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THE LITTLE GOLDEH BOOKS
Based on features in
The Golden Boo\ Magazine
Edited by Henry Wysham Lanier
I. THE THING CALLED LOVE
In Preparation
THE SMILING PHILOSOPHER
it's HUMAN NATURE
THE TIE THAT BINDS
ETC.
THE THING CALLED LOVE
The
THING CALLED
LOVE
Culled from the World Library by
Henry Wysham Lanier
THE LITTLE GOLDEH BOOKS
DOUBLEDAY, DOR AN £? COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITT, KEW YORK 1928
Copyright, 1928, by Henry Wysham
Lanier. Copyright, 1925, 1926, 1927,
by The Review of Reviews Corporation
{The Golden Boo}{ Magazine). All
rights reserved. Printed in the United
States at The Country Life Press,
Garden City, 7s(. T. First Edition
(■'IN
To
Aphrodite
Who Conquers, Smiling
534760
LZBRAR?
PREFACE
In spite of pathetic efforts, man has never been
able to exclude woman from dominance of his
thoughts, his life, his dreams, his religions. For
the divine gadfly called love ever stings him to
a restless striving after what he fondly hopes
may prove completion.
So solemn philosophers and Rabelaisian
laughers alike have been compelled to note the
strange and manifold symptoms, causes and
effects of this inescapable infection; but, since
"one can only love with what one has," analysis
and first-hand testimony serve merely to describe
a few costumes in which Eros masquerades.
Yet because great minds have the faculty of
seizing the essential and expressing it memo'
rably, it may be that one may get from these
flashes of thought and observation some glimpses
of the Mystery itself.
H. W. L.
CONTENTS
1.
The Bittersweet
Page
3
TT
11.
1 ne 1 ning Oallea Love
11
TTT
111.
Wnat Love Will Do
31
IV.
How Men Make Love in Novels
55
V.
Flirting — with the Dictionary-
71
VL
Women in Love
95
VII.
Some Love Letters
109
VIII.
Men in Love through the Ages
125
IX.
A Little Course in Love-making
i41
X.
Man Proposes
159
THE BITTER-SWEET
I
THE BITTER'SWEET
Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me,
fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
Phaedra — What is it that one feels when
they say "one loves"?
Nurse — Something very pleasant, child, and
painful, too.
Alas, the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
« Byron
I love but her in all the world, and to exist a
whole day without her seems to me a destiny
more frightful than death.
Sappho
Euripides
Alfred de Musset
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Dryden
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
Cowley (after Anacreon)
Love is a boy by poets styTd
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
Butler
To love is to prefer a certain person to all men
and to all women, is it not? ... to cease to live
when that person leaves you, to begin at once to
live again as soon as he reappears.
Halevy
Celimene: Dear Phyllis, tell me, what you
know of love?
They say its flame devours like a vulture,
And that a lover suffers cruel pain.
Phyllis: They tell me nothing is so beautiful,
That not to love is to renounce the day:
What must we think it, evil or most good?
Both Together: Let us love — the only way
To know what we should really think.
Moliere
O love! O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
Tennyson
Eros, Eros, thou that distillest desire from
thine eyes implanting desire in the heart, when'
ever thou assailest a mortal, never, O never,
* 4 *
THE BITTER-SWEET
come upon me with wild irresistible force. Nor
flame nor lightning burns as fierce as the Cyprian
darts of Eros.
Euripides
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head,
How begot, how nourished ?
Reply, reply.
It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed; or fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies
Let us all ring fancy's \nell:
Til begin it — Ding, dong, bell.
Shakespeare
If a man with a beard found delight in building
baby'houses, in yoking mice to a toy-cart, in
playing at odd and even, in riding on a long stick,
one would say that madness possessed him. But
if right reason demonstrates that love is some-
thing still more childish and that it makes no
difference, whether you are busy raising your
toyhouses in the sand, as you did when three
years old, or whether you maunder troubled
with love, I demand of you, Will you do as
Polemo did, when he became a changed man?
Will you lay aside the livery of your mental
malady, the bandages, cushions, neck-wrappers;
as 'tis said that he, after his drinking bout,
* 5 *
THE THING CALLED LOVE
stealthily plucked the chaplets from his neck,
as soon as he heard the reproving voice of his
fasting tutor? You offer fruit to a sulky child: he
refuses it; you say "Take it, darling": he says
he will not: if you do not offer it, he longs for it:
how differs from the child the lover, when the
door is shut in his face, and he deliberates, shall
he go or not, and yet is sure to return, even if
not sent for, and hates the doors, and yet cannot
tear himself from them? "What, shall I not go,
now that she makes the advances? Or rather,
shall I not resolve to put an end to my pains?
She has turned me out of the house: now she
calls me back : shall I return? No, not if she en'
treats me." Now hear what says the slave, a
deal wiser than his master: "Sir, things without
method and sense cannot be dealt with on any
system or method. Such is the evil nature of
love; it means war, then peace : it is as changeable
as the weather, it floats as if by blind chance;
and if any one tries to make it regular in his own
case, he will manage about as well as if he were
to endeavour to be mad on a regular system and
method."
Horace
Love is a kind of warre; Hence those who feare,
No cowards must his royall Ensignes beare.
Herric\
$ 6 $
THE BITTER-SWEET
This passion hath his floods in the very times
of weakness, which are, great prosperity and
great adversity, though this latter hath been less
observed; both which times kindle love, and
make it more fervent, and therefore show it to
be the child of folly. They do best who, if they
cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter,
and sever it wholly from their serious affairs
and actions of life; for if it check once with
business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and
maketh men that they can nowise be true to
their own ends. I know not how, but martial
men are given to love: I think it is but as they
are given to wine, for perils commonly ask to be
paid in pleasures. . . . Nuptial love maketh man'
kind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton
love corrupteth and embaseth it.
Bacon
Mr. Spectator, — Here is a gentlewoman
lodges in the same house with me, that I never
did any injury to in my whole life; and she is
always railing at me to those she knows will tell
me of it. Do not you think she is in love with
me? or would you have me break my mind yet,
or not?
Your servant,
T. B.
Addison
* 7 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
I bring ye love, Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Like, and dislike ye:
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Stroake ye to strike ye.
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Love will be-foole ye :
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Heate ye to coole ye:
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Love gifts will send ye:
I bring ye love : Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Stock ye to spend ye :
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Love will fulfill ye:
I bring ye love: Quest. What will love do?
Ans. Kisse ye, to kill ye.
llerric\
*■ 8 *
THE THING CALLED LOVE
THE THING CALLED LOVE
This Cyprian,
She is a thousand changing things,
She brings more pain than any god, she brings
More joy. I cannot judge her. May it be
An hour of mercy when she loo\s on me.
From Aeolus ^a lost play). Euripides
THAT KIND OF GIRL
She had been a girl of that kind which mothers
praise as not forward, by way of contrast when
disparaging those nobler ones with whom loving
is an end and not a means.
Thomas Hardy
MANY WITS HAVE HAMMERED OUT
DESIGNS
There is no argument of more antiquity and
elegancy than in the matter of Love; for it seems
to be as old as the world, and to bear date from
the first time that man and woman was: there'
* i.i *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
fore in this, as in the finest metal, the freshest
wits have in all ages shown their best work'
manship.
Robert Wilmot
"A gentleman is not always amorous but he is
always grateful."
Don Quixote
LOVE-IN-IDLENESS
Many fancy they are in love, when in truth
they are only idle. Having little to divert atten*
tion or diversify thought they find themselves
uneasy apart, and conclude they will be happy
together.
Dr. Samuel Johnson
By my troth, I wonder what thou and I did till
we loved !
Donne
NEVER AGAIN !
Who loves a first time is a god,
Though he should be forsaken.
Who hapless loves a second time,
Must for a fool be taken.
And such a fool who loves without
Response of love am I.
Sun, moon and stars they laugh at me,
And I laugh too — and die !
Heine (Blacfy
^ 12 ^
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
THE STIGMATA
Now can you recognize any of these marks as
belonging to you? A sweetheart demands of you
five talents, insults you, shuts the door in your
face, throws cold water over you; then calls you
back. Now loose your neck from the shameful
yoke; come say, "I am free, yes, free." You can'
not; for your soul is troubled by no gentle
master, and sharp are the spurs which prick
your weary spirit, and on you are driven, though
you would fain refuse.
