a lover from his inner consciousness. “All mankind love a
lover,” he exclaims. Obviously he had never seen a lover. The fact is that all
the world thinks a lover a tremendous and ridiculous bore—a man whose
whole mind is monopolised by one unvarying topic—her perfections and
his chances of winning her; and who stubbornly insists on monopolising
your attention, too, with that everlasting exclusive topic. Like every other
lunatic he has one fixed idea; and it’s no wonder the poets always paint him

blind, like Cupid; for on the wide, wide ocean of humanity, he sees nothing
with his two big eyes but one little solitary transient bubble.
In this matter, it must be admitted, woman’s Love is superior to man’s.
“Oh, Arthur,” says Ella, in the Fliegende Blätter, “how happy I would be
alone with you on a quiet island in the distant ocean!” “Have you any other
desire, dearest Ella?” “Oh yes, do get me a season ticket for the opera.”
True Love is transient.—Boswell tells us that Johnson “laughed at the
notion that a man can never be really in love but once, and considered it a
mere romantic fancy.” And though this romantic fancy is as current as ever
in society and literature, Johnson was right in his verdict, as usual.
True Love, indeed, is absolutely exclusive of every other Love while it
lasts; but it rarely lasts more than two or three years; and then the heart,
freed from one monopoly, is ready for another, perhaps even more
tyrannical, while it lasts.
That Love is transient is most fortunate, for it is, in its truest and most
ardent form, such a consuming fever, that the strongest man would not be
able to endure its mingled ecstasies and anguish more than a few years. The
lover’s fancies are his only food; coarser nourishment he scorns; he loses
his appetite, and becomes “pale and interesting”—to women, who like to
see a powerful man thus wincing under their superior might, and melting
away before their radiant beauty.
Yet its transitoriness detracts not in the least from the magic and the
charm of Love. It is in the life of man what the flowering period is in the
life of a plant. As, for the sake of its fragrant blossoms, a plant is tenderly
nursed and watered weeks and months though it flowers but a week; so,
even if brief Love were the only flower of life, yet would life be worth
living for its sake alone.
How long Love may last depends on individuals and circumstances.
Sainte-Beuve, I believe, has said that it never can outlive five years.
Favouring circumstances are slight obstacles, rivalries and jealousies, short
absences, etc.; while long absences, the distractions of travel, professional
occupations, etc., tend to shorten it. In uninterrupted absence, without
epistolary encouragement, the most ardent Love would hardly survive a
year, unless the lover lived on a desert island, with no other woman to
engross his attention. Return, however, is apt to bring on a relapse, as with
Henry Esmond, who “went away from his mistress, and was cured a half-

dozen times; he came back to her side, and instantly fell ill again of the
fever.”
Thus it is the fate of all unrequited Love to die for want of food; or, if
successful, to leave the stormy ocean of passion and sail into the more
tranquil haven of conjugal affection.
Woman’s Love is less transient than man’s, because there are fewer
ambitions to neutralise it.
Is First Love best?—If Love’s Monopoly lasted for life, if passion were
not transient, it would follow that most men would marry, or endeavour to
marry, the schoolgirls who were the first object of their amorous attentions.
But is there one man in a hundred, is there one in three hundred, who
marries his first Love? Cases are known of men of genius who fell in love
at an age varying from six to nine years; and there are few lads, in America
at any rate, and if they have an artistic temperament, who do not have their
cases of “calf-love,” beginning with their tenth or twelfth year.
A boy’s first Love is a girl of about his own age, towards whom he shyly
makes his way by offering her an apple, a bunch of wild strawberries, or a
large hailstone picked up during a storm before her eyes, to impress her
with his reckless Gallantry and courage. The second and third loves—for
schoolboys are fickle, and schoolgirls more so—are probably not different
in character from the first. At fifteen and sixteen, boys scorn girls of their
own age, and fall in love with young married women, Troubadour-like.
Perhaps the Dulcinea is a Spanish beauty, with large thrilling black eyes,
who, seeing the poor cub’s infatuation, teases and tortures him to distraction
with her unfathomable wealth of fascination.
And let no one imagine that these cases of early passion are anything
short of true Romantic Love. For follow that poor boy enamoured of the
Spanish brunette; see him hiding himself in a lonely forest, gazing with
rapture on her photograph—perhaps only with his mind’s eye—throwing
himself on the ground in an anguish of tears, wishing that either he was
dead ... or her husband ... and behaving altogether like a premature Werther.
Such is calf—beg pardon—first Love. And is this first Love best of all?
Perhaps, in one respect, and in one only: it believes in its own
unchangeableness. Goethe remarks in his autobiography that nothing is so
calculated to make us disgusted with life “as a return of Love.... The notion
of the eternal and infinite, which forms its basis and support, is destroyed; it
appears to us transitory, like everything that recurs.”

Heine on First Love.—Heinrich Heine, whose poetry is next to
Shakspere’s the most valuable depository of Modern Love, enlarges on this
question in his fragmentary but admirable Analysis of Shakspere’s Female
Characters: "Love is a flickering flame between two darknesses ... [the dots
are in the original]. Whence comes it?... From sparks incredibly small....
How does it end?... In nothingness equally incredible.... The more raging
the flame, the sooner it is burnt out.... Yet that does not prevent it from
abandoning itself entirely to its fiery impulses, as if this flame were to burn
eternally....
"Alas, when we are seized a second time in life by the grand passion, we
lack this faith in its immortality, and painful memories tell us that in the end
it will consume itself. Hence the melancholy by which second differs from
first love.... In first love we fancy our passion can only end with death; and
indeed, if the threatening difficulties in our way cannot be removed in any
other manner, we readily make up our mind to accompany our beloved to
the grave.... But in second love the thought occurs to us that time will
change our wildest and most ecstatic feelings to a tame, apathetic state; that
these eyes, these lips, these contours, which now throw us into transports of
rapture, will some day be regarded with indifference. This thought, alas! is
more melancholy than a presentiment of death.... It is a disconsolate feeling,
in the midst of intoxication, to think of the sober, frigid moments that will
follow, and to know from experience that these ultra-poetic, heroic passions
will have such a lamentably prosaic ending....
“I do not, in the least, presume to find fault with Shakspere, yet cannot
but express my surprise that he makes Romeo enamoured of Rosaline
before he brings him face to face with Juliet. Though absolutely devoted to
his second love, there yet dwells in his soul a certain scepticism, which
finds utterance in ironic expressions, and not rarely reminds one of Hamlet.
Or is second love the stronger in a man for the very reason that it is paired
with lucid self-consciousness? A woman cannot love twice, her nature is too
tender to endure a second time the terrific emotional earthquake. Look at
Juliet! Would she be able a second time to endure those ecstatic delights and
horrors, a second time suppress her fear and empty the dreadful cup? In my
opinion once is enough for this poor, blessed creature, this pure martyr to a
great passion.”
First Love is not best.—Thus even Heine, while lamenting the
transitoriness of Love, cannot help suggesting that in man, at any rate,

second Love may be stronger than first. On this point it is curious to note
the difference of opinion among thoughtful writers. La Bruyère declares
that “we can love well once only—the first time; the loves which follow are
less involuntary.” Another French author, Letourneau, on the contrary,
thinks that one love-affair only whets the appetite for more: “on a besoin de
vivre fort;” and hence “an expiring passion ordinarily leaves the ground
admirably prepared for the germination of another passion.” Stendhal held
that a young girl of eighteen, “owing to her inadequate experience of life, is
not comprehensive enough in her desires to be able to love with as much
passion as a woman of twenty-eight;” and a lady-friend having objected to
this on the ground that in her first love a girl must love more ardently
because her feelings are not distracted by doubt and distrust, as they are
subsequently, he replied that this very méfiance, in its struggle with love,
will make it come out a thousand times more brilliant and substantial than
the gay and thoughtless first love.” Mr. P. G. Hamerton seems to cast his
vote in the same urn, for he thinks, “it is, indeed, one of the signs of a
healthy nature to retain for many years the freshness of the heart which
makes one liable to fall in love, as a healthy palate retains the natural early
taste for delicious fruits.” And, finally, George Eliot asks: “How is it that
the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about
our later love? Are their first poems their best? or are not those the best
which come from their fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-
rooted affections? The boy’s flute-like voice has its own spring charm; but
the man should yield a richer, deeper music.”
So doctors evidently disagree. But the facts that Heine is in doubt, that
the greatest authority makes Romeo’s unparalleled passion his second love,
and that even Werther’s famous love, notwithstanding Goethe’s theory, is
not his first, certainly make the scale incline in favour of a second or later
passion.

“Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groaned for, and would die,
With tender Juliet matched, is now not fair.”

These last two lines suggest the whole psychology of First Love.
Romeo’s first Love was not his best Love. When his soul had reached

manly maturity, and looked about for a proper object of affection, he did not
at once have the good luck to encounter his Juliet. Rosaline was the nearest
approach to his ideal; so he worked himself into a semi-fictitious passion
and groaned for her, and would die, until suddenly he saw his real ideal, and
found that his first passion was a fragile soap-bubble in comparison to his
true Love for Juliet, which no rival could have altered one speck.
In his first Love, in a word, he had fallen in love with the species, rather
than with an individual. Sexual Selection, or Individual Preference, had
come in more as a matter of chance than of decisive, final choice. And so it
is with most cases of first love. Man falls in Love with woman, woman with
man, not with a particular man or woman. Thus it is that at an early age
thousands of impatient youths marry their Rosalines before they have had
time or opportunity to meet their Juliets. Doubtless there is a Juliet for
every man in the world; but it generally happens that she does not attend the
same school, work in the same manufactory, or live in the same village, or
belong to the same city-clique as he does; so, being less adventurous than
Romeo, who went outside of his clique for a sort of exogamous marriage by
Capture, he weds his first Love, i.e. his Rosaline; and this is one of the
reasons why so few cases of true Romantic Love are encountered even to-
day, outside of novels.
Most marriages, in truth, are brought about through accidental
acquaintance or companionship, not through Love. Suppose that a score of
young men who have never loved were cast on a desert island with one
pretty girl. Though she were as unamiable as Juno, cold and coy as Diana,
in less than a month nineteen of the twenty youths would be in love with
her and bitter personal enemies. Here the man would fall in love with the
woman; the fundamental tone of passion would prevail; whereas if there
had been a choice, eighteen of those men perhaps would never have
dreamed of proposing to that girl. Now second Love is much more apt to be
thus influenced by Individual Preference than first; and the more Love is
individualised the deeper it is. Failure to find lasting satisfaction in the first
choice makes a man more slow and cautious in his second choice.
At the same time the mind expands and grows, and age strengthens not
only the intellect but the emotions as well. For his size, a boy may love as
ardently as a man; but the man is bigger.
The history of the race agrees with that of the individual in showing that
Love at first is a general passion, only slightly discriminative, but becomes

more and more so as time goes on.
Even the objection urged against second Love by Goethe and Heine
appears of no special significance when brought face to face with facts.
Very few men, if any, who are in Love a second or third time, sit in a corner
to muse over the transitoriness of passion till they become “disgusted with
life.” On the contrary, they feel convinced that the preceding infatuation
was, after all, not real indomitable Love, such as they now experience
towards Daisy No. 2; which second infatuation they absolutely know is the
genuine article; just as they know that no one ever before loved so deeply
and devotedly. This naïve self-confidence of the lover in the unprecedented
ardour and uniqueness of his passion is one of the most sublime and
ridiculous aspects of Love.
And here it may be said, for the benefit of timid souls who may possibly
fear that harm may result to the cause of Love from exposing its
perishableness, that the only persons who could be injured by the
destruction of this illusion—those who happen to be in Love—will
positively and absolutely refuse to believe that their particular passion is
fugitive. They will simply laugh in the face of any one who questions the
immortality of their Love; and a year or two later, perhaps, they will laugh
again—for a different reason.
Indeed, the notion that true Love never dies and will for ever monopolise
the soul, may actually do harm, and sometimes does so. The disappointed
lover commits suicide not because his torments seem intolerable for the
moment, but because he is convinced they will last for ever, and thus make
life not worth living.
A review of the situation brings out the truth that the only apparent
advantage which First Love has over later passions is Novelty. Yet even this
advantage proves to be illusory; for though the Second Love may not be a
novelty, the Girl is; and does not Moore, the modern Anakreon, sing—

“Enough for me that she’s a new one”?

One more consideration. There is an adage, not entirely unknown, that
practice makes perfect; and psychology teaches that feelings tend to
become deeper by repetition. Why should Love be an exception? The
channels worn in the brain by the first emotions will be reopened and

widened by the new flood of passion; and thus remembered emotion will
add its force to that of the present moment.
Has the reader ever heard Wagner’s Nibelung Tetralogy? If so, he will
remember with what a thrill of delight he recognised in the later dramas
some of the motives and melodies he had heard in the preceding ones. In
the later dramas these melodies are appreciated not only for their own
intrinsic beauty, but because they come laden with the sad and joyous
associations and memories of the preceding scenes which they illustrated.
Wagner was not only a great musician and dramatist, he was also a most
subtle psychologist. He doubled the power of music by adding to the
enjoyment of the moment the strong current of remembered emotion. And
this is precisely what a later passion of manhood adds to the naïve delights
of First Love.
It is remarkable how many analogies there are between Music and Love
—the youngest art and the youngest sentiment; and how the love of the
divine art enables one to understand and feel more deeply the music of the
divine passion.

PRIDE AND VANITY

Jealousy and Monopoly are the two selfish features of Love which urge
an enamoured couple to flee society and friends, and take refuge on a desert
island. Fortunately there is in the chemistry of Love a third selfish element
—the Pride of successful wooing, which commonly is strong enough to
neutralise the antisocial tendencies of the other two. If a lover’s passion has
not yet risen to fever-heat, nothing (except Jealousy) will so suddenly raise
it as the Pride and conceit inspired by noticing that people in general admire
his chosen girl; the more of the admirers, the greater his Pride. And if, in
addition, sympathising friends directly approve his choice and laud her
merits in detail, then his transports of ecstasy become celestial.
Inasmuch as in moments of elation over success of any kind a man feels
as if nothing were beyond his power, an accepted lover is as proud (I
suppose) as if he had conquered not only one girl, but the whole feminine
kingdom—or queendom: for surely the one chosen by him is the cleverest
and most beautiful of all; whence it follows that all the inferior ones would

of course have been only too proud if he had condescended to pay his
addresses to them.
Why do great men so often marry women who are not especially
attractive as to personal appearance, when often they might have had their
choice among a group of beauties? Because the spoiled beauties did not
understand the art of flattery, sincere or otherwise. Every man wishes to be
considered either a creative genius or a hero. The woman who knows how
to touch the sympathetic chord, to make each one’s particular kind of Pride
vibrate, has him at her feet in an instant.
In conjugal life the most ludicrous of all sights is the royal self-
complacency with which a man accepts the eager worship of his wife.
Conversely, a rejected lover’s heart bleeds from so many wounds that it
is difficult to count them; but of all these wounds the one inflicted by the
jealous thought that she will now marry another is alone deep as that of his
offended Pride. The sense of superiority which every man feels over every
other man is crushed, and cannot be laid as a flattering unction to the soul.
Hence a girl who refuses a proposal and does not at least keep it a secret, is
not only quite as mean, but a thousand times more cruel than a man who
will “kiss and tell.”
Coquetry.—Yet of all secrets the compliment of an offer is the hardest for
a woman to keep; so, in strictest confidence, she tells it to only one solitary
person, who ditto, who ditto, who ditto, etc. etc. etc. etc. and so on.
There is a class of women whose sole pleasure in life appears to be
derived from vanity gratified by offers of Love and Marriage. Of all the
elements of Love—and there are at least eleven—her soul is affected by one
alone—the overtone of Pride. The Coquette has already been superficially
examined, and distinguished from the Flirt. But this is the place where she
must be placed under the microscope and more closely examined. A great
many distinguished observers have dissected her, and here are a few of their
discoveries.
Congreve lets her off easily—

“’Tis not to wound a wanton boy,
Or amorous youth, that gives the joy;
But ’tis the glory to have pierced the swain
For whom inferior beauties sighed in vain.”

Fielding is less lenient: “The life of a coquette is one constant lie.” “The
coquette,” says Mr. T. B. Aldrich—"all’s one to her; above her fan she’d
make sweet eyes at Caliban." According to Victor Hugo, “God created the
coquette as soon as He had made the fool;” and Byron asks, “What careth
she for hearts when once possessed?” When Moore wrote—

“More joy it gives to woman’s breast
To make ten frigid coxcombs vain,
Than one true manly lover blest;”

he had evidently just left the chill atmosphere of a coquette. “A coquette,”
says A. Duprey, “is more occupied with the homage we withhold than with
that which we bestow upon her.” “Coquettes are the quacks of love,” says
Rochefoucauld. “Heartlessness and fascination, in about equal proportions,
constitute,” according to Mme. Deluzy, “the receipt for forming the
character of a coquette.” And Poincelot caps the climax: “An asp would
render its sting more venomous by dipping it into the heart of a coquette.”
There are masculine as well as feminine Coquettes; but there is one
striking difference between them. To the female Coquette all is game that
gets into her net; she will turn away from a man of genius, an Apollo,
already at her feet, to fascinate a rough and freckled country lad at first
sight; whereas a male Coquette rarely wastes his powder on a girl who isn’t
pretty. And even herein is seen the superiority of man’s Love to woman’s.
The male Coquette is actuated by Admiration of Beauty as well as by Pride;
the female Coquette by Pride alone.
Cannibals have a quaint old custom of eating certain parts of a
formidable enemy’s body, in the belief that they will thus inherit his
qualities,—as by eating his tongue, his eloquence; his heart, his courage.
What a delicious gastronomic morsel a Coquette’s heart would be to these
savages, whose principal amusement is cruelty!
Perhaps the best description ever given of a Coquette is Thackeray’s
portraiture of Beatrix—"A woman who has listened to" her admirers, “and
played with them and laughed with them,—who, beckoning them with lures
and caresses, and with Yes smiling from her eyes, has tricked them on to
their knees, and turned her back and left them.”
Love and Rank.—Not so many years ago the newspapers of a certain
European country made a great deal of ado about a forthcoming marriage

between a blue-blooded youth and a ditto maiden, for the reason that it was
“a real Love-match.” Poor princes! so rarely are they allowed to choose
their own Juliet, they who are supposed to be the rulers of the land. Until
quite recently, it is true, public opinion on the Continent sanctioned a Love-
marriage between an aristocrat and a non-aristocrat provided it was
unlawful, i.e. morganatic, a special royal euphemy for bigamy; but now
even this privilege is abolished, and princes can marry one of equal rank
only, in pursuance of a custom more tyrannical, more restrictive than the
parental command on which marriage-unions depended in ancient and
mediæval times.
German novelists have made considerable progress in their art in recent
years, but in one respect it seems to be very difficult for them to substitute
realism for romance. In every love story, almost, one of the leading
characters must be either a prince or a princess. As if it were not the very
essence of a prince and a princess that they shall not be allowed to love and
marry for Love—unless they are clever enough to fall in Love with the
partner singled out for them, which happens once in a hundred times,
perhaps.
But it is not only in the highest circles that aristocratic Pride is opposed
to free Sexual Selection. It extends through a hundred scales of the social
ladder. Germany presents a remarkable example. The metaphysician Eduard
von Hartmann credits the government of that country with great astuteness.
Not having much money to pay its officials, it has established a legion of
distinctions of rank and titles, for the sake of which the officials are quite
willing to forego a larger salary. Of the ludicrous conceit inspired by this
distinction of having even the slightest kind of a “handle” to their name, I
can give an amusing instance from my own experience. Some years ago,
desiring to see the Intendant, or Manager, of the Munich Opera-house, I
entered a little room, marked Portier, and found that gentleman comfortably
seated, with his cap on. He took my card, on which there was no “handle”
of any sort, and replied sternly, “The Intendant is in; I will send up your
card;” adding, more severely still, “And, young man, let me tell you, that
when you come into the presence of a royal official, it behoves you to
remove your hat!”
Harmless as such childish vanity may seem, it is yet one of the reasons
why there are fewer good-looking women in Germany than in most
European countries—France always excepted. For a girl, whose father

wears on his coat the order of the black eagle, to marry a young man whose
father only has the order of the green eagle, would be considered an
unpardonable mésalliance, and would scandalise the whole neighbourhood.
Of course it does not make much difference in a woman’s own looks
whether she marries a man she loves or one whom she can barely tolerate,
and who is forced on her by parental desire and public opinion, but it does
make a difference with her children; and even in her own case, is it not self-
evident that the smile of pleasure at being happily married is a better
preservative of youthful beauty than the constant frown of disappointment,
perhaps of disgust?
The highest treason against Cupid, however, is committed by those
American women, who, without the excuse of inherited custom, come to
Europe with their money to marry a baron. Fortunately such marriages have
almost always ended so wretchedly that the fashion has somewhat lost its
popularity. What is a baron? Perhaps a man whose great-great-great-
grandfather “lent” some duke or king a few thousand gold pieces, in return
for which he was allowed to place “von” or “de” before his name. And on
the strength of this little word the family Pride has gone on steadily
increasing through various generations—or rather, degenerations.
Physiology is not usually considered an ironic science, but it cannot help
writing a satire when it teaches that “blue” blood is venous blood, charged
with the waste products of the bodily tissues. How much better than this
irony would iron be, i.e. some fresh, red, arterial blood infused in the bodies
of the Continental aristocracy. The English aristocracy, on the other hand,
presents one of the finest types of manhood and womanhood; and the
reason is suggested by Darwin: “Many persons are convinced, as appears to
me with justice, that our aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy
families in which primogeniture has long prevailed, from having chosen
during many generations from all classes the more beautiful women as their
wives, have become handsomer, according to the European standard, than
the middle classes.”
Vivid as the feeling of pride must be in a man of humble origin who has
succeeded in winning the Love of a woman of a higher social grade; and
greatly as a Coquette must be tickled in counting off the number of hearts
offered to her, on her fingers if she has enough to go round: yet the climax
of Lover’s Pride, it seems to me, must be reached by a man of noble birth
who, scorning mediæval puerilities, marries the girl who has won his heart,

and were she but a plump, rosy-cheeked peasant girl. This vivid feeling was
doubtless realised by the Grand Duke of Austria when he married
Philippine Welser, by the Duke of Bavaria when he married Maria
Pettenbeck.

SPECIAL SYMPATHY

Thanks to the social instinct, our pains are halved, our pleasures doubled,
if we can share them with others. The proverb that misery loves company
expresses only half the truth; happiness, too, loves company. The late King
of Bavaria used to enjoy an opera most if he was the sole spectator in the
house; but most persons would lose half their pleasure in this way. Nor is
this a purely imaginary feeling; for in a successful performance there are
moments when the intensely-silent and universal absorption seems to raise
a magnetic wave, which crosses the house and makes all nerves vibrate and
thrill in unison. Again, if a man whom constant attendance at places of
amusement has rendered blasé, happens to sit next to a young girl who
visits the theatre for the first time, the emotional play of her features, by
reviving the memory of his first experiences, enables him to share her
feelings sympathetically, and thus to enjoy the performance doubly. And is
it not a universal experience that if we witness sublime or beautiful scenes
—if we approach the Niagara Falls in a small boat from below, or if,
standing on the top of the Breithorn near Zermatt, we see almost the whole
of Switzerland and the Tyrol, parts of France and Italy, down to Lago
Maggiore, at the same moment—almost our first thought is, “Oh, if So-and-
so could only see me now and share this wondrous sight with me!”
Nor is this instinctive craving for Sympathy absent in the mind of the
poet who prefers to be alone with Nature; on the contrary, it is even deeper
in his case. For to him Nature is personal; he

“Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones;”

nor does Nature refuse her sympathy; for does she not harmonise with all
his moods, looking gloomy if he is sad, bright if he is cheerful?
From these general manifestations of emotional partnership Lover’s
Sympathy differs in being omnipresent and more exclusively concentrated

on one person. There is an association of emotions as well as of ideas: and
as every idea of excellence recalls her Perfection, so every emotion inspired
by a beautiful object calls up the image of the Beauty par excellence. Thus
Love gets the benefit of all these associated emotions—waggon-loads of
kindling wood.
How Love intensifies Emotions.—But is it literally true that in Love, as
Mr. Spencer puts it, “purely personal pleasures are doubled by being shared
with another?” It is true; though the way in which this is done is difficult to
explain. No psychologist, so far as I am aware, has cracked the nut. I have
given considerable thought to the subject, and venture to offer the following
three suggestions as to the method by which Love doubles our pleasures:—
(1) The lover’s pleasures are increased by the simple process of
emotional addition. That is, supposing him to be reading a poem or story to
his beloved, he will experience at one and the same moment not only the
emotions inspired by the poem or novel he is reading, but those due to the
sense of her presence. As the mind does not stop to analyse its feelings at
such moments, all these various pleasurable emotions will coalesce into one
seemingly homogeneous feeling of happiness; just as two complementary
colours, or all the colours of the rainbow, if mixed, will produce the simple
sensation called white.
(2) The second way in which sympathetic companionship intensifies a
lover’s feelings is through what may be called emotional resonance. If you
take a violin-string in your hands, stretch it tightly, and then get some one to
pluck it, a very faint sound only will be heard. But put it in its proper place,
over the resonant surface of the instrument, and it will produce a full, loud,
mellow tone. A human countenance is such an instrument—a sort of
emotional sounding-board. Every man feels more or less pleased with
himself if he gets off at table what he considers a wise or witty remark. If
the sounding-boards of his neighbours vibrate responsively to his jokes, he
feels proud and is doubly pleased; but if they only grin politely, the tone of
his self-satisfaction is immediately lowered an octave and dies away
pianissimo. Now between lovers such a fiasco is absolutely impossible.
They never grin at one another’s sayings for the sake of politeness merely.
His most platitudinous remarks are sure to start a symphony of smiles on
her countenance, where another man’s wittiest epigrams would be barely
rewarded with a slight curl of the lips; and as for him, she may say anything
she pleases, he never knows what she says but hears only the music of her