Horace (Lonsdale and Lee)
WHAT LOVE DOES TO THE
HUMAN HEART
A dull, boring fellow, who was accustomed,
as other slowwitted seekers after truth were
also, to propound questions to William Godwin,
and to accept his answers, when they could be
extracted, as oracles, inquired one day in Shelley's
presence, with all solemnity, "Pray, William
Godwin, what is your opinion of love?" The
oracle was silent. After a while, he who came
to consult, repeated his question, "Pray, William
Godwin, what is your opinion of love?" The
oracle was still silent, but Shelley answered for
him:
"My opinion of love is, that it acts upon the
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
human heart precisely as a nutmeg-grater acts
upon a nutmeg. 1 '
The grave inquirer heard the jesting answer
with mute contempt; and presently repeated his
question a third time. "Pray, William Godwin,
what is your opinion of love?"
"My opinion entirely agrees with that of Mr.
Shelley."
Jefferson Hogg
SIMILES
Thy breast is heaped like mountain snows,
Thy cheek is like the blushing rose,
Thine eyes as black as ripened sloes,
Like diamonds do they glitter.
I do not flatter like a fool.
The diamond is a cutting tool,
The rose is thorny, snow is cool,
And sloes are very bitter!
Anonymous
THE HAPPINESS OF DYING
FOR ZULEIKA
From the towing-path — no more din there
now, but great single cries of "Zuleika !" — leapt
figures innumerable through rain to river.The
arrested boats of the other crews drifted zigzag
hither and thither. The dropped oars rocked and
* 14 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
clashed, sank and rebounded, as the men plunged
across them into the swirling stream.
And over all this confusion and concussion of
men and man-made things crashed the vaster
discords of the heavens; and the waters of the
heavens fell ever denser and denser, as though
to the aid of waters that could not in themselves
envelop so many hundreds of struggling human
forms.
All along the soaked towing-path lay strewn
the horns, the rattles, the motor-hooters, that
the youths had flung aside before they leapt.
Here and there among these relics stood daz^d
elder men, staring through the storm. There was
one of them — a graybeard — who stripped off his
blazer, plunged, grabbed at some live man, grap-
pled him, was dragged under. He came up again
further along stream, swam choking to the bank,
clung to the grasses. He whimpered as he sought
foothold in the slime. It was ill to be down in
that abominable sink of death.
Abominable, yes, to them who discerned
there death only; but sacramental and sweet
enough to the men who were dying there for
love. Any face that rose was smiling.
Max Beerbohm
The stage is more beholden to love, than the
life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever a matter
* 15 #
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in
life it doth much mischief, sometimes li\e a siren,
sometimes li\e a fury.
Sir Francis Bacon
PURE REASON'S FRUITLESS
ARGUMENTS
One lover jeers at others and advises them to
propitiate Venus, since they are troubled by a
disgraceful passion, and often, poor wretch,
gives no thought to his own ills, greatest of all.
The black is a brune, the cat-eyed is a miniature
Pallas, the stringy and widened a gazelle; the
dumpy and dwarfish is one of the graces, from
top to toe all grace; the big and overgrown is
awe'inspiring and full of dignity. She is tongue'
tied, cannot speak, then she has a lisp; the dumb
is bashful; then the fire'spit, the teasing, the
gossiping, turns to a shining lamp. One becomes
a slim darling then when she cannot live from
want of flesh; and she is only spare, who is half
dead with cough. — The pug-nosed is a she
Silenus and a satyress; the thick-lipped a very
kiss. It were tedious to attempt to report other
things of the kind. Let her, however, be of ever
so great dignity of appearance; such that the
power of Venus goes forth from all her limbs;
yet there are others too; yet have we lived
without her before; yet does she do, and we
* 16 «
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
know that she does, in all things the same as the
ugly woman; and fumigates herself, poor wretch,
with nauseous perfumes, her very maids running
from her and giggling behind her back. But the
lover, when shut out, often in tears covers the
threshold with flowers and wreaths, and anoints
the haughty doorposts with oil of marjoram, and
imprints kisses, poor wretch, on the doors.
Lucretius
The essence of love is kindness; and indeed it
may be best defined as passionate \indness: \ind'
ness, so to spea\, run mad and become importu-
nate and violent.
Robert Louis Stevenson
a poet's DEFINITION
Thou demandest what is love? It is that
powerful attraction towards all that we con'
ceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves, when
we find within our own thoughts the chasm of
an insufficient void, and seek to awaken in all
things that are, a community with what we
experience within ourselves. If we reason, we
would be understood; if we imagine, we would
that the airy children of our brain were born
anew within another's; if we feel, we would
that another's nerves should vibrate to our own,
that the beams of their eyes should kindle at
once and mix and melt into our own, that lips
* 17 *
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
of motionless ice should not reply to lips quiver'
ing and burning with the heart's best blood.
This is Love. This is the bond and the sanction
which connects not only man with man, but
with everything which exists.
Shelley
Mr. Spectator 1 am a footman in a great
family, and am in love with the house-maid. We
were all at hot-coc^les last night in the hall these
holy-days; when I lay down and was blinded, she
pulled off her shoe, and hit me with the heel such
a rap, as almost bro\e my head to pieces. Pray,
sir, was this love or spite ?
(The Spectator.) Addison.
THE TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW
For it is a fire that, kindling its first embers in
the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from
a wandering spark out of another private heart,
glows and enlarges until it warms and beams
upon multitudes of men and women, upon the
universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole
world and all nature with its generous flames.
Emerson
MISS BRIDGET WAS A BORN
PR AGM ATIST
The captain owed nothing to any of these fop'
makers in his dress, nor was his person much
$ 18 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
more beholden to nature. Both his dress and
person were such as, had they appeared in an
assembly or a drawing-room, would have been
the contempt and ridicule of all the fine ladies
there. The former of these was indeed neat, but
plain, coarse, ill-fancied, and out of fashion. As
for the latter, we have expressly described it
above. So far was the skin on his cheeks from
being cherry-coloured, that you could not discern
what the natural colour of his cheeks was, they
being totally overgrown by a black beard, which
ascended to his eyes. His shape and limbs were
indeed exactly proportioned, but so large that
they denoted the strength rather of a ploughman
than any other. His shoulders were broad be-
yond all size, and the calves of his legs larger
than those of a common chairman. In short, his
whole person wanted all that elegance and
beauty which is the very reverse of clumsy
strength, and which so agreeably sets off most
of our fine gentlemen; being partly owing to the
high blood of their ancestors, viz;., blood made
of rich sauces and generous wines, and partly to
an early town education.
Though Miss Bridget was a woman of the
greatest delicacy of taste, yet such were the
charms of the captain's conversation, that she
totally overlooked the defects of his person.
She imagined, and perhaps very wisely, that she
* 19 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
should enjoy more agreeable minutes with the
captain than with a much prettier fellow; and
forewent the consideration of pleasing her eyes,
in order to procure herself much more solid
satisfaction.
Fielding
A CHARME, OR AN ALLAY FOR LOVE
If so be a Toad be laid
In a Sheeps'skin newly flaid,
And that ty'd to man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever.
Robert Herrick
THE ORIENT SPEAKS
Your questioning eyes are sad. They seek to
know my meaning as the moon would fathom
the sea.
I have bared my life before your eyes from
end to end, with nothing hidden or held back.
That is why you know me not.
... If it were only a moment of pleasure it
would flower in an easy smile, and you could
see it and read it in a moment.
If it were merely a pain it would melt in limpid
tears, reflecting its inmost secret without a word.
But it is love, my beloved.
Its pleasure and pain are boundless, and end'
less its wants and wealth.
$ 20 $
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
It is as near to you as your life, but you can
never wholly know it.
Fuibindranath Tagore
THE SURE ROAD TO A WOMAN'S
HEART
"I have to say, Winifred, that the man does
not live and never has lived," said I, with sup-
pressed vehemence, "who loved a woman as I
love you."
"Oh, sir! oh, Henry !" returned Winifred,
trembling, then standing still and whiter than
the moon.
"And the reason why no man has ever loved
a woman as I love you, Winifred, is because your
match, or anything like your match, has never
trod the earth before."
"Oh, Henry, my dear Henry 1 you must not
say such things to me, your poor Winifred."
Theodore WattS'Dunton
I was more calm after my declaration — love,
\nown to the person by whom it is inspired, be'
comes more supportable.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
A RUSSIAN TEST
A fortnight before the wedding-day — she was
only sixteen at the time — she went up to her
betrothed, her arms folded and her fingers drum'
* 21 $
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
ming on her elbows — her favourite position —
and suddenly gave him a slap on his rosy cheek
with her large powerful hand! He jumped and
merely gaped; it must be said he was head over
ears in love with her. ... He asked: "What's
that for?" she laughed scornfully and walked off.