voice—as if her words were the text, the rising and falling of her voice the
melody, of an Italian opera. No wonder lovers are so exclusively interesting
to each other, and such unmitigated bores to other people.
Unfortunately lovers’ sympathy is rarely complete or durable. Sooner or
later some difference of taste or opinion is discovered which has the same
effect as a crack in the sounding-board—the resonance is destroyed. Yet it
can be restored by using glue; and violin-builders will tell you that a glued
instrument is often better than one which has never had a crack.
(3) Thirdly, Love intensifies human feelings by producing a state of
emotional hyperæsthesia, or supersensitiveness, which has the effect of a
microphone in multiplying the loudness of every impression. Music
teachers whose acoustic nerves are rendered excessively irritable by
overwork; students whose eyes, from reading late at night, are in the same
condition, are annoyed by sights and sounds which ordinary mortals barely
notice. But Love with its sleepless night daily fevers, and prolonged
fastings is more potent than any other cause in producing such a state of
extreme sensitiveness to every impression. Lovers’ souls may therefore be
aptly compared to Æolian harps. If you leave the strings of such an
instrument in a state of very loose tension, they resemble the souls of
ordinary mortals not in Love: for it takes a very strong breeze to elicit any
sound from them. But raise them to a higher state of tension, like the souls
of lovers, and the faintest breath of air will cause them to sound in
sympathetic unison all their harmonics—which is another name for
overtones.
Development of Sympathy.—Not only does Love thus owe much of its
unique intenseness to Sympathy, but there are weighty reasons for believing
that Love has already played an important rôle, and is destined to play a
still more important one, in modifying the meaning of Sympathy and in
extending its influence to society in general.
When the absence of true Romantic Love among savages was being
pointed out more emphasis should have been placed on the fact that they
seem to be utter strangers to sympathy. Far from sharing another’s delights
and sorrows, a savage takes an intense delight in witnessing a man enduring
the agonies of deliberate torture. Cruelty seems to give him the same thrill
of joy that sympathetic assistance gives to a refined person.
How are we to account for this strange delight in another’s sufferings?
By noting the extreme coarseness and callousness of the primitive man’s

nerves. Just as some savages are known to have such hardened hides and
lungs that they can sleep naked in a snowstorm with impunity, where a
white man would be sure to perish of cold or subsequent pneumonia; so the
savage requires the coarsest of stimulants to make any impression on his
sluggish emotions. The sight of an enemy tied to a tree and being flayed
alive tickles his nerves by suggesting his own comfortable freedom in
comparison, and by showing him an enemy absolutely in his power; while
his imagination is not sufficiently vivid to enable him to put himself in the
other’s place to feel his contortions and suppressed moans re-echoing in his
own soul.
And have we not in our very midst thousands of so-called civilised
beings who require stimulants almost as coarse as the savage to amuse their
dull imaginations?—people who would hesitate to pay silver for a book, a
concert, or an art exhibition, but gladly give gold to witness the execution
of a criminal or an exhibition of animals torturing one another to death. To
suppose that such people can ever fall in Love—Romantic Love—is more
than absurd.
Children represent this savage stage of the evolution of sympathy; as
their imagination, like all their mental powers, is still in embryo. Nothing
delights the average boy so much as a chance to torture a beetle, a cat, or a
dog. And Mr. Galton somewhere refers to the sense of blood-curdling
produced on him and other sensitive persons in the London Zoological
Gardens at the sight of snakes devouring living animals. “Yet,” he adds, “I
have often seen people—nurses, for instance, and children of all ages—
looking unconcernedly and amusedly at the scene.”
To substitute Sympathy for this delight in torture—to arouse the sluggish
imagination from its thousand years’ sleep, and quicken its sense of
suffering in man and animals—is one of the greatest problems of moral
culture, and—so far as man is concerned—forms one of the keynotes of
Christianity. St. Paul bids us both to bear one another’s burdens and to
rejoice with one another. The second part of his injunction, however, has
been comparatively neglected, as is best shown by the circumstance that we
have several terms to express the sharing of sorrow (compassion, pity,
sympathy), whereas for the sharing of joy there is no special noun in the
English language. The Germans have a word for it—Mitfreude—yet it
rarely occurs out of philosophical treatises. The word Sympathy, which
literally means “suffering with,” has also been most commonly used in that

sense. But it is now frequently being used in the sense of sharing joy too,
and perhaps, despite its etymology, it will, for lack of another word, be
chiefly used in this sense in future. Even at present, when persons are
spoken of as sympathetic or antipathetic, much less regard is paid to their
willingness to bear our burdens or share our sorrows than to the chances of
their sharing in our pleasures by having similar tastes and opinions.
For this change in the meaning of Sympathy, Romantic Love must, I
believe, be held chiefly responsible. To some extent, no doubt, friends and
relatives shared one another’s joys before the advent of Love. Yet even the
mother—taking the most favourable case—cannot enter into all her child’s
feelings, while to the child most of her mature emotions are utterly
incomprehensible; so that we miss here that reciprocation which is the very
essence of Sympathy; whereas a lover cannot even conceive a pleasure
unless the other shares it—another point in the psychology of Modern Love
to which Shakspere has given the most poetic expression—

“Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.”

Thus we see that there are three stages in the evolution of Sympathy: the
first, in which cruelty neutralises it; the second, in which this universal
enjoyment of cruelty, with its attendant lack of imagination and altruistic
feeling, compelled moralists to lay more stress on the virtue of compassion
than on the refining pleasures of mutual enjoyment; the third, the epoch of
Romantic Love, in which the positive side of the emotional partnership is
specially emphasised, so that a lover cannot pour forth a song of happiness
except in the form of a duo.
And this brings us back again to a question left unanswered in the section
on Jealousy. A rejected lover’s deepest anguish is the thought that “She will
now be happy in another’s arms.” To hear that she has entered a convent
and will never enjoy the pleasures of Love denied him would be his only
consolation. Is this an aberration of Sympathy, or does it mark its climax—
its remorseless logical consistency? The answer lies in the second
suggestion. Were Love an altruistic passion, it would be otherwise. He
would delight in her happiness under all circumstances. But Love is selfish
—a double selfishness; and its sense of justice demands that each side be
considered. “If I cannot be happy without her, how can she without me?”

The lover does not consider that the passion is one-sided—he cannot
fathom that mystery—cannot understand why his flame, which reduces him
to ashes, is not strong enough to set her on fire, and were she a stone image.
Pity and Love.—According to Darwin, one of the chief mental
differences between man and woman is woman’s greater tenderness. Of this
feminine tenderness the world has been able to judge on a vast scale during
the last two or three years.
According to a statement in Nature, 30,000 ruby and topaz humming-
birds were sold in London some years ago in the course of one afternoon,
“and the number of West Indian and Brazilian birds sold by one auction-
room in London during the four months ending April 1885, was 404,464,
besides 356,389 Indian birds, without counting thousands of Impeyan
pheasants, birds of paradise,” etc. A writer in Forest and Stream mentioned
a dealer in South Carolina who handled 30,000 bird-skins per annum.
“During four months 70,000 birds were supplied to New York dealers from
a single village on Long Island, and an enterprising woman from New York
contracted with a Paris millinery firm to deliver during this summer 40,000
or more skins of birds at 40 cents a piece. From Cape Cod, one of the
haunts of terns and gulls, 40,000 of the former birds were killed in a single
season, so that at points where a few years since these beautiful birds filled
the air with their graceful forms and snowy plumage, only a few pairs now
remain.” “It is estimated that not less than 5,000,000 birds of all sorts were
killed last year for purposes of ornamentation,” wrote Mr. E. P. Powell in
the New York Independent. A correspondent of the New York Evening Post
saw at an art exhibition a young lady, with “nothing in her face to denote
excessive cruelty,” who wore a hat trimmed with “the heads of over twenty
little birds”; and the same paper remarked editorially: “No one can tell how
large a bird can be worn on a woman’s head, by walking in Fifth Avenue. It
is necessary to take a ride in a Second Avenue car to get the full effect of the
prevailing fashion. There one may see on the head-gear of poorer classes,
and especially of coloured women, every species of the feathered kingdom
smaller than a prairie chicken or a canvas-back duck and every colour of the
rainbow.”
“Think of women!” exclaims Diderot; “they are miles beyond us in
sensibility.”
It was Science, edited by men, that started the agitation against woman’s
cruel and tasteless fashion—a fashion which not one woman in a hundred

apparently refused to conform to. It was Messrs. J. A. Allen, W. Dutcher, G.
B. Sennett, and other ornithologists, who raised their voices in behalf of the
murdered birds, for whom no woman seemed to have a thought except Mrs.
Celia Thaxter—all honour to her—and a small circle of ladies in England. It
was Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote how he felt “the shame of the
wanton destruction of our singing-birds to feed the demands of a barbaric
vanity;” another man, Charles Dudley Warner, who pertinently suggested
that “a dead bird does not help the appearance of an ugly woman, and a
pretty woman needs no such adornment.”
That the average woman’s imagination is not sufficiently refined and
quick to feel for these winged poems of the air is historically proven by this
fashion, which, characteristically enough, was first introduced by a member
of the Paris demi-monde.
It has disappeared for the moment, but is almost absolutely certain to
reappear within five years.
But who, after all, is responsible for this sluggish condition of the
feminine imagination, this lack of sympathy for the fate of harmless happy
birds, who in their domestic affections and love-affairs so closely resemble
man? Is it not the men who, till within a few years, have refused to give
their daughters a rational education? It must be so, for in that sphere where
woman has been able to educate herself, and where she is queen—in the
domestic circle, she does possess that tender sympathy which she withholds
from lower beings.
Within the range of human affections woman manifests more pity, is
stirred to nobler needs of self-sacrifice, than man. Is Love included in this
category? Dryden tells us that “pity melts the heart to love,” and novelists
delight to make their heroines first refuse their suitors and subsequently
accept them from real Love born of pity. For my part, I doubt this assumed
relationship between Pity and Love; and I do not believe that a girl who has
refused a lover ordinarily feels any more pity for him than a cat does for a
mouse, or a person who is all right on a steamer does for another who is
sea-sick—though he be his best friend. There is an instinctive belief in the
human mind that love-sickness and sea-sickness are never fatal.
It does, indeed, very often happen—perhaps in half the cases; it would be
interesting to have approximate statistics on the subject—that a girl first
refuses the man whose second or third offer she accepts; for, as an
anonymous writer remarks, “women are so made (happily for men) that

gratitude, pity, the exquisite pleasure of pleasing, the sweet surprise at
finding themselves necessary to another’s happiness ... altogether obscure
and confuse the judgment.” But in such cases there are other factors which
probably influence the girl much more than Pity does. She is, in the first
place, largely influenced by this “exquisite pleasure of pleasing”—another
name for Pride. Then there is a certain advantage to a man in having
proposed, even unsuccessfully; for whenever subsequently the girl reads
about Love she will involuntarily think of him; and thus his image will
become associated with all the pleasure she derives from Love stories—
which may prove the first step for her—and a long one—into the romantic
passion. Besides, to propose to a girl is the greatest compliment a man can
pay a girl; and this cannot be without influence.
Thus it is possible that Pity, allied with Pride, association, and flattery,
may work a change of feeling in a feminine mind; but Pity alone will rarely
lead her into the realms of Cupid. A man certainly would never dream of
marrying from Pity, on seeing that she loves him deeply, a woman for
whom he does not otherwise care. Nor should either man or woman ever
marry from Pity, any more than for money or rank. Love should ever be the
sole guide to matrimony.
Love at First Sight.—La Bruyère gives his opinion that “the love which
arises suddenly takes longest to cure;” and that “love which grows slowly
and by degrees resembles friendship too much to be an ardent passion.”
Schopenhauer, too, asserts that “great passions, as a rule, arise at first
sight.” He refers to Shakspere’s

“Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?”

and then cites Mateo Aleman’s old Spanish romance, Guzman de Alfarache,
in which, three centuries ago, the following observation was made: “To fall
in love one does not require much time or reflection and choice; all that is
needed is that in that first and only sight there should be a mutual suitability
and harmony, or what in common life we call a sympathy of the blood, and
which is due to a special influence of the stars.”
As it is not permissible, in these degenerate days of positive science, to
explain a thing by a vague reference to poetic astrology, an attempt must be
made to account for the possibility of Love at first sight on more prosaic
grounds.

Physiognomy furnishes a simple solution of the problem. In every man’s
face is painted his personal history, as well as his favourite and customary
sphere of thoughts and feelings. As Sir Charles Bell remarks, “Expression is
to passion what language is to thought.” The gift of reading correctly this
facial language of passion is given to different persons in different degrees,
though all have some share of it: and on their more or less accurate and
subtle interpretation of the “lines and frowns and wrinkles strange” in
another’s features depends the art of reading character and being
sympathetically attracted or repulsed, as the case may be. A young man who
has unconsciously associated certain peculiarities of facial expression in his
sisters or female friends with habitual cheerfulness, amiability, and
brightness will, on recognising similar features in a new acquaintance, take
for granted similar charms of character: this, which is the work of a second,
may result in sympathy at first sight, which very often is the beginning of
Romantic Love.
Love at First Sight may be inspired by this instinctive perception of
beauty of character, i.e. amiability; or by the sight of mere physical beauty;
or, thirdly, by Personal Beauty in the highest sense of the word, uniting
intellectual fascination with bodily charms.
Inasmuch as there are not a few men whose æsthetic taste is so weak that
they would rather marry a useful, companionable girl and imagine her
beautiful, than take a beauty and imagine her useful; and inasmuch as there
are a great many more amiable and vivacious girls in the world than pretty
ones, it happens that in a large number of cases Love is inspired by the
physiognomic interpretation of sympathetic traits of character just referred
to. Hence plain girls need never despair of finding husbands. There is even
a current notion that the deepest passions are commonly inspired by plain
women who are otherwise attractive. But what inspires the Love in these
cases is not so much the woman’s amiability—and certainly not her
plainness—as the fact that the style of her homeliness is of an opposite kind
from the faults of the lover, and promises to neutralise them in the
offspring.
Plain and homely, moreover, are terms often applied to women whose
faces only are so, while their figures are sometimes superb. But a fine figure
is quite as essential a part of Personal Beauty as a fine face, and is, in the
opinion of Schopenhauer, even more potent as a love-inspirer. If the figure

is disregarded in favour of the face, Romantic Love is apt to become hyper-
romantic, as in the days of Dante.
Perhaps the largest number of cases of Love at First Sight, so called, are
inspired by mere beauté du diable—a female “bud” whose sole charm
apparent is sparkling health and fragrant, dew-bejewelled freshness. That
this kind of Love at sight, which consists in being dazzled for the moment
by a set of regular features and a pair of bright eyes, is often of brief
duration, does not militate against the statement that the deepest Love is
also born of such a flash of æsthetic admiration. An incipient passion may
be crushed by the discovery of some disagreeable trait in the person who
inspired it; but when, owing to want of early opportunity to discover
unsympathetic traits, Love has been allowed to make some progress, the
subsequent discovery of a flaw is not nearly so serious a matter, for then
Master Cupid simply puts a daub of whitewash on it and calls it a beauty-
spot.
Intellect and Love.—But, after all, the deepest Love at Sight, and that
which gives promise of greatest permanence, is that inspired by a handsome
woman in whose face Intellect has written its autograph. Goethe, indeed,
has remarked that “intellect cannot warm us, or inspire us with passion;”
but the view he takes here of the relations between intellect and passion is
obviously very crude and superficial. No man, of course, would ever fall in
Love with a woman who showed her intellectuality—as not a few do—by a
parrotlike repetition of encyclopædic reading or magazine epitomes of
knowledge. This gives evidence of only one form of intellect, the lowest,
namely, Memory. It is the higher forms—imagination, wit, clever reasoning,
that constitute the essence of intellectual culture; and though woman may
never quite equal man in this sphere, such cases as Mme. de Staël, George
Sand, and George Eliot show how much she can accomplish by means of
application.
Now this higher kind of intellectual culture is able to influence the
amorous feelings in two ways: first, by refining and vivifying the features;
secondly, by enabling a woman to appreciate her lover’s ambitions and
afford him sympathetic assistance, thereby awakening a responsive echo in
his grateful mind.
Look at Miss Marbleface in yonder corner, surrounded by a group of
admirers. Everybody wonders why she, whose features might inspire a
sculptor, remains unmarried at twenty-six. Her friends, indeed, whisper that

she never even got an offer. Yet all the men to whom she is introduced
admire her immensely—the first evening; but strange to say, after they have
seen her a few times, they are not a bit jealous to leave her to a new group
of admirers; who, in turn, cede her to another. Her beauty, in truth, is but
skin-deep, literally; the muscles under the skin are never vivified by an
electric flash of wit from the brain; there is nothing but marble features and
a stereotyped smile; no animation, no change of expression, no Intellect.
Were her intellect as carefully cultivated as her features are chiselled, she
would inspire Love, not mere momentary admiration; and she would have
been married six years ago to a man chosen at will from the whole circle of
her acquaintances.
It is easy to explain how the absurd and fatal notion that intellectual
application mars women’s peculiar beauty and lessens the feminine graces
in general must have arisen. The inference seems to follow logically from
the two undeniable premises that pretty girls very often are insipid, and
intellectual women commonly are plain. But this is only another case of
putting the cart before the horse. Pretty girls, on the one hand, are so rare
that they are almost sure to be spoiled by flattery. They receive so much
attention that they have no time for study; and ambitious mothers take them
into society prematurely, where they get married before their intellectual
capacities—which sometimes are excellent—have had time to unfold. Ugly
girls, on the other hand, being neglected by the men, have to while away
their time with books, music, art, etc., and thus they become bright and
entertaining. Therefore it is not the intellect that makes them ugly, but the
ugliness that makes them intellectual.
The culture that can be compressed into a single lifetime unfortunately
does not suffice to modify the bony and cartilaginous parts of the human
face sufficiently to change homeliness into beauty; but the muscles can be
mobilised, the expression quickened and beautified by an individual’s
efforts at culture; hence some of these reputed plain intellectual women, in
moments when they are excited, become more truly fascinating, with all
their badly-chiselled features, than any number of cold marble faces. If men
only knew it!—but they are afraid of them—the average men are—because
they do not constantly wish to be reminded of their own mental
shortcomings in a tournament of wit, pleasantry, or erudition.
Even Schopenhauer, who was convinced that women are too stupid to
appreciate a man’s intellect, if abnormal, held that women, on the contrary,

gain an advantage in Love by cultivating their minds; adding that it is
owing to the appreciation of this fact that mothers teach their daughters
music, languages, etc.; thus artificially padding out their minds, as on
occasion they do parts of the body.
No doubt, as a rule, women are more influenced in love-affairs by a man
who excels in athletic qualities of manly energy than by one of intellectual
supereminence. But the adoration of women for a Liszt, a Rubinstein, and
other men of genius, whose eminence lies in a department that has been
made accessible to women for centuries, shows what might be if women
were trained in other spheres of human activity and knowledge.
Regarding the mental padding, however, we might continue in the old
pessimist’s vein by saying that it is a trick which has had its day. Men do
not marry girls quite so blindly as in the days when Romantic Love was a
novelty. They keep their eyes open; and when they find that their girl’s
musical “culture” consists in the mechanical drumming of three pieces, and
that her other “accomplishments” are similar shams, they are apt to take
their throbbing hearts and put them into a refrigerator until the young lady
has become a faded, harmless old maid, still drumming her three pieces on
the piano. The fact that so many mothers persist in thus “padding” their
daughters’ minds, instead of educating them properly, is largely responsible
for the ever-increasing number of self-conscious and disgusted bachelors in
the world.
The example of Aspasia illustrates both the physical advantages beauty
derives from intellectual culture—through the refinement of expression—
and the emotional advantages a woman secures by being able to sympathise
intelligently with her lover’s or husband’s enterprises. Nothing more
irresistibly fascinates a man than genuine questioning interest shown by a
woman in his life-work. Or, as Mr. Hamerton puts it, “the most exquisite
pleasure the masculine mind can ever know, is that of being looked upon by
a feminine intelligence with clear sight and affection at the same time.” But
on this topic Mr. Mill has discoursed so enthusiastically in his Subjection of
Women that anything that might be added here could be little more than a
faint echo of his persuasive eloquence, tinged though it be with true lovers’
exaggeration.
Goethe illustrated his maxim that “intellect cannot warm us or inspire us
with passion” by marrying a pretty, brainless doll of whom he soon got
heartily tired. Heine followed his example by marrying a Parisian labouring

girl who, like Madame Racine, probably never read her husband’s writings.
And in his Unterwelt he laments his “verfehlte Liebe, verfehltes Leben”—
his mistaken love and wasted life.
Why did the ancient Greeks neglect their women? Why did they remain
strangers to Love and seek refuge in Friendship? Their women were
modest, domestic, good mothers and wives; but they lacked one thing, and
that was Intellect.

GALLANTRY AND SELF-SACRIFICE

Primitive tribes have a delightfully simple way of arranging their division
of labour. The men do the hunting and carry on wars, the women do
everything else. If a warrior on “moving day” should say to his wife and
daughters: “See here, this will never do for me to have nothing but my
weapons and my pipe, while you carry the babies, the cooking utensils, the
remnants of the game, and the tent: let me help you!”—if he should say
this, his comrades would consider him crazy, or rather, possessed of a
demon, and would burn two or three persons at the stake for having
bewitched him.
Gallantry, in other words, is unknown to savages either between lovers,
or, in a general sense, towards all women. Nor is it known to semi-civilised
peoples. Among the nomadic Arab tribes of the Sahara the wife has to do all
the work unless her husband is rich enough to own a slave; and among the
poorer Bedouins the husband traverses the desert comfortably seated on his
camel, while his wife plods along behind on foot, loaded with her bed, her
kitchen utensils, and her child on top.
The ancient Greeks were not so ungallant as these peoples towards their
women, as they had slaves to do their hard work; but the constant devoted
attention and desire to please which constitute modern Gallantry did not, as
we have seen, exist among them. Among the Romans we find traces—but
traces only—of this virtue. Mediæval Gallantry reached its extremes in the
witches’ fires on the one side, and the grotesque performances of the
knight-errants on the other. The intermediate ground apparently remained
uncultivated, except during the brief period of chivalrous poetry, and then
only in the highest classes. Wherever, in short, Romantic Love was absent,
Gallantry, as one of its ingredients, was unknown.

Coming to modern times, we see the same parallelism between general
Gallantry and the freedom granted to the young to form Love-matches.
In France, Germany, Italy, the women still have to do the hardest field
work, though the men assist. The French, indeed, who systematically
suppress Romantic Love, are apparently the most gallant nation in the
world. But there is a general agreement among tourists that in real
Gallantry, which calls for self-sacrificing actions and not mere polite words
and bows, the French are inferior to all other European nations. It is in
England and America that true general Gallantry, like true Romantic Love,
flourishes most. In America, indeed, owing to the former scarcity of
women, Gallantry was for a time carried to a ludicrous excess, almost
reminding one of the days of Don Quixote; as in that story of the Western
miners who surrounded an emigrant’s waggon and insisted on his “trotting
out” his wife; which being done by the trembling man, who feared the
worst, the “roughs” passed round the hat and collected a large sum of gold
for the woman. Perhaps American women still are, as we read in Daisy
Miller, “the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense
of indebtedness.” But the constant sight in New York and elsewhere of
street-cars in which every man has a seat while every woman is standing,
seems to indicate that there is a reaction which may go to the opposite
extreme. But after a while the pendulum will doubtless swing back to the
middle and remain stationary; and this will be in the new golden age when
men will always give up their seats to old and infirm women, to pretty girls,
and to all the others who display truly refined instincts and good taste by
abjuring crinolines, bustles, high heels, stuffed birds on their hats, and other
“ornaments” fatal to Personal Beauty.
From the facts thus hastily sketched we may safely infer that, as we saw
in the case of Sympathy with another’s joys, so again with Gallantry, what
was born as a trait of Romantic Love was subsequently transferred to the
social and domestic relations of men and women in general. Had Romantic
Love done nothing more than this, it would deserve to rank among the most
refining influences in modern civilisation.
Perhaps the most remarkable existing illustration of the way in which
Lovers’ Gallantry may assume a general form, is to be found in Mr.
Ruskin’s recent confession regarding girls: “My primary thought is how to
serve them and make them happy; or if they could use me for a plank-
bridge over a stream, or set me up for a post to tie a swing to, or anything of

the sort not requiring me to talk, I should be always quite happy in such a
promotion.”
This reads precisely like Heine’s poem in which the lover wishes he were
his mistress’s footstool, or again her needle-cushion, that he might
experience the delights of pain inflicted by her foot or hand.
Such excess of amorous Gallantry is a favourite theme for poetic
hyperbole, and it hardly can be exaggerated; for the lover really does
entertain such wishes. With him, romance is realism.
No slave could be so meek and humble, no well-trained dog so obedient
as the amorous swain. Again and again will he, without a moment’s
hesitation, plunge into a wintry stream and triumphantly snap up and bring
back to her the chip she has thrown in to amuse herself.
Active and Passive Desire to Please.—"Love, studious how to please"
(Dryden), has two ways of accomplishing its purpose—one passive, one
active. Women, owing to their prescribed Coyness, are not allowed to
indulge in actions that would imply a desire to please a suitor, except in the
later stages of Courtship, when all is settled or understood. Hence their
desire to please can only show itself passively in their efforts to make their
personal appearance attractive to the lover. Nor are men indifferent to this
passive phase of Gallantry. As nothing so fills a man with Pride as the
thought that She, a paragon of beauty, adorns herself so carefully all for his
delight; so in turn he feels it incumbent on him to follow her example. Even
the habitually slovenly become dandies for the moment, brush their hair,
buy a new hat and clothes; the lazy become industrious, the cowards
assume heroic airs and strut about like tragedians—

“I was the laziest creature,
The most unprofitable sign of nothing,
The veriest drone, and slept away my life
Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love!
And now I can outwake the nightingale,
Outwatch an usurer, and out-walk him too,
Stalk like a ghost that haunted ’bout a treasure,
And all that fancied treasure, it is love.”—Ben Jonson.