"I was there in the room," Anna related. "I saw
it all, I ran after her and said to her, 'Katia, why
did you do that, really?' And she answered me:
If he'd been a real man he would have punished
me, but he's no more pluck than a drowned hen/
And then he asks, 'What's that for?' If he loves
me, and doesn't bear malice, he had better put
up with it and not ask, 'What's that for? * I will
never be anything to him — never, never!"
Turgeniev
HOW LONG ?
Have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first
sight? When you fell in love at first sight, how
long, let me ask, did it take you to become ready
to fling every other consideration to the winds
except that of obtaining possession of the loved
one? Or rather, how long would it have taken
you if you had had no father or mother, nothing
to lose in the way of money, position, friends,
professional advancement, or what not, and if
the object of your affections was as free from all
these impedimenta as you were yourself?
$ 22 $
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
If you were a young John Stuart Mill, per'
haps it would have taken you some time; but
suppose your nature was Quixotic, impulsive,
altruistic, guileless; suppose you were a hungry
man starving for something to love and lean
upon, for one whose burdens you might bear,
and who might help you to bear yours? Suppose
you were down on your luck, still stunned by a
horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy
future floated suddenly before you, how long
under these circumstances do you think you
would reflect before you would decide on em'
bracing what chance had thrown in your way?
Samuel Butler
WHAT THE WARRIOR FEARED
J^pw, as I said before, I was never a ma\er of
phrases
I can march up to a fortress, and summon the
place to surrender,
But march up to a woman with such a proposal,
I dare not.
Ym not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth
of a cannon,
But of a thundering ">£o V point'blan\ from the
mouth of a woman,
That I confess Tm afraid of, nor am I ashamed to
confess it I
The Courtship of Miles Standish. Longfellow
% 23 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
love's flight upward
The cab stopped on Rue Jacob in front of a
students" lodging'house. Four flights of stairs
to ascend; they were long and steep. "Shall I
carry you?" he said with a laugh, but in an
undertone, because of the sleeping house. She
looked him over with a slow, contemptuous, yet
tender glance — the glance of experience, which
gauged his strength and said plainly, "Poor little
fellow!"
Thereupon, with a fine outburst of energy,
characteristic of his age and his southern blood,
he seised her and carried her like a child, — for
he was a sturdy, strapping youth for all his fair
girlish skin, — and he went up the first flight at
a breath, exulting in the weight suspended about
his neck by two lovely, cool bare arms.
The second flight was longer, less pleasant.
The woman hung more heavily as they ascended.
Her iron pendants, which at first caressed him
with a pleasant tickling sensation, sank slowly
and painfully into his flesh.
At the third flight he panted like a piano'
mover; his breath almost failed him, while she
murmured ecstatically, "Oh! m'ami, how nice
this is! how comfortable I am!" And the last
stairs, which he climbed one by one, seemed to
him to belong to a giant staircase, whose walls
* 24 &
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
and rails and narrow windows twisted round
and round in an interminable spiral. It was no
longer a woman he was carrying, but something
heavy, ghastly, which suffocated him, and which
he was momentarily tempted to drop, to throw
down angrily at the risk of crushing her brutally.
When they reached the narrow landing,
"Already!" she exclaimed, and opened her eyes.
He thought, "At last!" but could not have said
it, for he was very pale, and held both hands to
his breast, which seemed as if it would burst.
The ascent of those stairs in the melancholy
grayness of the morning was an epitome of their
whole history.
Alphonse Daudet
Any man that understands horses has a pretty
considerable fair knowledge of women, for they
are jist ali\e in temper, and require the very
identical same treatment. Incourage the timid
ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but
lather the sul\y ones li\e blazes.
''"Sam SlicJC
THE FULLNESS OF LOVE
"Oh, Rosalind! I love you, I worship you;
why is there not a word more expressive than
that! I have never loved, I have never wop
shipped any one save you; I prostrate myself,
# 25 *•
THE THITiG CALLED LOVE
I humble myself before you, and I would fain
compel all creation to bend the knee before my
idol; you are more to me than the whole of
nature, more than myself, more than God — nay,
it seems strange to me that God does not descend
from heaven to become your slave. Where you
are not, all is desolate, all is dead, all is dark;
you alone people the world for me; you are life,
sunshine — you are everything. Your smile makes
the day, and your sadness the night; the spheres
follow the movements of your body, and the
celestial harmonies are guided by you, O my
cherished queen! O my glorious and real dream!
You are clothed with splendour, and swim
ceaselessly in radiant effluence. . . .
"Every gesture, every pose of your head,
every different aspect of your beauty, are graven
with a diamond point upon the mirror of my
soul, and nothing in the world could efface the
deep impression; I know in what place the shad'
ow was, and in what the light, the flat part
glistening beneath the ray, and the spot where
the wandering reflection was blended with the
more softened tints of neck and cheek. I could
draw you in your absence; the idea of you is
ever placed before me. . . .
"I beseech you, Rosalind, if you do not yet
love me, strive to love me who have loved you
in spite of everything, and beneath the veil in
$ 26 $
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
which you wrap yourself, no doubt out of pity
for us; do not devote the remainder of my life
to the most frightful despair and the most
gloomy discouragement; think that I have wor-
shipped you ever since the first ray of thought
shone into my head, that you were revealed
to me beforehand, and that, when I was quite
little, you appeared to me in my dreams with a
crown of dew-drops, two prismatic wings, and
the little blue flower in your hand; that you are
the end, the means, and the meaning of life;
that without you I am but an empty shadow,
and that, if you blow upon the flame you have
kindled, nothing will remain within me but a
pinch of dust finer and more impalpable than
that which besprinkles the very wings of death/ 1
Thcophile Cautier
$ 27 £
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
it's BEING PROVED EVERY DAY
A lady may continue to have a heart, although
she is somewhat stouter than she was when a
schoolgirl, and a man his feelings although he gets
his hair from Truefitt's.
Thac\eray
the archetype of martyrs to
cupid's barbed humour
Malvolio { having read the decoy letter} — Day
light and champain discovers not more: this is
open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors,
I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross ac'
quaintance, I will be point'devise the very man.
I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade
me; for every reason excites to this, that my
lady loves me. She did commend my yellow
stockings of late, she did praise my leg being
cross'gartered; and in this she manifests herself
to my love, and with a kind of injunction drives
* 31 *
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars
I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow
stockings and cross-gartered, even with the
swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be
praised ! Here is yet a postscript.
(Reads) "Thou canst not choose but know
who I am. If thou entertainest my love, let it
appear in thy smiling; thy smiles become thee
well; therefore in my presence still smile, dear
my sweet, I prithee."
Jove, I thank thee. I will smile. . . .
Maria — If you desire the spleen, and will
laugh yourself into stitches, follow me. Yond
gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegade;
for there is no Christian, that means to be saved
by believing rightly, can ever believe such im-
possible passages of grossness. He's in yellow
stockings.
Sir Toby — And cross-gartered?
Maria — Most villainously; like a pedant
that keeps a school f the church. I have dogged
him, like his murderer. He does obey every point
of the letter that I dropped to betray him; he
does smile his face into more lines than is in the
new map with the augmentation of the Indies:
you have not seen such a thing as 'tis. I can
hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my
* 3 2 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
lady will strike him: if she do, he'll smile and
take 't for a great favour. . . .
Olivia — How now, Malvolio!
Malvolio — Sweet lady, ho, ho.
Olivia — Smilest thou? I sent for thee upon a
sad occasion.
Malvolio — Sad, lady! I could be sad: this
does make some obstruction in the blood, this
cross-gartering; but what of that? if it please
the eye of one, it is with me as the very true
sonnet is, "Please one and please all."
Olivia — Why, how dost thou, man? — what
is the matter with thee?
Sha\espeare
MY UNCLE TOBY
Let love, therefore, be what it will, — my
Uncle Toby fell into it. . . .
"I am in love, Corporal! 11 quoth my Uncle
Toby.
"In love! 1 '' said the Corporal, "your Honour
was very well the day before yesterday, when
I was telling your Honour the story of the King
of Bohemia. 11 "Bohemia! 11 said my Uncle Toby —
musing a long time. "What became of that story,
Trim? 1 '
* 33 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
"We lost it, an' please your Honour, somehow
betwixt us; but your Honour was as free from
love then, as I am." "'Twas just whilst thou
wents't off with the wheelbarrow — with Mrs.
Wadman," quoth my Uncle Toby. "She has
left a ball here," added my Uncle Toby, pointing
to his breast.
"She can no more, an' please your Honour,
stand a siege, than she can fly," cried the Cor*
poral.