Active Gallantry has been sufficiently characterised in the foregoing
pages. It is that form of the Desire to Please which readily merges into Self-
Sacrifice. A man who would never dream of exposing himself to the
slightest danger in his own behalf will, if his sweetheart expresses
admiration of a flower growing near a dangerous precipice, rush to pluck it
with an audacity which may cost him his life. A fatal case of this sort
occurred not long ago on the Hudson River near New York. A man’s life
thrown away for the slight æsthetic gratification to be derived by his love
from the sight and fragrance of a flower!
How frequently, again, do lovers sacrifice their family bonds, the love of
parents and relatives, as well as rank and fortune, for the sake of the
romantic passion!
A mother willingly dies in defence of her offspring’s life. But will she,
like Romeo, drink the apothecary’s poisonous draught over the corpse of
her dead darling? No, herein again Romantic Love is the deepest of the
passions.
Feminine Devotion.—Self-Sacrifice is one of the traits of Romantic Love
which may remain unaltered and unweakened in conjugal affection. “Those
who have traced the course of the wives of the poor,” says Mr. Lecky, “and
of many who, though in narrowed circumstances, can hardly be called poor,
will probably admit that in no other class do we so often find entire lives
spent in daily persistent self-denial, in the patient endurance of countless
trials, in the ceaseless and deliberate sacrifice of their own enjoyments to
the wellbeing or the prospects of others.”
It is in Wagner’s music-dramas that the modern ideal of feminine
devotion unto death has found its most stirring embodiment. Elizabeth,
having lost her Tannhäuser, thanks to the allurements of Venus, dies of a

broken heart; Senta, realising that only by her self-sacrifice can the unhappy
Dutchman be released from his terrible doom of eternally sailing the stormy
seas until he should find a woman faithful to him unto death, tears herself
away from her family and plunges into the ocean. Isolde sings her death-
song over the body of Tristan; and Brünnhilde immolates herself on
Siegfried’s funeral pyre. Wagner’s theory of the music-drama was a theory
of Love in which each lover sacrifices selfish idiosyncrasies in order to
produce a happy union in marriage.
Mr. Mill, forgetting the difference between masculine maltreatment of
women, and voluntary female self-denial, thought it expedient to sneer at
the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the present artificial ideal of
feminine character; and those unsexed viragoes who wish to “reform”
women by robbing them of all womanly attributes and converting them into
caricatures of masculinity, re-echo Mill’s sneer in shrill chorus. Women,
they shout, must no longer waste their best years in staying at home,
educating their children and taking care of their husbands. These brutes
have been caressed and fondled long enough; the time has come for women
to be manly and independent. Let them take away from men the
employments, of which even now there are not enough for three-fourths of
the men; let them thus drive another 20 per cent of men and women into
celibacy because the men cannot afford any longer to marry. Let the women
strip off their artificial air of domestic refinement by mingling with the foul-
mouthed, tobacco-reeking crowds and making political stump speeches; or
by visiting the loathsome criminals in prisons, treating them to cakes and
flowers and other methods of feminine reform, so that when set free they
may be eager to do something which will bring them back to their cakes
and flowers! The children meanwhile being left at home in charge of coarse,
ignorant, careless servants, copying their manners, and the husband
compelled to seek companionship at the club, or much worse.
How the selfish husband will wince under this cold neglect and
retaliation—he who never does anything but amuse himself while his wife
toils at home; who never risks his life in war for his wife and children; who
never toils at his desk from morn to night, to earn the daily bread of all by
the sweat of his brow; who never goes to lunatic asylums from overwork
and worry! How sly in man to set up his “artificial ideal of woman’s self-
abnegation,” while he is having such a good time! But why try to paint in

weak prose the hideousness of man’s selfish conduct, when Shakspere has
done it in immortal verse?

“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.”

There is another very curious aspect of Self-Sacrifice which will be fully
discussed in the chapter on Schopenhauer’s Theory of Love, but which may
be stated here, without comment, that the reader may reflect on the
pessimist’s paradox. Schopenhauer held that Love is based on the
possession by the lovers of traits which mutually complement each other. In
the children these incongruous traits will so neutralise each other as to
produce a harmonious result; but in the life of the parents they will produce
only discords. True love, therefore, as he claims, rarely results in a happy
conjugal life: Love causes the parents to sacrifice their mutual happiness to
the welfare of their offspring.
Meanwhile it may be stated that France offers a curious confirmation of
Schopenhauer’s theory, not noted by himself. Romantic Love, it is well
known, hardly exists in France as a motive to marriage, being
systematically suppressed and craftily annihilated. Nevertheless, as many
observers attest, the French commonly lead a happy family life. But look at
the offspring, at the birth-rate, the lowest in Europe; look at the puny men,
at the women, among whom there is hardly a single beauty in all the land.
In a word, whereas Love sacrifices, according to Schopenhauer, the parents
to the children, the French sacrifice the offspring, and Love itself, to the
happiness of the individuals, married according to motives of personal
expediency.

EMOTIONAL HYPERBOLE

“I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.”

“It is a strange thing,” says Bacon, “to note the excess of this passion,
and how it braves the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in
a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love.”
It is the nature of all passions to exaggerate: and Love, being of all
passions the most violent, exaggerates the most—more even than Hate,
which alone competes with Love in the power to tinge every object with the
colour of its own spectacles. The lover’s constant sigh is for something
stronger than a superlative; and to the limit between the sublime and the
ridiculous he is absolutely blind. Like Schumann, every lover calls his Clara
“Clarissima,” and of two superlative facts he is quite certain: That she is the
most wonderful being ever created; and that his passion is the deepest ever
felt by mortal.

“Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.”
Shakspere.

If you try to convince him that others have loved as ardently—and ceased
to love, he will smile a cynical smile and then close his eyes and declaim
melodramatically—

“And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry—
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun.”—Burns.

In such hyperbolic effusions a lover sees no exaggeration, for they
describe his feelings and convictions precisely as they are.

“What we mortals call romantic,
And always envy though we deem it frantic” (Byron)

is to him bare reality, nothing more. Romeo expresses his real wish for the
moment when he says—

“O that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek;”

Byron really feels that

“O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread.”

And every lover would agree with Coleridge that

“Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.”

“The air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy,” wrote Keats to
his sweetheart; and Burns, in the sketch of his first love, thus describes the
emotional hyperæsthesia produced by Love: “I didn’t know myself why the
tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Æolian harp, and
particularly why my pulse beat such a furious rattan when I looked and
fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles.”
This is the true ecstasy of Love—the most delicious and thrilling emotion
of which the human soul is capable. Nor is it necessary to be a poet to feel
it. While in Love even a coarser-grained man “feels the blood of the violet,
the clover, and the lily in his veins” (Emerson). But if Jealousy rouses him,
it is flower-blood no longer that courses in his veins, nor human blood, but
vengeful Spanish wine. It is then that Love’s intoxication reaches its
climax: delirious ecstasy followed by angry waves of dire despair, rocking
and tossing the unhappy victim till he is pale and sick as death.
Like other drunkards, the Love-intoxicated youth sees and feels
everything double. His darling seems doubly beautiful, and all his joys and
sorrows are doubled in intensity. And, like other drunkards, he imagines
that all the world is drunk and reeling; whereas the rapid oscillation of
surrounding objects between the rosy hue of hope and the gray cloud of
doubt, is all in his own mind.
How this erotic intoxication multiplies the lover’s courage and
confidence in his success! The most insignificant smile raises him over all

obstacles to the summit of his hopes, as easily as a cloud-shadow climbs a
mountain side o’er treetops, rocks, and snowy walls.
How, on her part, it magnifies his heroism, his genius, converting the
most insipid commonplace into an immortal epigram, full of wit and
wisdom!
That Lovers’ Hyperbole is nothing but Love-intoxication shows itself
also in the ludicrous tasks they undertake when under the spell. Who but a
lover would ever attempt to gild refined gold, to paint the lily white, the sky
blue? Who mix up physiology, astronomy, gastronomy, in such an absurd
way as in “sweet-heart,” “honey-moon,” etc.?
And when, during the “honey-moon,” the lover recovers from his
intoxication, how surprised he looks, how he rubs his eyes and wonders
where the deuce he has been! He remembers Ovid’s caution that after wine
every woman seems beautiful; he remembers something about seeing
“Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.” And the girl by his side—he thought
she was Helen; but now, “really—this is most extraordinary: just look at
that large mouth, and that snub-nose—well, I knew she had it, and thought I
loved her all the more for this imperfection, which proved her human and
not a goddess: yet, by Jove, I almost wish ... in fact, I quite wish, her mouth
was smaller and her nose larger.”
Poor deluded youth! He was taken in by Cupid’s favourite trick of
dazzling a lover with a pair of brown or blue orbs, till he can see nothing
else. For this girl, beyond question, has a pair of eyes which Venus might
envy—mid-ocean-blue, with a dewdrop sparkle, and a mischievous
expression that is more commonly found in brown eyes; and these deep-
blue eyes are framed in with black brows and long black lashes, without
which no eyes are ever perfect, whatever their colour. It was these
expressive orbs, this visible music of the spheres, that ravished all his
senses and made him blind to every other feature of her countenance.
Thus we see how Love comes to be blind. One feature—most commonly
the eyes—dazes the victim so completely that all the other features are seen
but vaguely as in a dream; while the imagination is ever busy in chiselling
them into harmony with the fine eyes. And it is only after marriage, or
assured possession, that the other features emerge from their blurred
vagueness, and are found less perfect than the fond imagination had painted
them.

In this eagerness of Love to see only superlative excellence, and its
disposition to imagine a thing perfect if it is not, we get a deep insight into
the mission and raison d’être of this passion. If women and men would only
try to live up to Love’s exalted ideal of personal perfection—and most
persons could be 50 per cent more beautiful, if they attended to the laws of
hygiene and cultivated their minds—what a lovely planet this would be!
Why have so many of the greatest men of genius been unhappy in their
Love and Marriage? Because they had in their minds the loveliest visions of
possible feminine perfection, but did not find them realised in life. For a
while their pre-eminently strong imaginations helped them to keep up the
illusion; but the truth would out at last; and in the pangs of disappointment
they threw themselves upon the poetic device of Hyperbole, and tried to
console themselves by painting the images of perfection which did not exist
in life.
Love, it is true, is not the only theme which they have embellished with
the ornaments of Hyperbole. A wonderful example of non-erotic Hyperbole
occurs in Macbeth—

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.”

But as a rule the finest specimens of poetic imagery are to be found in
erotic Hyperbole; and it seems most strange that Goldsmith, who had so
deep an insight into Love, does not mention this variety at all in his essay
on Hyperbole.
Love, says Emerson, is “the deification of persons”; and though the poet,
like every other lover, “beholding his maiden, half-knows that she is not
verily that which he worships,” this does not prevent him from idealising
her portrait, and sketching her as he would like to have her. A few
additional specimens of such poetic Hyperbole may fitly close this chapter
—

Shakspere—

“She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.”

Southwell—

“A honey shower rains from her lips.”

Marlowe—

“O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”

And again—

“Many would praise the sweet smell as she past,
When ’twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
And, beat from thence, have lighted there again.”

Or, as Lamb puts it, lovers sometimes

“borrow language of dislike;
And instead of ‘dearest Miss,’
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring.
Call her cockatrice and siren,
Basilisk and all that’s evil,
Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil,
Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor,
Monkey, ape, and twenty more;
Friendly traitress, loving foe,—
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know
A contentment to express,
Borders so upon excess,
That they do not rightly wot,
Whether it be pain or not.”

MIXED MOODS AND PARADOXES

“That they do not rightly wot, whether it be pain or not.” That is the
keynote of Modern Love.
To a superficial Anakreon, who knows but its rapturous phase, Love is all
honey and moonshine. The celibate Spinoza, too, ignorant of the agonies of
Love, defined it as lætitia concomitante idea causæ externæ—a pleasure
accompanied by the idea of its external cause. Burton, on the other hand,
claims Love as “a species of melancholy”; and Cowley sings—

“A mighty pain to love it is,
And ’tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.”

The poets generally have taken a less one-sided view of the matter by
depicting Love under a thousand images, as a mysterious mixture of joy and
sadness, of agony and delight.
So Bailey—

“The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.”

Dryden—

“Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.”

Fletcher—

“Thou bitter sweet, easing disease
How dost thou by displeasing please?”

Middleton—

“Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying;
Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying;
Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing,
Love, indeed, is anything, yet indeed is nothing.”

Drayton—

“Amidst an ocean of delight
For pleasure to be starved.”
“’Tis nothing to be plagued in hell
But thus in heaven tormented.”

Constable—

“To live in hell, and heaven to behold,
To welcome life, and die a living death,
To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold,
To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath.”

Southwell—

“She offereth joy, but bringeth grief;
A kiss——where she doth kill.”
“Tears kindle sparks.”
“Her loving looks are murdering darts.”
“Like winter rose and summer ice.”
“May never was the month of love,
For May is full of flowers;
But rather April, wet by kind,
For love is full of showers.”

Shakspere—

“Good-night, good-night, parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.”
“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears;
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.”