"But as we are neighbours, Trim — the best
way, I think, is to let her know it civilly first,"
quoth my Uncle Toby.
"Now, if I might presume," said the Corporal,
"to differ from your Honour "
"Why else do I talk to thee, Trim?" said my
Uncle Toby mildly.
"Then I would begin with a good thundering
attack upon her, in return — and telling her
civilly afterwards; for if she knew anything of
your Honour's being in love beforehand "
"L — d help her! She knows no more at present
of it, Trim," said my Uncle Toby, "than the
child unborn."
Precious souls!
Mrs. Wadman had told it, with all its circum*
stances, to Mrs. Bridget, twenty^four hours
before.
Laurence Sterne
& 34 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
A DESPERATE CASE
Ralph Roister Doister — I will go home and
die.
Mathew Merygreeke — God have mercy on
your soul, ah, good gentleman. That e'er ye
should thus die for an unkind woman. Will ye
drink once ere ye go?
R. Roister — No, no, I will none.
M. Mery — How feels your soul to God?
R. Roister — I am nigh gone.
M. Mery — Placebo dilexi. Master Roister
Doister will straight go home and die.
R. Roister — Heigh'ho! Alas, the pangs of
death my heart do break !
M. Mery — Hold your peace, for shame, sir;
a dead man may not speak !
Nequando — What mourners and what torches
shall we have?
R. Roister — None.
M. Mery — Dirige. He will go darkling to his
grave. 7\[eque lux, neque crux, neque mourners,
neque drink. He will steal to heaven, unknowing
to God, I think.
Hicolas Udall
THE VERY WISE MERLIN
Merlin fell in a dotage on the damsel that
King Pellinore brought to the court with him;
* 35 *
THE THIHC CALLED LOVE
and she was one of the damsels of the lake, which
hight Nimue. But Merlin would let her have no
rest, but always he would be with her in every
place; and ever she made Merlin good cheer, till
she had learned of him all manner of things that
she desired, and he was so sore assotted upon
her that he might not be from her. . . . And
within a while the Lady of the Lake departed, and
Merlin went evermore with her wheresoever she
went. . . . And always Merlin lay about the lady;
and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain
would have been delivered of him; for she was
afraid of him because he was a devil's son, and
she could not put him away by any means.
And so upon a time it happened that Merlin
showed her a rock where was a great wonder,
and wrought by enchantment, which went
under a stone. So, by her subtle craft and work'
ing, she made Merlin go under the stone to let
her wit of the marvels there; but she wrought
so there for him that he came never out, for all
the craft that he could do: and so she departed,
and left Merlin.
Sir Thomas Malory
THE BOX THAT HAS BEEN OFTEN
ENTERED
The doctor entered the cabinet and got into
one of the three coffers, which Arouya herself
* 36 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
locked, saying to Danischmend, "Oh, my dear
doctor! Do not get impatient. As soon as my
brother and my husband have retired I shall
come and rejoin you." . . . Instead of suspecting
the sincerity of the lady and imagining that the
position he was in might be a trap set for him,
he preferred to persuade himself that he was
loved, and to yield to the sweetest illusions in
which lovers ordinarily indulge who flatter
themselves in vain that they are about to find
their affection returned.
Thousand and One Days
THE GENTLEMAN OF FIFTY
Dans la cinquantaine I The reflection should
produce a gravity in men. Such a number of
years will not ring like bridal bells in a man's
ears. I have my books about me, my horses, my
dogs, a contented household, I move in the cen^
tre of a perfect machine, and I am dissatisfied.
I rise early. I do not digest badly. What is wrong?
The calamity of my case is that I am in danger
of betraying what is wrong with me to others,
without knowing it myself. Some woman will
be suspecting and tattling, because she has noth'
ing else to do.
George Meredith
* 37 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
LE BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME
M. Jourdain [after having made two hows,
finding himself too close to Dorimene} — A little
farther away, Madam.
Dorimene — How?
M. Jour. — One step, if you please.
Dori. — What then?
M. Jour. — Fall back a little for the third.
Dorante — Madam, M. Jourdain knows how
to be genteel.
M. Jour. — Madam, this is a great honour to
me, to be sufficiently fortunate, to be so happy,
to have the felicity, that you have had the good-
ness of granting me the favour, of doing me the
honour of honouring me with the favour of your
presence; and if I had also the merit of meriting
a merit like yours, and that Heaven . . . envious
of my happiness . . . had accorded me . . . the
advantage of finding myself worthy . . . of . . .
Moliere
THE LORDLY H AMILTON'NELSO N
TRIANGLE
At the moment considerably subsequent to his
return to England, when he was charging her
with neglecting him in her excessive care for
their friend's interest, and was so far at war with
* 38 *
f
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
her as to threaten her with "separation," the
poor old man paused in his outbreak of petulance
and splenetic jealousy to avow his undiminished
confidence, that her affection for their hero was
purely platonic. ... Sir William was soothed in
his dying illness by Nelson's personal ministra'
tions, and while expiring in his wife's arms lay
with his right hand in the sailor's remaining
hand.
J. C. Jeaffreson
MR. PETER MAGNUS
"Why, then, he'he'he!" said Mr. Peter Mag'
nus, with a bashful titter, "what should you
think, Mr. Pickwick, if I had come down here,
to make a proposal, sir, eh? He'he'he — P
"Think! That you were very likely to sue'
ceed," replied Mr. Pickwick with one of his
beaming smiles.
"Ah!" said Mr. Magnus. "But do you really
think so, Mr. Pickwick? Do you, though? 1 "'
"Certainly," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Wait till tomorrow, double the chance
then . . . There is a suit of clothes in that, and a
hat in that box, which I expect, in the effect
they will produce, will be invaluable to me
sir."
Charles Dic\ens
% 39 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
TAMED
In the meantime, Bazaroff occupied himself
with inspecting the albums. "What a meek in'
dividual I have become," he said to himself.
Turgeniev
THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S DILEMMA
"I thank your lordships. The feelings of a
Lord Chancellor who is in love with a ward of
court are not to be envied. What is his position?
Can he give his own consent to his own marriage
with his own ward? Can he marry his own ward
without his own consent? And if he marries his
own ward without his own consent can he
commit himself for contempt of his own court?
Can he appear by counsel before himself to move
for arrest of his own judgment? Ah, my lords,
it is indeed painful to have to sit upon a wool'
sack which is stuffed with such thorns as these/ 1
W. S. Gilbert
RADHA AND KRISHNA
She despises essence of sandalwood, and even
by moonlight sits brooding over her gloomy
sorrow; she declares the gale of Malaya to be
venom, and the sandal trees through which it
has breathed to have been the haunt of serpents.
Thus, O Madhava, is she afflicted in thy absence
* 40 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
with the pain which love's dart has occasioned;
her soul is fixed on thee. . . . Her face is like a
water lily veiled in the dew of tears, and her
eyes appear like moons eclipsed.
Jayadeva
THE WIFE
Now I am married. It is evening. I am sitting
in my study reading. Behind me on the sofa
Sasha is sitting munching something noisily. I
want a glass of beer.
"Sasha, look for the corkscrew. ..." I say.
"It's lying about somewhere."
Sasha leaps up, rummages in a disorderly way
among two or three heaps of papers, drops the
matches, and without finding the corkscrew, sits
down in silence Five minutes pass — ten
I begin to be fretted both by thirst and vexation.
"Sasha, do look for the corkscrew," I say.
Sasha leaps up again and rummages among the
papers near me. Her munching and rustling of
the papers affects me like the sound of sharpen'
ing knives against each other. ... I get up and
begin looking for the corkscrew myself. At last
it is found and the beer is uncorked. Sasha re'
mains by the table and begins telling me some'
thing at great length.
"You'd better read something, Sasha," I say.
* 4 1 *
THE THING CALLED LOVE
I remember in my old Lovelace days I have,
cast off women for a stain on their stockings or
for one foolish word, or for not cleaning their
teeth, and now I forgive everything: the munch-
ing, the muddling about after the corkscrew,
the slovenliness, the long talking about nothing
that matters; I forgive it all almost unconsciously,
with no effort of will, as though Sasha's mistakes
were my mistakes, and many things which would
have made me wince in the old days move me to
tenderness and even rapture. The explanation of
this forgiveness of everything lies in my love
for Sasha, but what is the explanation of the love
itself, I really don't know.
Anton Chefyov
WHEN FORSYTE BETRAYED FORSYTE
Nothing that she could have done, nothing
that she had done, brought home to him like this
the inner significance of her act. For the moment,
perhaps, he understood nearly all there was to
understand . . . that she had suffered — that she
was to be pitied.
In that moment of emotion he betrayed the
Forsyte in him — forgot himself — his interests —
his property — was capable of almost anything;
was lifted into the pure ether of the selfless and
unpractical.
John Galsworthy
& 42 &
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
THE UPSET
Little did Mr. Brumley reckon, when first he
looked up from his laces at Black Strand, how
completely that pretty young woman in the
dark furs was destined to shatter all the assump'
tions that had served his life.
H. G. Welh
IN A BALCONY
I will learn, I will place my life on you,
Teach me but how to keep what I have won!
Am I so old? This hair was early grey;
But joy ere now has brought hair brown again,
And joy will bring the cheek's red back, I feel.
I could sing once too; that was in my youth.
Robert Browning
LOVE VS. REASON
Though the doctor could not make pride
strong enough to conquer love, yet he exalted
the former to make some stand against the latter;
insomuch that my poor Amelia, I believe, more
than once flattered herself that her reason had
gained entire victory over her passions, till love
brought up a reinforcement, if I may use that
term, of tender ideas, and bore all before him.
Henry Fielding
% 43 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
FOR FURTHER DETAILS, SEE
MAGAZINE ADVERTISING PAGES
'Tis now well, lady, you should
Use of this dentifrice I prescribed you too,
To clear your teeth; and the prepared pomatum
To smooth the skin. A lady cannot be
Too curious of her form, that still would hold
The heart of such a person. . . .
Ben Jonson
NO RESPECTER OF CASTE
Fat Haar, grappling his tall partner with up'
lifted arm, galloped away without a moment's
intermission, balancing and stamping with his
heels to mark the time, and looking up at her
from time to time with an air of profound ad'
miration; while she, with her hooked nose,
twirled about like a weathercock.
Erclqmann'Chatrian.
WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHANNES
When I realized from the silence of my
Arendse that I must have done my errand, I
ventured hesitatingly to press her hand to my
lips, and heavenly fires shot blissful from her
fingers to the depths of my soul. I lost pos'
session of myself. I retreated backwards, bowing
* 44 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
every moment, and ... at last came to the head
of a steep staircase without noticing it.
Johannes Ewald.
THE HERO OF A THOUSAND BATTLES
Charles XII (King of Sweden, under the as-
sumed name of the Count D'Olfen, aside) —
Would anyone believe that I am Charles the
Twelfth? I begin to doubt it myself. Nations
tremble at my name, yet I — I won't say tremble
— but feel very much like a fool in the presence
of a simple girl! . . .
Come, come, this won't do. Though she
doesn't know who I am, I must remember that
I do.
Charles Dance
JOS IN THE TOILS
As Jos's buggy drove up, and while, after his
usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at
the door, the ex-collector of Boggley-Wollah
laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing
glances were telegraphed between Osborne and
Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked
at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent
her fair ringlets over her knitting. How her heart
beat as Joseph appeared, — Joseph puffing from
the staircase, in shiny, creaking boots, — Joseph,
> 45 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervous'
ness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth.
And before he had time to ask how, Mr.
Joseph Sedley of the East India Company's serv'
ice was actually seated tete'a'tete with a young
lady, looking at her with a most killing expres'
sion; his arms stretched out before her in an
imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a
web of green silk, which she was unwinding.
Thac\eray
THE OSTRICH
Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night
he began to strain at the leash. He took his sisters
out, dutifully, but he would suggest, with a
carelessness that deceived none, "Don't you
want one of your girl friends to come along?
That little WhatVher-Name — , Emily, or some
thing. So long's I've got three of you, I might as
well have a full squad."
Edna Ferber
TO LYDIA
Who has transformed Sybaris from a hardy
athlete into a doting lover?
O Lydia, say, by all the gods I beg you, why
haste to ruin Sybaris by your love? Why is it
that he hates the sunny Plain, once able to en'
dure the dust and heat? Why like a soldier does
* 46 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
he prance no more among his peers, nor curb
with sharp-toothed bits the mouths of Gallic
steeds? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber?
Why shuns he the wrestlers 1 oil more warily
than vipers' blood; and no longer shows arms
discoloured by his weapons, he who gained glory
oft with the quoit, oft with the javelin sped
beyond the mark? Why lies he hid, as they tell
that the son of Ocean Thetis lay, just ere the
woeful doom of Troy befell, lest his manly attire
might drag him forth to the slaughter of the
Lycian battalions?
Horace
OF LOVE
1. Instruct me now, what love will do;
2. ? Twill make a tongless man to wooe.
1. Inform me next, what love will do;
2. 'Twill strangely make a one of two.
1. Teach me besides, what love will do;
2. 'Twill quickly mar, and make ye too.
1. Tell me, now last, what love will do;
2. 'Twill hurt and heal a heart pierc'd through.
Robert Herric\
"when the youth becomes a
watcher of windows"
But here is a strange fact; it may seem to many
men, in revising their experience, that they have
no fairer page in their life's book than the deli'
* 47 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
cious memory of some passages wherein affection
contrived to give a witchcraft surpassing the
deep attraction of its own truth to a parcel of
accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking
backward, they may find that several things,
which were not the charm, have more reality to
this groping memory than the charm itself which
embalmed them. But be our experience in par'
ticulars what it may, no man ever forgot the
visitations of that power to his heart and brain,
which created all things new; which was the
dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; which
made the face of nature radiant with purple
light, the morning and the night varied enchant'
ments; when a single tone of one voice could
make the heart bound, and the most trivial cir'
cumstance associated with one form is put in
the amber of memory; when he became all eye
when one was present, and all memory when
one was gone; when the youth becomes a
watcher of windows, and studious of a glove, a
veil, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when
no place is too solitary, and none too silent, for
him who has richer company and sweeter con'
versation in his new thoughts, than any old
friends, though best and purest, can give him*,
. . . and when the day was not long enough, but
the night, too, must be consumed in keen recol'
lections; when the head boiled all night on the
* 48 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
pillow with the generous deed it resolved on;
when the moonlight was a pleasing fever, and
the stars were letters, and the flowers ciphers,
and the air was coined into song, when all busi'
ness seemed an impertinence, and all the men
and women running to and fro in the streets
mere pictures.
Emerson
The wrinkles on my face are all untold,
My hair is gray and thin;
My limbs are sadly feeble grown and old;
But love is young, and sin.
From the Sanscrit
He mooned at her feet. ... He bought a
violent yellow tie, to make him self young for her.
He knew, a little sadly, that he could not make
himself beautiful; he beheld himself as heavy,
hinting of fatness, but he danced, he dressed, he
chattered, to be as young as she was ... as
young as she seemed to be.
Sinclair Lewis
O Mother Venus, quit, 1 pray,
Tour violent assailing \
The arts, forsooth, that fired my youth
At last are unavailing;
My blood runs cold, Tm getting old,
And all my powers are failing.
Eugene Field
* 49 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
"You, gentlemen, seem to think slavery a
pleasant and an honourable state. You have less
experience of it than I. I have been enslaved to
Miss Dobson since yesterday evening; you,
only since this afternoon; I, at close quarters;
you, at a respectful distance. Your fetters have
not galled you yet; my wrists, my ankles, are
excoriated. The iron has entered into my soul.
I droop. I stumble. Blood flows from me. I quiver
and curse. I writhe. The sun mocks me. The
moon titters in my face. I can stand it no longer.
I will no more of it. To-morrow I die."
Max Beerbohm
LOVE, THE TRICKSTER
O love, what monstrous tricks dost thou
play with thy votaries of both sexes ! How dost
thou deceive them, and make them deceive them*
selves! Their follies are thy delight! Their sighs
make thee laugh, and their pangs are thy merri-
ment!
Not the great Rish, who turns men into mon-
keys, wheel-barrows, and whatever else best
humours his fancy, hath so strangely metamor-
phosed the human shape; nor the great Cibber,
who confounds all number, gender, and breaks
through every rule of grammar at his will, hath
so distorted the English language as thou doth
metamorphose and distort the human senses.
* 50 *
WHAT LOVE WILL DO
Thou puttest out our eyes, stoppest up our
ears, and takest away the power of our nostrils;
so that we can neither see the largest object,
hear the loudest noise, nor smell the most poigiv
ant perfume. Again, when thou pleasest, thou
canst make a molehill appear as a mountain, a
JewVharp sound like a trumpet, and a daisy
smell like a violet. Thou canst make cowardice
brave, avarice generous, pride humble, and
cruelty tender-hearted. In short, thou turnest
the heart of man inside out, as a juggler doth a
petticoat, and bringest whatsoever pleaseth
thee out from it.