Petrarch’s poems, says Shelley, “are as spells which unseal the inmost
enchanted fountains of the delight which is the grief of love.” In that part of
the Romance of the Rose which was written by Jean de Meung, and
translated by Chaucer, occur many similar phrases depicting Love as an
emotional paradox: “Also a sweet hell it is, and a sorrowful paradise;”
“delight right full of heaviness, and drearihood full of gladness;” “a heavy
burden light to bear;” “wise madness,” “despairing hope,” etc. Mr. Ruskin,
who quotes the whole passage in his Fors Clavigera, declares: “I know of
no such lovely love-poem as his since Dante.”
As for Dante, he fully realised the “sweet pain” of Love, as he called it.
As far back as Plato’s Timæus we find that love, as then understood, was
regarded as “a mixture of pleasure and pain.”
“’Tis the pest of love,” sings Keats, “that fairest joys bring most unrest.”
Thackeray speaks of “the delights and tortures, the jealousy and
wakefulness, the longing and raptures, the frantic despair and elation,
attendant upon the passion of love.” But it is superfluous to cite modern
authors, for volumes might be filled with quotations attesting that Love is

neither a simple “lætitia,” as Spinoza defined it, nor “a species of
melancholy,” but a mixture of joy and sadness, of rapture and woe.
Shakspere’s “violent sorrow seems a modern ecstasy” might be adopted
as a general motto for a book on the psychology and history of Love.
Love, it is true, is not the only passion characterised by such a
paradoxical mixture of moods. Thus in Macbeth the sentence, “on the
torture of the mind to lie in restless ecstasy,” does not refer to Love; and
John Fletcher, too, sings in a general way—

“There’s naught in this life sweet
If man were wise to see’t,
But only melancholy,
O sweetest Melancholy!”

A German author, Oswald Zimmermann, has even written a volume of
almost two hundred pages, wherein he endeavours to analyse various
emotions and historic phenomena, in which pleasure and pain are intimately
associated. He has chapters on the Beautiful in Art and in Nature, on Death,
on Mysticism, on the ancient festivals of Dionysus and Aphrodite, on the
mediæval flagellants, on lust and cruelty, on various epochs of modern
literature, etc. His book bears the curious title Die Wonne des Leids,
because he holds that there is in these phenomena an “Ecstasy of Woe,”
distinct from pleasure and pain, pure and simple, and superior to them.
Hartmann, the pessimist philosopher, goes a step farther, and claims that
“there is no pleasure which does not contain an element of grief; and no
pain without a tinge of pleasure.” This is obviously an exaggeration; for
what is the element of anguish that enters into the feelings of a successful
lover when he imprints the first kiss on the lips of the girl who has just
promised to be his wife? or what the element of pleasure in the feelings of a
jealous lover the moment he hears that his rival has won the prize?
Yet, if we except a pleasurable or painful climax, like these, Hartmann’s
maxim may be accepted as approximating the truth, especially in the case of
Love, which, more than any other passion, constantly changes its moods, so
that, from their close proximity, each one cannot fail to rub off some of its
colour on the others. Who but a lover can experience in one brief second
both the thrill of heavenly delight and the sting of deadly anguish
—“Himmelhoch jauchzend zum Tode betrübt,” as Schiller puts it? A whole

lifetime of emotion is crowded into the one night preceding a lover’s
proposal: hope and fear chasing one another across his weary brain like a
Witches’ Sabbath on the Brocken.
One would imagine that the moment when an admirer calls on his girl, to
be fascinated by her smiles and graceful manners, and to be thrilled by her
melodious voice, must be one of unmixed delight and ecstasy. But if the
slightest doubt as to her feelings lurks in his mind, he is much more apt to
be harassed by a peculiar bitter-sweet feeling. Will he make a good
impression on her this time? he will ask himself; has she perhaps changed,
or found another more acceptable admirer, and is she going to hint as much
by her altered manner? These and a hundred other apprehensions will
torture and depress him; so that he will more than probably lose that “easy
manner and gay address” which are such mighty weapons in winning a
woman’s heart.
Nor is the girl, on her part, free from the anguish of doubt. Though her
admirer seems to be truly devoted to her, she has read in the song that “all
men are not gay deceivers,” which somehow seems to imply logically that
most men are gay deceivers. Perhaps, she will muse, he will only worship
me as long as I leave him in absolute doubt as to my feelings; and
subsequently, having gratified his vanity and secured my photograph, he
will place it in his album to show to all his friends as his latest conquest,
and then flit to another flower.
After all, Schopenhauer was right in saying that when we have no great
sorrows the imagination invents small ones which torment us quite as much
as the others. When one sees the peculiar delight lovers take in teasing and
torturing each other, one feels tempted to believe with Zimmermann that
there is “eine Lust am Schmerze”—that pain in itself contains a
gratification, an “ecstasy of woe,” distinct from positive pleasure itself.
Yet it is hardly necessary to take refuge in such an emotional paradox in
order to account for the value and luxury of Lovers’ Quarrels and all the
various mixed moods of Love. A sufficient explanation is afforded by the
principles of Contrast and emotional Persistence.
Owing to the fact that feeling seems to have a regular pulsation or
rhythm, our hours of anguish are always interrupted by intervals of hope
and happy retrospection—as in Chopin’s funeral march, where the gloomy
dirge is interrupted for a time by a delicious melody of happy reminiscence,
like a heavenly voice of consolation. When the nervous tension has become

too great the string breaks and the bow resumes its straightness and
elasticity. Hence it is that an uncertain lover actually gloats over the anguish
of doubt and jealousy: for he has an instinctive fore-feeling that when the
reaction of hope and confidence will come, he will enjoy an ecstasy of the
imagination of which an always confident love has no conception.
Uninterrupted enjoyment of lovers’ bliss would soon dull the edge of
pleasure, as an unbroken succession of sweet concords in music would cloy
the æsthetic sense. The introduction of discords raises a longing for their
resolution which, if gratified, restores to the concords their original charm
and freshness, and thus prolongs the pleasures of music. A tourist after
spending a month on the top of a Swiss mountain becomes comparatively
indifferent to the scene of which he knows every detail by heart; but let his
peak be hidden in dense clouds for a few days, and he cannot fail, on
emerging again into sunlight, to greet the view with the same thrill of
delight as on the day of his arrival.
It is their constant and unexpected changes from joy to sadness, from
tears to smiles, that constitute the greatest charm of Heine and Chopin and
make them the lyric poet and musician par excellence for lovers. Either a
gladsome rainbow suddenly appears to illumine their lurid landscape; or,
again, “their plenteous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in
drops of sorrow.”
Even the famous

“For ought that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth”—

what is it but another way of stating that that Love which has met with no
impediments, in which anguish and delight have not warmed one another
by mutual friction, has never broken out into a conflagration sufficiently
brilliant to be recorded “by tale or history” as a remarkable specimen of
“true love.” It is the plot-interest that fascinates the reader as well as the
lover himself; it is the impediments and emotional conflicts, the coyness of
fate, that constitute the principal charm in a tale of love; and it would take a
very clever novelist to attract readers by an account of a courtship of which
the happy result was a foregone conclusion at every stage.

Thus the magic effect of contrasted emotions suggests why pleasure
alternating with woe in Love is more intense than pleasure uninterrupted. A
mountaineer who has been wading through snowfields all day up to his
knees enjoys the comforts of his slippers, a bright fire, and a cup of tea in
the evening, twice as much as a man who has been all day at home.
On reflection, however, it seems as if Contrast, far from reducing things
to their first principles, itself needed an explanation. Why is it that by
contrasting two emotions we heighten their colour? A partial explanation
was, indeed, suggested in speaking of discords: anguish begets desire, and
the more intense desire has been, the more lively is its gratification. A more
profound solution of the problem, however, is found in the fact that feelings
have their echoes, which continue sometimes long after the original tone
has ceased; and if meantime a new tone is sounded, it blends with the echo
and produces a mixed feeling.
The sense of Temperature affords a simple illustration of this “echo.”
Place two basins before you, one filled with tepid, the other with ice-cold,
water. Put your right hand in the ice-water one minute, leaving the left in
your pocket. Then put both hands into the tepid water. It will seem still
tepid to the left, but quite warm to the right hand.
Some psychologists, however, deny that pleasures and pains ever
coalesce into one feeling—that there is such a thing as a mixed feeling.
They contend that the attention can be fixed on only one feeling at a time,
that the stronger crowds out the weaker, and that it is only their rapid
succession that makes two feelings appear simultaneous, just as a firebrand
swung around rapidly seems to form a fiery circle.
Now it is quite true that the attention can be fixed on only one feeling at
any given moment, and that the stronger crowds out the weaker so far as the
attention is concerned: yet this does not prevent the prevailing feeling from
being affected by the echo of the one which preceded it. If a man, buried in
the labyrinths of a big hotel, is waked up in the night by cries of fire; though
it may prove a false alarm, yet the effect of the fright will remain with him
and cast a gloom over his whole day’s doings, however pleasant in
themselves. And a doubtful lover’s enjoyment of his sweetheart’s sweetest
smiles is often galled by the remembrance that on the preceding day she
smiled just as sweetly on his odious rival. “For sorrow ends not when it
seemeth done,” says Shakspere.

In his admirable Dissertation on the Passions, Hume cleverly makes use
of a musical analogy to explain how different emotions may be mixed: “If
we consider the human mind, we shall observe that, with regard to the
passions, it is not like a wind-instrument of music, which, in running over
all the notes, immediately loses the sound when the breath ceases; but rather
resembles a string-instrument, where, after each stroke, the vibrations still
retain some sound which gradually and insensibly decays. The imagination
is extremely quick and agile, but the passions in comparison are slow and
restive; for which reason, when any object is presented which affords a
variety of views to the one and emotions to the other, though the fancy may
change its views with great celerity, each stroke will not produce a clear and
distinct note of passion, but the one passion will always be mixt and
confounded with the other.”
Lunatic, Lover, and Poet.—A still better analogy of the manner in which
one feeling may be modified by another is furnished by the optical
phenomenon of after-images. If we gaze very steadily for half a minute at a
green wafer and then at a sheet of white paper, we see on it a purple image
of the wafer; purple being the complementary colour of green, i.e. the
colour which, if mixed with green, produces white. The reason of this
phenomenon is that, after looking at the green wafer, the nervous fibres in
the eye which perceive that colour have become so fatigued that the fainter
green waves in the white paper fail to make any perceptible impression on
them; so that purple alone prevails for the moment. So to the infatuated
swain who has been tortured by the green-eyed monster, Jealousy, the
moment of remission, which would else be one of neutral indifference,
assumes the hue of rosy hope and positive delight. Hours which to sober
mortals would seem perfect blanks are thus to him full of intense feeling,
simply because they are rebounds from a state of extreme tension in the
opposite direction. He might be likened to a schoolboy whose sleigh is
carried across the frozen river by its downward impetus and even ascends
the hill on the other side some distance before it stops. Hence, like the
madman and the man of genius, the amorous swain is always either down in
a fit of melancholy, or in an exalted ecstasy of joy, rapidly alternating and
weirdly intermingled—

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.”

Now poets are proverbially melancholy; and madmen, as Professor
Krafft-Ebing tells us, are also more commonly tortured by depressing
delusions than elated by pleasant ones. Hence, if the poet’s maxim, just
quoted, be true, we should expect the lover’s prevailing cast of mind to be
melancholy too; and so it is. Though he enjoys moments of delirious
rapture, to which sober mortals are utter strangers, yet his misgivings are
incessant, even when he is almost certain of success: and it takes but little to
poison his cup; for, as Professor Volkmann remarks, “one drop of anguish
suffices to gall a whole ocean of joy.” So the lover becomes “pale and
interesting,” loses weight and appetite, and sighs away his soul. Were this
emotional fermenting process allowed to last too long, his health would
suffer seriously: but fortunately it ordinarily ceases in a year or so, yielding
a wine which, though less sparkling and ebullient, is more mellow and less
intoxicating. Romantic Love, in other words, is metamorphosed into
conjugal affection which, among other attributes of Love, strips off its
characteristic trait of melancholy, whereby it is easily distinguished from all
other forms of affection. Before, however, we can pass on to consider in
detail the differences between Romantic and Conjugal Love, the two
remaining ingredients of Romantic Love—Individual Preference and
Personal Beauty—must be briefly considered.

INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE

It happens occasionally, in the Western regions of the United States, that
an Indian brave casts his eyes on a buxom pale-face girl and desires her in
marriage. He offers her parents two ponies for her; he offers three, five, and
even seven ponies; and when still refused he is the most mystified man in
the world: cannot understand how any man can be so egregiously stupid or
avaricious as to refuse his daughter for seven ponies! Ugh!!
It is needless to recapitulate the numerous instances cited in preceding
pages, showing that throughout the world, until within a few centuries,
Romantic Love could not exist because the girl’s choice, on the one hand,
was utterly ignored, while the man, on the other, was equally prevented, by
the lack of opportunities for courtship, from basing his choice on a real
knowledge of the selected bride. The parents who did the selecting, always
for the bride, and sometimes even for the bridegroom, were guided in their

choice by money and rank and not by Health and Beauty, which inspire
Love and follow as its fruits. The history of Love, till within three or four
centuries ago, might, in short, be summed up in six words: No Choice, no
Love, no Beauty—except in those rare cases where special hygienic
advantages prevailed, or where lucky chance brought together a youth and a
maiden who in the ordinary course of events would have fallen in Love
with one another.
There is reason to believe, however, that even if in the early ages of the
world the young had been allowed greater freedom in choosing a lover,
Romantic Love, in its more ardent phases, would not have flourished to any
great extent among primitive, ancient, and mediæval nations: for the reason
that Love depends on Individualisation, and our remote ancestors were not
so diversely individualised as we are.
Sexual Divergence.—Comparative ethnology, psychology, and biology
show that specialisation is a product of higher evolution, i.e. that individual
traits are developed in proportion as we proceed higher in the scale of life,
physical and intellectual. It is true there are no two flowers in the fields, no
two leaves in a forest, exactly alike in every detail: but the differences are
infinitesimal, and almost require a microscope to see them. It is also true
that the sheep in a flock, which appear almost alike to a casual observer, are
individually known to the shepherd. Possibly a sharp-sighted and patient
naturalist might live to distinguish himself by distinguishing the individuals
in a swarm of bees, or a caravan of ants: but this would be counted little
short of a miracle.
Furthermore, ordinary observers find it almost as difficult to distinguish
individuals in a crowd of Chinese, Negroes, or Indians, as in a bee-hive.
Closer acquaintance does reveal differences: but they are rarely so great as
those between individuals in civilised communities. And in these civilised
communities themselves we find greater differences, sexual differences pre-
eminently, the higher we ascend. Between a peasant and his wife the
difference, both physical and mental, is surely not half so great as that
between a lawyer and his wife, a physician or professor and his wife. “The
lower the state of culture,” says Professor Carl Vogt, “the more similar are
the occupations of the two sexes;” and similarity of occupation entails
similarity of attitude, expression, and mental habits. Mr. Higginson’s notion
that civilisation tends to make the sexes more and more alike is true only as
regards legal rights and social privileges; regarding their mental traits and

physical appearance exactly the reverse is true. The peasant’s wife may
have a tender heart for him and her children, but her domestic drudgery and
hard labour in the fields make her features, her voice, and manners harsh
and masculine. And who has not read a hundred times that the Indian
squaws look quite as stern, stolid, unemotional, and masculine as their
husbands?
That the ancient Greeks, though they may have possessed it, had but little
regard for Individuality is shown especially in their sculpture, and in the
fact that with them even marriage was considered less a private than a
social matter. Lycurgus, Solon, and Plato agreed in viewing marriage as “a
matter in which the state had a right to interfere;” and for the purpose of
providing the state with legitimate citizens, it was therefore regarded as
obligatory. The absence of emotional expression in Greek statues equally
shows their indifference to Individualisation and their ignorance of Love:
for Love is inspired not so much by regularity of features as by fascinating
variety of emotional expression.
Thus the absence or disregard of individual traits among ancient nations
helps, like the absence of individual Choice, to account for the absence of
Romantic Love, the very essence of which—as distinguished from mere
sexual passion—is the insistance on individual traits and the mutual
adaptation of the lovers.
What sublime—or ridiculous—extremes, this absorption in individual
traits reaches in Modern Love, no one need be told. Not only does the lover
consider his maiden’s frowns more beautiful than other maidens’ smiles, but
he longs to kiss the floor on which she has walked; and every ribbon that
has clasped her waist, every jewel that has touched her ear or neck,
becomes charged with a subtle and mysterious electric current that would
shock him with a thrill of recognition should his fingers come in contact
with them on a table, even in a dark room.
Making Women Masculine.—Nothing proves so irrefutably the
hopelessness of the task undertaken by a few “strong-minded” women—
namely, to equalise the sexes by making women more masculine—than the
fact thus revealed by anthropology and history: that the tendency of
civilisation has been to make men and women more and more unlike,
physically and emotionally. Whatever approximation there may have been
has been entirely on the part of the men, who have become less coarse or
“manly,” in the old acceptation of that term, and more femininely refined;

while women have endeavoured to maintain the old distance by a
corresponding increase of refinement on their part. Should the Woman’s
Rights viragoes ever succeed in establishing their social ideal, when women
will share all the men’s privileges, make stump speeches, and—of course—
go back to the harvest fields and to war with them—then good-bye,
Romantic Love! But there is no danger that these Amazons will ever carry
their point. They might as well try to convince women to wear beards; or
men, crinolines.
Were any further proof needed that the sexes have been continually
diverging instead of converging, it would be found in the fact that the young
of both sexes are more alike than adults: in accordance with the law that the
individual goes through the same stages of development as the race. And
there are embryological facts which indicate even that there is some truth in
the Platonic myth that the sexes at first were not separated; but that such
separation took place probably for three reasons: to secure a division of
labour; to prevent the full hereditary transmission of injurious qualities;
and, thirdly, to secure the benefits of cross-fertilisation,—a result which in
the higher spheres of human life is attained through Love, which is based
on opposite or complementary qualities, and scorns near relationship.
Love and Culture.—The dependence of Love on Individualisation, and
the dependence of Individualisation, in turn, on Culture, help us also to
explain an apparent difficulty regarding the non-existence of Love among
the lower classes in ancient Greece and elsewhere. For these classes were
not subjected to the same chaperonage as the higher circles: and it might be
inferred therefore that the possibility of free Choice must have led to real
love-matches. Perhaps it did in those rare cases where culture had sent a
rootlet down into a lower social stratum. But as a rule one would have
looked in vain among the lower classes—as one does to-day, despite poetic
fiction—for minds sufficiently refined to comprehend and feel the highly-
complex and idealised group of emotions which constitute Romantic Love.
Of course it would be absurd to include in this statement people of
refinement who through misfortune have been plunged into abject poverty.
They do not belong to the “Great Unwashed”—ὁἱ πολλοί.
When Stendhal asserts that in France Love exists only in the lower
classes, while Max Nordau states that in Germany it is to be found in the
higher classes only, they are probably both right—allowance being made
for rare exceptions. What Love does exist in France—and it is preciously

scarce—cannot possibly prevail except among the working people; and in
Germany among the corresponding class it must be equally scarce, whereas
in the middle and higher classes, where chaperonage is not nearly so strict
and idiotic as in France, Cupid does contrive to find an occasional target for
his arrows.

PERSONAL BEAUTY

Fanny Brawne having complained to Keats that he seemed to ignore all
her other qualities and have eyes for her beauty alone, Keats thus justified
himself: “Why may I not speak of your beauty, since without that I could
never have loved you? I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I
have for you but beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the
least sneer at it, I have the highest respect, and can admire it in others: but it
has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after
my own heart.”
Fanny Brawne is not the only girl who has thus complained to her lover
about his exclusive emphasising of her Personal Beauty. But all such
complaints are useless. In Modern Love the Admiration of Personal Beauty
is by far the strongest of all ingredients, and is becoming more so every
year: fortunately, for thereby Romantic Love is becoming more and more
idealised and converted into a pure æsthetic sentiment. Goldsmith, indeed,
laid stress on the virtue of choosing a wife on the same principle that guided
her in choosing a wedding-ring—for qualities that will wear. But Personal
Beauty does wear, with proper hygienic care.
Feminine Beauty in Masculine Eyes.—In masculine Love, regard for
youthful feminine Beauty has always played a rôle more or less important.
But the effects of this kind of sexual selection in the lower races in
increasing the amount of physical beauty in the world, have been
commonly neutralised by the crude æsthetic notions prevailing among men
as to what constituted feminine beauty. The weakness of the æsthetic
overtone in Love, moreover, has hitherto prevented it from competing
successfully with other marriage-motives. On the continent of Europe, to
this day, the ugliest girl with a dowry of a few thousands is sure to find a
husband and transmit her bodily and his mental ugliness to her offspring;
while girls who could transmit a considerable amount of beauty, physical

and mental, to their children, are left to fade away as old maids, because
they have no money.
In this respect America sets a noble example to most parts of Europe.
Thousands of young Americans marry penniless beauties every year,
although they might have rich ugly girls for the asking. This is one of the
things Frenchmen and Germans cannot understand, and class as
“Americanisms.” And then they wonder why it is that there are so many
pretty girls in Canada and the United States. Another “Americanism,”
gentlemen. These pretty girls are the issue of Love-matches. Their mothers
were selected for their Beauty, not for money or rank.
Not but that there are numerous exceptions to this golden rule of Love.
Were there not, ugly women would be scarcer than they are, even in
America.
Masculine Beauty in Feminine Eyes.—In woman’s Love the admiration
of Personal Beauty has played a much less significant rôle than in man’s
Love. If, nevertheless, the average man in most countries is perhaps a better
specimen of masculine Beauty than the average woman of feminine Beauty,
this is owing to the facts that sons as well as daughters may inherit their
mother’s beauty, and that men, leading a more active and athletic life, are
more beautiful than women in proportion as they are more healthy.
In the past barbarous times the constant wars and the unsettled state of
social affairs made it important for women to select men not for their
beauty, but for their energy, courage, and manly prowess. Desdemona falls
in Love with the Moor despite his colour and ugliness; and why? Othello
himself tells us—

“She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.”

And it is on beholding Orlando vanquishing the Duke’s wrestler that
Rosalind falls in Love with him. As Celia remarks: “Young Orlando, that
tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart, both in an instant.”
Women are conservative; and in the ludicrous feminine eagerness to
make immortal heroes of the ephemeral victors in a boat-race or baseball
match, we see an echo, in these peaceful days, of a feminine trait imprinted
on them in warlike times.

Intellectual supereminence, in the meantime, was ignored by women.
Petrarch’s verses made no impression on Laura, and Dante could not even
win Beatrice with such poetic beauties as these lines—

“Whatever her sweet eyes are turned upon,
Spirits of Love do issue thence in flame,
Which through their eyes who then may look on them
Pierce to the heart’s deep chamber every one.
And in her smile Love’s image you may see
Whence none can gaze upon her steadfastly.”

There is, however, already a large class of superior women who have
discovered that brains have displaced muscle in the successful struggle for
existence, and that strong nerves are the true storage-batteries of courage
and vigour in modern life. Hence the homage paid to men of genius.
In regard to masculine Beauty a change likewise has come over the
feminine mind. Fashionable young ladies appear, indeed, to be as exacting
in the matter of what they consider Personal Beauty as their beaux are. A
barber’s pet is their pet, even as the fashionable man’s ideal of femininity is
a milliner’s model. There can be hardly any doubt that this is an
improvement on the taste of those savages who prefer their women black,
with thick lips, flat noses, and tattooed, or smeared with a half-inch coat of
paint.
Says a writer in the London Magazine (1823): “The pale poet, whose
works enchant us all, is nobody in the park: with his shrunk cheeks and
spindle legs, he sneaks along as little noticed as a fly; while a thousand fond
eyes are fixed on the gay and handsome apprentice there, with just enough
intellect to make the clothes which make him.”
Serves the pale poet quite right. His genius does not give him any right to
neglect his health, or to allow the tailor’s apprentice to surpass him in
attention to his personal appearance. Génie oblige. And whether geniuses or
not, men should pay just as much attention to their dress and personal
attractiveness as women.
A convincing illustration of my thesis that Personal Beauty is to-day a
more important factor in woman’s Love than formerly, is afforded by the
circumstance that formerly Love had the effect of making a man neglect his
beard, and hands, and clothes, and indulge in general slovenliness, as we

see in Rosalind’s summary of the symptoms of masculine Love, as well as
in various passages in Cervantes and other authors; whereas to-day it is just
the reverse, as noted under the head of Gallantry. It is most amusing to
watch a man smitten with sudden passion: how carefully he adjusts his
cravat, curls his moustache, brushes his hat and boots, polishes his finger-
nails, removes spots from his coat, regards himself in the mirror, and—
wishes he were a millionaire.
So much for the general relations between Love and Beauty. It now
remains to consider in detail what peculiarities of personal appearance are
and have been specially favoured by Love. This involves an æsthetico-
anatomical analysis of every part of the human body from toe to top. To this
analysis almost one half of this work will be devoted—showing the
preponderating importance of Personal Beauty over the other factors in
Modern Love. But before proceeding to this pleasant task it will be well, for
the sake of continuity, to discuss the remaining aspects of Modern Love:
how it differs from conjugal affection; how men of genius behave when in
Love; what are the peculiarities of the physical expression of Love in
features and actions; how Love maybe won and cured; and how the leading
modern nations differ in their amorous peculiarities. A consideration of
Schopenhauer’s theory of Love will then naturally lead us to the second part
of this treatise, in which Personal Beauty alone will form our theme.

CONJUGAL AFFECTION AND ROMANTIC LOVE

Perhaps the main reason why no one has anticipated me in writing a book
showing that Love is an exclusively modern sentiment, and tracing its
gradual development, is because no distinction has been commonly made
between Romantic Love and Conjugal Affection, though they differ as
widely as maternal love and friendship. The occurrence of noble examples
of conjugal attachment as far back as Homer has obscured the fact that pre-
nuptial or Romantic Love is almost as modern as the telegraph, the railway,
and the electric light.