Fielding
HOW MEN MAKE LOVE IN
NOVELS
HOW MEN MAKE LOVE IN NOVELS
THE AMERICAN BROKER
"By George, 111 do it now," said Maxwell,
half aloud. "I'll ask her now. I wonder I didn't
do it long ago."
He dashed into the inner office with the haste
of a short trying to cover. He charged upon the
desk of the stenographer.
She looked up at him with a smile. A soft
pink crept over her cheek, and her eyes were
kind and frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on
her desk. He still clutched fluttering papers with
both hands and the pen was above his ear.
"Miss Leslie," he began hurriedly, "I have
but a moment to spare. I want to say something
in that moment. Will you be my wife? I haven't
— had time to make love to you in the ordinary
way, but I really do love you. Talk quick, please
— those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of
Union Pacific."
"Oh, what are you talking about?" exclaimed
# 55 *■
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
the young lady. She rose to her feet and ga^ed
upon him, round-eyed.
"Don't you understand?" said Maxwell, res-
tively. "I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss
Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a
minute when things had slackened up a bit.
They're calling me for the 'phone now. Tell 'em
to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won't you, Miss
Leslie?"
The stenographer acted very queerly. At
first she seemed overcome with amazement; then
tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then
she smiled sunnily through them, and one of her
arms slid tenderly about the broker's neck.
"I know now," she said, softly. "It's this old
business that has driven everything else out of
your head for the time. I was frightened at first.
Don't you remember, Harvey? We were married
last evening at eight o'clock in the Little Church
Around the Corner."
O. Henry
THE YOUNG ENGLISH NOBLEMAN'S
FIRST LOVE
"You wish — wish to leave me?" His breath
went with the words.
"Indeed I must."
Her hand became a closer prisoner.
All at once an alarming delicious shudder
% 56 *
HOW MEH MAKE LOVE IK HOVELS
went through her frame. From him to her it
coursed, and back from her to him. Forward and
back love's electric messenger rushed from heart
to heart, knocking at each till it surged tumul'
tuously against the bars of its prison, crying out
for its mate. They stood trembling in unison, a
lovely couple under these fair heavens of the
morning.
When he could get his voice it said, "Will
you go? 11
But she had none to reply with, and could
only mutely bend upward her gentle wrist.
"Then farewell!" he said; and dropping his
lips to the soft fair hand, kissed it, and hung
his head, swinging away from her, ready for
death.
Strange, that now she was released she should
linger by him. Strange, that his audacity, instead
of the executioner, brought blushes and timid
tenderness to his side, and the sweet words,
"You are not angry with me?"
"With you, O Beloved!" cried his soul.
"And you forgive me, fair charity!"
She repeated her words in deeper sweetness
to his bewildered look; and he, inexperienced,
possessed by her, almost lifeless with the divine
new emotions she had realized in him, could
only sigh and gaze at her wonderingly.
"I think it was rude of me to go without
* 57 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
thanking you again," she said, and again prof,
fered her hand.
The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song
above him. The gracious glory of heaven fell
upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving
his eyes from her nor speaking; and she, with a
soft word of farewell, passed across the stile, and
up the pathway through the dewy shades of
the copse, and out of the arch of the light, away
from his eyes.
George Meredith
the scotch creator of
"sentimental tommy"
I hope I may not be disturbed, for to-night
I must make my hero say "Darling," and it needs
both privacy and concentration. In a word, let
me admit (though I should like to beat about the
bush) that I have sat down to a love chapter.
Too long has it been avoided. Albert had
called Marion "dear" only, as yet, but though
the public will probably read the word without
blinking, it went off in my hands with a bang.
They tell me — the Sassenach tell me — that in
time I shall be able without a blush to make
Albert say "darling" and even gather her up
in his arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment
sees me as shy as ever; I still find it advisable to
lock the door, and then — no witness save the
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HOW MEH MAKE LOVE W HOVELS
dog — I "do" it dourly with my teeth clenched
(my knee in the small of Albert's back) while the
dog retreats into the far corner and moans.
The bolder Englishman (I am told) will write
a love'chapter and then go out, quite coolly,
to dinner, but such goings on are contrary to
the Scotch nature; even the great novelists
dared not. Conceive Mr. Stevenson left alone
with a hero, a heroine, and a proposal impending
(he does not know where to look).
Sir Walter in the same circumstances gets out
of the room by making his love'scenes take place
between the end of one chapter and the begin'
ning of the next, but he could afford to do any-
thing, and the small fry must e'en to their task,
moan the dog as he may.
J. M. Barrie
OLIVIER BERTIN, FRENCHMAN
AND ARTIST
"Oh, my God! I wish I could make you under ^
stand how I love you! I am always seeking, but
cannot find a means. When I think of you —
and I am always thinking of you — I feel in the
depths of my being an unspeakable intoxication
of longing to be yours, an irresistible need of
giving myself to you even more completely. I
should like to sacrifice myself in some absolute
way, for there is nothing better, when one loves,
* 59 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
than to give, to give always, all, all, life, thought,
body, all that one had, to feel that one is giving,
and to be ready to risk anything to give still
more. I love you so much that I love to suffer
for you, I love even my anxieties, my torments,
my jealousies, the pain I feel when I realize that
you are no longer tender toward me. I love in
you a something that only I have discovered, a
you which is not the you of the world that is
admired and known, a you which is mine, which
cannot change nor grow old, which I cannot
cease to love, for I have, to look at it, eyes that
see it alone. But one cannot say these things.
There are no words to express them.'"
de Maupassant
THE SPANIARD IN LOVE WITH A
GIPSY
"I cast myself at her feet, I seised her hands,
I watered them with my tears, I reminded her
of all the happy moments we had spent together,
I offered to continue my brigand's life, if that
would please her. Everything, sir, everything —
I offered her everything if she would only love
me again.
"She said:
"'Love you again? That's not possible! Live
with you? I will not do itf
"I was wild with fury. I drew my knife, I
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HOW MEH MAKE LOVE IH HOVELS
would have had her look frightened, and sue for
mercy — but that woman was a demon.
"I cried, 'For the last time I ask you, will you
stay with me?'
"'No! no! no!' she said, and she stamped her
foot.
"I struck her twice over — I had taken Garcia's
knife, because I had broken my own. At the
second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems
to me that I can still see her great black eyes
staring at me. Then they grew dim and the lids
closed."
Prosper Mcrimee
AUSTRIAN JEW, GENIUS AND
STATESMAN
At the foot of the mountain a boy handed her
a letter from Alvan — a burning flood rolled out
of him like lava after they had separated on the
second plateau, and confided to one who knew
how to outstrip pathfarers. She entered her
hotel across the lake, and met a telegram. At
night the wires flashed "Sleep well" to her; on
her awakening "Good-morning." A lengthened
history of the day was telegraphed for her
amusement. Again at night there was a "God
guard you!"
"Who can resist him?" sighed Clotilde, ex'
& 61
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
cited, nervous, flattered, happy, but yearning
to repose and be curtained from the buss of the
excess of life that he put about her.
George 'Meredith
THE ITALIAN FALLS IN LOVE WITH
HIS WIFE
Stooping over her, in an attitude of adoration,
Gismondi felt the old'time ardour reviving with'
in him, and only by an effort refrained from
crushing her in his arms. Science was right; the
mimicry and the parody of passion had resuc
rected passion itself. The law of reversibility
had received new confirmation! Through his
acting, day after day, toward her as in the time
of their early love, all unconsciously, and as if
by virtue of some philter, love had sprung up
anew.
"It is seven years," he continued, bending
lower and lower above her bowed head, perfect
in its lines, adorable in its thoughts; "it is seven
years since we first met, — have you ceased to
remember? — the twenty-fourth of April? You
are right not to remember, — for two years now
we have not kept the day, — and it was my
fault we didn't! I have been so much at fault !"
She still kept her head bowed, as if feeling
the oppression of the heavy perfume, and me'
chanically fingered a petal of one of the gardenias.
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HOW MEK MAKE LOVE IH HOVELS
Suddenly he leaned in front of her, clasped
her waist, and kissed her on the lips, fiercely.
"Giulia! Giulietta! I love you, do you hear
me? I can't keep it to myself any longer ! Listen,
I feel as if I were waking from a dream, from a
nightmare! What harm I have done you, and
what harm I have done myself! But you are an
angel, because you have forgiven me, haven't
you?"
By this time she was returning his caresses,
and the poor gardenias got the worst of it.
"Is it all real? Is it truly you? Really, truly
you? 11
"Yes, dear, it is I, the real, true I, when I am
like this. It was another person altogether who
was so bad to you, — no, not bad, but foolish,
idiotic "
And giving free vent to the tumultuous flood
of his emotions, love and joy and remorse, he
made himself out worse than he had really been.
Federigo di Roberto
A PROSPEROUS RUSSIAN PEASANT
And as though her gesture had decided him,
Zakhar raised his fist and struck her on the head.
She uttered a low moan and swayed where she
stood. The white cloth fell from her shoulders
and her comb slipped from her hair into the
grass. With a savage joy Zakhar struck her once
# 63 #
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
more and Glafira fell to her hands and knees and
burst into tears.
A feeling of horror, pity and despair seized
Zakhar. In one bewildered moment he stood
gazing at her as she sobbed and then he walked
quickly away and stood still with his throbbing
brow pressed against the cold rough bark of an
old willow. A dark void filled his soul. It seemed
to him that everything must be ended between
them.
"Now everything is ended . . . ended !" was
the one thought turning in his brain.
But suddenly two soft warm arms came steal'
ing round his neck from behind, and Glafira's
supple burning form was pressed to him tight —
tight. Unable to trust his senses, Zakhar turned
round; Glafira hung round his neck, looking up to
him with her wide slanted black eyes wet with
tears and on her lips a strange smile of exultation.
"Beat me. ... He beat me. . . . What a man
he is," she muttered deliriously.
Jealousy, fear, despair vanished suddenly.
Mikhail Artzybashef
THE YOUNGER SET IN THE
UNITED STATES
His lips moved lazily over her face.
"You taste so good f he sighed.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
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HOW MEK MAKE LOVE m HOVELS
THE NOVICE
But the hour came when the patience of love
at twenty-one could endure no longer. One
Saturday he approached the school with a mild
air of indifference, and had the satisfaction of
seeing the object of his quest at the further end
of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade and
gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself
there.
He disguised his feelings from some suspicious'
looking cottage windows opposite by endeavour'
ing to appear like a man in a great hurry of busi'
ness, who wished to leave the handkerchief and
have done with such trifling errands.
This endeavour signally failed; for on ap'
proaching the gate he found it locked, to keep
the children, who were playing prisoner's base
in the front, from running into her private
grounds.
She did not see him; and he could only think
of one thing to be done, which was to shout her
name.
"Miss Day!"
The words were uttered with a jerk and a look
meant to imply to the cottages opposite that he
was simply a man who liked shouting as a pleas'
ant way of passing his time, without any reference
to persons in gardens. The name died away,
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
and the unconscious Miss Day continued digging
and pulling as before.
He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage
windows yet more stoically, and shouted again.
Fanny took no notice whatever.
He shouted the third time, with desperate
vehemence, turning suddenly about and retiring
a little distance, as if it were by no means for
his own pleasure that he had come.
This time she heard him, came down the gar'
den, and entered the school at the back. Foot-
steps echoed across the interior, the door opened,
and three-quarters of the blooming young school-
mistress's face and figure stood revealed before
him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off
by the edge of the door. Having surveyed and
recognized him, she came to the gate.
At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks
increased, lessened, or did it continue to cover
its normal area of ground? It was a question
meditated several hundreds of times by her
visitor in after-hours — the meditation, after
wearying involutions, always entering in one
way, that it was impossible to say.
"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called
with." He held it out spasmodically and awk-
wardly. "Mother found it: under a chair."
"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr.
Dewy. I couldn't think where I had dropped it."
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HOW MEH MAKE LOVE IH HOVELS
Now Dick, not being an experienced lover —
indeed, never before having been engaged in
the practice of love-making at all, except in a
small schoolboy way — could not take advantage
of the situation; and out came the blunder,
which afterwards cost him so many bitter mo
ments and three sleepless nights: —
"Good-morning, Miss Day."
"Good-morning, Mr. Dewy."
The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick
was standing outside, unchanged in his condi-
tion from what he had been before he called.
Of course the Angel was not to blame — a young
woman living alone in a house could not ask
him indoors unless she had known him better —
he should have kept her outside. He wished that
before he called he had realized more fully than
he did the pleasure of being about to call; and
turned away.
Thomas Hardy
"strong as death' 1
He had risen.
"Good-bye, Any!"
"Good-bye, dear friend. I will come to see you
to-morrow morning. Would you like me to do
something very imprudent, as I used to do — pre-
tend to breakfast here at noon, and then go and
have breakfast with you at quarter past one?"
& 67 %
THE THING CALLED LOVE
"Yes, I should like it very much. You are so
good!"
"It is because I love you."
"And I love you, too."
"Oh, don't speak of that any more!"
"Good'bye, Any."
"Good'bye, dear friend, till tomorrow."
"Good-bye!"
He kissed her hands many times, then he
kissed her brow, then the corner of her lips.
His eyes were dry now, his bearing resolute.
Just as he was about to go, he seized her, clasped
her close in both arms, and pressing his lips to
her forehead, he seemed to drink in, to inhale
from her all the love she had for him.
de Maupassant
* 68 *
FLIRTING — WITH THE
DICTIONARY
FLIRTING WITH THE DICTIONARY
I. FLIRT: To give (a person) a sharp sudden
blow, or \noc\; to rap, stride.
'Hew English Dictionary
SYMPTOMS THE KNOCK PERSONAL
Beatrice — I wonder that you will still be
talking, Signior Benedick : nobody marks you.
Benedick — What, my dear Lady Disdain! are
you yet living?
Beatrice — Is it possible disdain should die
while she hath such food to feed it as Signior
Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to dis-
dain if you come in her presence.
Benedick — Then is courtesy a tunvcoat. But
it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you ex-
cepted; and I would I could find in my heart
that I had not a hard heart; for truly I love none.
Beatrice — A dear happiness to women: they
would else have been troubled with a pernicious
suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of
* 7 1 #
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog
bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
Benedick — God keep your ladyship still in
that mind! so some gentleman or other shall
'scape a predestinate scratched face.
Shakespeare
There are certain censures which praise, just
as there are certain praises which damn.
La Rochefoucauld
SYMPTOMS THE KNOCK GENERIC
Mrs. Millamant — Oh, the vanity of these
men! If they did not commend us, we were not
handsome! Beauty the lover's gift! Lord, what is
a lover that it can give? Why, one makes lovers
as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as
one pleases; and then, if one pleases, one makes
more.
Mirabell — Very pretty. Why, you make no
more of making lovers, madam, than of making
so many card'tnatches.
Mrs. Millamant — One no more owes one's
beauty to a lover than one's wit to an echo.
They can but reflect what we look and say; vain
empty things if we are silent or unseen, and want
a being.
Mirabell — Yet to those two vain empty
* 72 *
FLlRTIKiG-WITH THE DICTIOHART
things you owe the two greatest pleasures of
your life.
Mrs. Millamant — How so?
Mirabell — To your lover you owe the pleas-
ure of hearing yourselves praised, and to an echo
the pleasure of hearing yourselves talk.
Congreve
A PRACTICAL HINT
It may be observed that when a young woman
returns a rude answer to a young man's civil
remark, her heart is in a state which argues rather
hopefully for his case than otherwise.
Hardy
THE SKILFUL PRACTITIONER
They played a game of forfeits. The girls put
their heads together, and condemned her to kiss
the one she loved best. But she rose, stately in
her anger, and said:
"May I not just as well give a blow to the
one I like the least?"
The moment after, Gosta's cheek burned
under her firm hand. He flushed a flaming red,
but conquering himself, seized her hand, held it
fast a second, and whispered: "Meet me in half
an hour in the red drawing-room on the lower
floor.' 1
His blue eyes flashed on her and encompassed
* 73 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
her with magical waves. She felt that she must
obey.
He sat down on the sofa beside her. Gently
he put his arm about her waist. She did not move
away. She pressed closer to him, threw her arms
round his neck. "I have watched you this eve
ning, 11 she whispered; "there is no one like you. 11
Lagerlof
Love of itself s too sweet. The best of all
Is when Love's honey has a touch of gall.
Herric\
THAT ELUSIVE REASON WHY
Elizabeth wanted Mr. Darcy to account for
his having fallen in love with her. "My beauty
you had early withstood, and as for my manners
— my behaviour to you was at least always bor'
dering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you
without rather wishing to give you pain than
not. Now, be sincere; did you admire me for my
impertinence? 11
"For the liveliness of your mind, I did. 11
"You may as well call it impertinence at once.
The fact is, you were disgusted with women
who were always speaking, looking, and think'
ing for your approbation alone. I roused and
interested you because I was unlike them. 11
Jane Austen
* 74 *
FLIRTIXG-WITH THE DICT IO?{A R T
That you are in a terrible taking,
By all these sweet oglings I see;
But the fruit that can fall without shaking
Indeed is too mellow for me.