Two thousand and four hundred years ago the Greek philosopher
Empedokles taught that there are four elements—fire, air, water, earth—
which remain unchanged amid all combinations. Chemistry has long since
shown that these supposed elements are compounds, and that the number of
real elements is much larger.
In a similar way the tender or family emotions have been gradually
distinguished from one another. Among the ancient Greeks φιλότης meant
both friendship and sexual love, which, as we have seen, they strangely
confounded, both in theory and in practice. To-day we distinguish not only
between friendship and sexual love, but between the two phases of sexual
love—Romantic and Conjugal Affection—the former of which was
unknown to the Greeks. We do this not only because, as in the case of the
chemical elements, our knowledge has become more precise and subtle, but
because these emotions have been gradually developed, and have assumed
different characteristics, so that it would be difficult at present to mistake
one for the other.
As regards the difference between Conjugal and Romantic Love,
however, the current conceptions are not yet so clear and definite; many
good folks being, in fact, inclined to frown upon the suggestion that there is
any such difference. Yet it is useless for them to endeavour, with well-meant
hypocrisy, to impress upon the young the notion that Love is unchangeable,
since no one who keeps his eyes open can help noticing how differently
married couples behave from lovers. In marriage the dazzling blue flame of
Romantic Love gradually grows smaller and dies away. But the coals may
retain their glow and perchance keep the heart warmer than the former
flickering flames of Love.
There is, indeed, a great moral advantage to be gained by frankly
acknowledging that Love undergoes a metamorphosis in wedlock. It breaks
the sting of cynicism. For if we are told that “marriage is the sunset of love,”
or that “the only sure cure for love is marriage,” we may calmly retort,
“What of it?” When the romantic passion subsides, its place is taken by
another group of emotions, equally noble and conducive to the welfare of
society. It is not an annihilation of anything, but simply a change: losing
some pleasures, but gaining others in their place; getting rid of some pains
to be burdened with others. Love’s metamorphosis into conjugal affection is
like that of a wild rose into its red berry. Though less fragrant and lovely

than the rose, the berry is almost as warm in colour, endures longer, and
brings forth fresh plants to adorn future seasons.
Similes, however, are not arguments; and it behoves us therefore, for the
benefit of bachelors and old maids, and of married folks who never were in
love, to point out definitely wherein conjugal differs from Romantic Love;
which at the same time will explain why conjugal affection was able to
exist so many centuries before Romantic Love.
In preceding pages a fragmentary attempt has been made to characterise
Love, and to show how its growth was impeded through the inferior social
and intellectual status of women and the absolute chaperonage of the
young. Maidens and youths had no opportunity to meet and become
acquainted. Barter, and considerations of rank and expediency, took the
place of affection, and parental authority that of individual choice. There
was no prolonged courtship, hence no jealousy of rivals, no female coyness
and coquetry, no alternating hopes and doubts, no monopoly of mutual
admiration, no ecstatic adoration, sympathetic sharing of lovers’ joys and
griefs, or pride of conquest and possession.
Conjugal affection, on the other hand, was much less retarded in its
growth by such artificial arrangements, the outcome of strong man’s brutal
selfishness. Polygamy was the chief impediment; but as soon as woman
became sufficiently “emancipated” to claim a husband of her own, the soil
was ready for the growth of conjugal affection. In its early stages this form
of affection must have been much more crude and simple than it is in
modern society. In most instances it was probably little more than a mere
superficial attachment, growing out of the habit of living together for some
time; the husband being attached to his wife on account of the domestic
comforts and ease she provided for him, and the wife to the husband very
much as a dog is to his master, who, though cruel, yet takes care of and
feeds him.
How crudely utilitarian the conjugal bond is among primitive men may
be inferred from Mr. Wallace’s remarks already quoted as to the motives
which guide the maidens of certain Amazon-valley tribes in choosing their
husbands. There is, he says, “a trial of skill at shooting with the bow and
arrow, and if the young man does not show himself a good marksman, the
girl refuses him, on the ground that he will not be able to shoot fish and
game enough for the family.”

With the ancient “classical” nations there were, unless the poets have
strongly idealised their characters, examples of conjugal affection hardly
differing from the most refined modern instances. Owing to the then
prevalent contempt for the female mind, however, such cases cannot be
accepted as fair samples of the “general article”; and they only allow us to
infer that, as with Love and with genius, so with conjugal affection, there
were some early perfect instances anticipating by many centuries the
general course of emotional evolution.
In the dark and warlike mediæval ages Conjugal Love, on the woman’s
side, was apparently little more, as a rule, than a sense of devotion to her
husband based on her need of protection against barbarous enemies; and
what it was on the husband’s side may be inferred from his stern and often
tyrannic rule in his own house, which was calculated to breed in his wife
and children fear but neither conjugal nor filial affection.
In modern Conjugal Affection the elements are as diverse and as
variously intermingled as in Love, if not more so; and it would be as
difficult to find two cases of conjugal love exactly alike as two human
faces, or two leaves in a forest. One man cherishes his wife chiefly on
account of the home comfort she provides—the neat and tasteful domestic
interior, the well-cooked dinners, the economic attention to household
affairs, etc. Another man’s pride in his spouse is based on her
conversational skill, her diplomatic art of asserting her place among the
upper ten in society, and of adorning her drawing-rooms with the presence
of prominent people of the day. A third husband loves his wife for her
artistic accomplishments or her personal charms. Still another, an author, is
devoted to his spouse because she cleverly assists his labours by criticism
and suggestion, and still more because she takes such a sympathetic interest
in his creations, and really thinks that no one since Shakspere has written
like her own dear Adolphus.
These and a thousand like circumstances, with their attendant feelings,
enter into the highly complex group of emotions subsumed under the name
of Conjugal Love. Yet, since any one of these feelings may be absent
without extinguishing Conjugal Affection, they cannot be regarded as its
essentials or framework, but only as colouring material.
Nor is that which is commonly regarded as the strongest of all cements
between husband and wife—the common love of their children—to be
accepted as the essence of conjugal love. For childless couples present

many of the most remarkable cases of devotion, while in many other cases
the children not only fail to rekindle the torch of love, but even arouse
jealousies and ill-feeling between their parents by showing a special
preference for one or the other. Nevertheless, though not absolutely
essential to conjugal love, the common parental feeling is one of its most
important and constant ingredients; and there is none of its tributaries which
adds more to the deep current of connubial bliss. It enables the parents to
enjoy once more the simple pleasures of life, to which they had grown
callous; it brings back the peculiarly delicious memories of their own
childhood and youth; enables the father to discover his former sweetheart
renewed in his daughter, and the mother her former lover in her son; while
their common pride in the beauty or accomplishments of the children
supplies them with a never-failing topic of conversation and source of
sympathy.
And this suggests what must be regarded as the real kernel of conjugal
attachment—a perennial mutual sympathy regarding not only the affairs of
their children but every other domestic affair—in other words, a complete
and necessary harmony of feelings and interests. The accent rests on the
word necessary; for it is this feeling of necessary communion of interests
that distinguishes conjugal affection from Love and from friendship, in both
of which there is a mutual sympathy, but not so far-reaching and inevitable.
A lover’s fame or disgrace may be keenly felt by his sweetheart or his
friend, yet society does not associate them with the other’s reputation or
disgrace; and if the infamy is too great, they can easily sever their bond,
without leaving a spot on their own good name. Not so with husband and
wife. His promotion is her honour, and his fall her humiliation; for they are
inseparably associated in the public mind, and cannot be parted except
through divorce, which is equivalent to social suicide. Therefore theirs is
“one glory an’ one shame,” and their destiny to “share each other’s gladness
and weep each other’s tears.”
To make this matrimonial harmony complete, it is necessary that there
should be a real sense of companionship, i.e. common tastes and topics of
conversation. “Unlikeness may attract,” says Mill, “but it is likeness which
retains; and in proportion to the likeness is the suitability of the individuals
to give each other a happy life.” The opposite qualities by which lovers are
often attracted are chiefly of a physical nature. Where the mental
differences are great—where he, for instance, is fond of books and music,

while she wishes his books and his piano in Siberia; or she fond of parties,
pictures, and theatres, and he bored to death by them: in such cases genuine
Romantic Love cannot survive a few weeks of constant companionship, and
hopes of nuptial bliss must end in disappointment.

ROMANCE IN CONJUGAL LOVE

Horwicz places the essence of Conjugal Love in the feeling of being
indissolubly united; and this agrees substantially with our conclusion that it
lies in a necessary mutual Sympathy concerning every affair of vital
interest. Now if this obligato Sympathy is facilitated by a communion of
tastes, as just suggested, there is no reason why conjugal life should not
retain some of the other elements which constitute the charm of Romantic
Love. Novelists and dramatists will perhaps continue to avoid wedded life
as a theme because it lacks the plot-interest, the uncertainty, and the
consequent Mixed Moods of pre-nuptial Love. Emotional Hyperbole, too,
will rarely survive the honeymoon, for, as Addison remarks, “When a man
becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.” Yet a
woman, too, is not such a bad thing after all, if you know how to manage
her. Jealousy is a trait of Romantic Love that is only too apt to survive in
marriage. By a judicious use of its sting a neglected wife can bring her
husband back to her feet. But it is a double-edged tool, dangerous to toy
with. The Pride of Conquest becomes changed into Pride of Possession or a
vain feeling of Proprietorship, which will continue so long as the husband
or the wife retains those self-sacrificing qualities which distinguished them
during Courtship—which, however, rarely happens. Where possession is
assured and sanctioned by law, Coyness is of course out of the question; yet
a clever woman can by a judicious adaptation of the arts of Flirtation do
much to keep alive the glowing coals of former romantic passion. All she
has to do is to devise some novel methods of fascinating the husband, and
then keep him at a distance till he resumes the tricks of devoted Gallantry
which had once made him such an acceptable lover.
It is the growing indifference to Gallantry, to the Desire to Please, active
and passive, that is responsible for the usual absence of romance in conjugal
life. And there seems to be a general ungallant consensus among writers,
masculine and feminine, that women are more responsible for this state of

affairs than men. “The reason,” says Swift, “why so few marriages are
happy, is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in
making cages.” Young ladies have, no doubt, greatly improved since the
days of Swift; but in the vast majority of cases their device still is to learn a
few superficial tricks of “culture,” and to practise the art of personal
adornment, until they have caught a husband, and then to bid good-bye to
all music, and art, and study, and improvement of the mind, as well as to the
“bother” of attending to Personal Beauty while the husband only is about.
As if it were not a thousand times more important to retain the husband’s
romantic adoration and Gallantry, originally based on that beauty, than to
enjoy the momentary admiration of a third person!
On this topic the German poet Bodenstedt has some remarks which show
that, after all, the excessive Oriental Jealousy which forbids women to
appear unveiled in public rests on a basis of common sense:—
“Just as it is possible to trace most absurdities to an originally quite
reasonable idea, so not a few things may be said in favour of the Oriental
custom which allows women to adorn themselves only for their husband,
and to unveil their face only before him, while outside of the house it is
their duty to appear veiled and in as unattractive a costume as possible.
With us, it is well known, the opposite is true: at home the women devote
little attention to their toilet, and only adorn themselves when they have
company or go out visiting; in one word, they display their charms and their
finery more to please others than their own husband,” etc.
Surely no one wishes our women to reserve their charms exclusively for
their husbands. On the contrary, such a proceeding would be considered
quite as unreasonable and selfish as to lock up a Titian or a Murillo in a
room accessible to a single person only; but certainly the husband should
not be entirely overlooked in his wife’s Desire to Please by her Personal
Beauty. His Pride on seeing others admire her does not alone suffice to
prolong his romantic adoration. Don’t be too sure, Amanda, that your
husband is yours because you are married. He is yours in Law, but not in
Love, unless you preserve your personal charms in his presence.
The fact that, whereas in Romantic Love men are superior to women; in
conjugal life, on the other hand, woman’s love is commonly much deeper
and more lasting than man’s, indicates in itself that marriages are made or
marred by women. (For the sake of the lovely alliteration some writers
would have said—against their conscience—that “marriages are made or

marred by men;” but alliteration will have to be ignored in this place in
favour of facts.) Before marriage, women are more beautiful and
fascinating than men, wherefore men love them more ardently than they
love the men. After marriage, it is the men who grow more beautiful, more
manly, in body as well as in mind; hence it is but natural that their wives
should love them more and more. So would wives be loved more and more
if they did not so soon after thirty lose their physical charms, without trying,
by reading books or at least the newspapers, to make themselves intellectual
companions of their husbands, able to converse interestingly on various
topics.
The old excuse that motherhood inevitably lessens woman’s charms is all
nonsense. Married women at thirty are almost always handsomer than old
maids of thirty. Women grow stout and clumsy, or thin and faded so soon,
not because they are mothers, but because they are indifferent to the laws of
health; because they refuse to go out to get fresh air and exercise, which
would preserve the freshness of their complexion, the graceful contours of
their bodies, and the elasticity of their gait. The morbid fondness for a hot-
house atmosphere, and the horror of fresh air, draughts, and vigorous
exercise, have done more to shorten man’s Love and woman’s Beauty than
all other causes combined. The road to lasting Love is paved with lasting
Beauty.
Inasmuch as Conjugal Affection was not—as might be naturally
supposed—historically developed from Romantic Love, since it existed
long before Romantic Love, the peculiarities of this later passion are not
normally present in Conjugal Love. To what extent, however, they can be
smuggled in, has just been shown; and it is one of the great social tasks of
the future to make Conjugal and Romantic Love as much alike as possible:
not by making the poetry of romance more prosaic, but by making the prose
of conjugal life more poetic. But so long as Romantic Love is discouraged,
Conjugal Affection, too, will of course be unable to borrow its unique
charms. Hence an additional reason for facilitating the opportunities for
Courtship and prolonging its duration.

MARRIAGES OF REASON OR LOVE-MATCHES?