Lady Mary Worthy Montagu
II. FLIRT: To play at courtship, to practise
coquetry; to ma\e love without serious intentions.
?{ew English Dictionary
Men shal not wo we a wight in hevinesse.
Chaucer
NOT A GAME FOR THE
HEAVY'HANDED
Mrs. Millamant — Well, what do you say
*o me?
Mirabell — I say that a man may as well
make a friend by his wit, or a fortune by his
honesty, as win a woman by plain dealing and
sincerity.
Mrs. Millamant — Sententious Mirabell !
Prithee, don't look with that violent and in'
flexible wise face like Solomon at the dividing of
the child in an old tapestry hanging.
Mirabell — You are merry, madam, but I
would persuade you for a moment to be serious.
Mrs. Millamant — What, with that face?
No, if you keep your countenance, 'tis impossible
75 %
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
I should hold mine. — Well, after all, there is
something very moving in a love-sick face. Ha!
Ha! Ha! — Well, I won't laugh; don't be peevish
— Heigho! Now I'll be melancholy, as melan-
choly as a watch-light. Well, Mirabell, if ever
you will win me, woo me now. — Nay, if you are
so tedious, fare you well.
Congreve
Why so pale and wan, fair lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well won't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
Suckling
Women of spirit are not to be won by mourn-
ers. Divert your mistress rather than sigh for
her. The pleasant man she will desire for her
own sake, but the languishing lover has nothing
to hope from her.
Steele
There is lightness, laughter, a spice of mischief
in genuine flirtation, — the fusing of a champagne
that is all froth, with never a drop of alcohol at
the bottom of the glass.
Bourget
* 76 $
FLIRTIHG-WITH THE DICTIOKART
NO PLACE FOR EARNESTNESS
"So, Jenny, youVe found another Perfect Man?"
"Perfect, perhaps, but not so sweet as you,
Not such a baby." "Me? A baby! — Why,
I am older than the rocks on which I sit — "
Oh, how delightful, talking about oneself.
"Jenny, adorable" — (what draws the line
At the one word, "love"?) "has any one the
right
To look so lovely as you do to-night,
To have such eyes and such a helmet of bright
hair?"
But candidly, he wondered, do I care?
Aldous Huxley
Flirtation — attention without intention.
Max O'Rell
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry
than it has with politics.
Sheridan
COQUETRY — FOURTEENTH CENTURY
STYLE
And with that word he gan to waxen red,
And in his speche a litel wight he quook,
And caste asyde a litel wight his hed,
And stynte a while; and afterwards he wook,
And sobreliche on hire he threw his look.
Chaucer
% 77 *
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
GALLANTRY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
STYLE
When first in Celia's ear I poured
A yet unpractised prayer,
My trembling tongue sincere ignored
The aids of "sweet" and "fair."
I only said as in me lay,
Fd strive her worth to reach;
She frowned, and turned her eyes away, —
So much for truth in speech.
Then Delia came. I changed my plan.
I praised her to her face;
I praised her features, — praised her fan,
Her lap'dog and her lace;
I swore that not till Time were dead
My passion should decay;
She, smiling, gave her hand, and said
" 'Twill last, then, — for a day."
Austin Dobson
What we find the least of in flirtation, is love.
La Rochefoucauld
'Tis sweet to think that wher'er we rove,
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we are far from the lips we love,
WeVe but to make love to the lips that are near.
Tom Moore
% 78 #
FLIRTIXG-WITH THE DICTIONARY
III. FLIRT: To flit continually from one object
to another.
T^ew English Dictionary
Formed for flying, Love plumes his wing.
Byron
Since 'tis Nature's law to change,
Constancy alone is strange.
Earl of Rochester
One should always be in love. That is the
reason one should never marry.
Oscar Wilde
SAFETY FIRST
Spencer — Are you — married at present?
Rosalie — Why, Mr. Wells, are you?
Spencer — Oh, no! I never marry!
Rosalie — Oh, so many married men have said
they'd never marry 1
Spencer — Yes, but I've got a system. I never
propose to ladies who could possibly accept me.
I like to love hopelessly — and often — and often.
Salisbury Field
Love a la Don Juan is a sentiment of the same
kind as a taste for hunting. It is a desire for ac
tivity which must be kept alive by divers ob'
jects, and by putting a man's talents continually
to the test.
Stendhal
# 79 #
THE THING CALLED LOVE
THE PROMISED LAND
Priola — Does the traveller who has spent two
pleasant days in a city unknown to him the day
before, settle there for life? No, he moves on the
third day to see new lands.
Mme. de Valery — Which frequently don't
measure up to the old.
Priola — No matter. He moves on. He
changes. Love which never changes is stupid.
Each new woman whom, like you, I covet and
admire, is to me a Promised Land.
Mme. de Valery — Into which you are not
allowed to enter?
Priola — You are wrong. When I am in that
state of wartlike fever into which the intoxica'
tion of Beauty throws me, I see only my goal,
my future captive. She is there before me, smil'
ing and defiant. Cost what it may, she must
belong to me. Lavedan
Are women books? says Hodge, then would
mine were
An Almanack, to change her every year.
Benjamin Franltfin
THE CONSTANCY OF THE
INCONSTANT
Anatol — This is how Fm true to them —
to all the women I have ever loved. I never
$ 80 #
FLIRTIHG-WITH THE DICTIOKART
forget a single one. I have only to turn over these
letters and dead flowers and locks of hair, and
back they come to me; I'm in love with them all
again. IVe often wished there were some Abra-
cadabra which would really call them back out
of the utter nothingness. If I knew of a word!
Max — Let's think of one. What about —
"My Only Love"?
Anatol — Yes: "My Only Love"! And
they'd all come, one from a little suburban villa,
— one from her crowded drawing-room, — one
from her dressing-room at the theatre,
Max — Several from their dressing-rooms at
the theatre
Anatol — Several. — One from a shop,
Max — One from your successor's arms.
Anatol — One from the grave, — one from
here, one from there, — here they all are!
Max — Would you mind not speaking the
word? I somehow don't think they'd be pleasant
company. I daresay they are not in love with
you still, but I'm pretty sure they're still jealous
of each other.
Anatol — Wise man. — Let the phantoms
rest.
Schnitzler
IV. FLIRT: (English word.) Conversation
between a man and woman of the world, in which
# 81 &
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
the words play around the ideas of love and
coquetry; amorous tactics.
Larousses French Dictionary
The conversation of beautiful and well'bred
women is for me a sweet commerce. But 'tis a
commerce wherein a man must stand a little on
his guard, especially those of a warm tempera'
ment like mine.
Montaigne
CONVERSATION WITHOUT WORDS
There were two of us in the compartment: a
young officer with a tiny moustache and a young
pretty woman. That was I. It happened so long
ago that I am safe in referring to her as a pretty
woman.
Before long, things began to happen. The lieu'
tenant moved to the seat opposite me, from
which he was able to study me the better. He
had very expressive eyes, and when first I
looked at them they were raised to me question'
ingly, as if to say: "Dear lady, will you permit
me to look at you?" I have never seen eyes that
could plead so eloquently. "See with what re'
spectful admiration I regard you ! Can't you tell
that you have kindled my impressionable sol'
dier's heart into flame? Have pity on me."
I laid my newspaper aside. With that gesture
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FLIRTIHG-WITH THE DICTIONARY
I indicated that I was willing to let the flirtation
begin. It was as if I had said: "There, the screen
which separated us is removed, and now, eye to
eye." He answered with a look of gratitude, and
an unspoken promise in his eyes assured me:
"I shall not forget what a gentleman owes a lady
in a situation like this. I shall not address you;
only my eyes shall speak for me." I thanked him
with a glance.
For a long time he looked at me dreamily,
modestly, respectfully. He seemed to be studying
my face with touching reverence. Then he stared
at my hands, as if to say: "What delicate white
hands !" Then he looked at my feet. In that quiet,
detached way men have of looking at things
which don't belong to them. For a long time he
studied me like that from head to foot.
— What did your eyes answer?
They answered, "Ah!" A languid, pleased
"Ah !" with a tinge of reproach in it, — the sort
of "Ah!" we utter when a man takes us firmly
in his arms. I didn't say it; I looked it.
He didn't misunderstand. Only his eyes grew
sad and intent, as if to say: "Isn't it a pity? We
two are so ideally suited to each other. We can
understand each other's very glances. And yet
we must always remain strangers." He sighed
and bade me farewell. — With his eyes. With his
eyes he pressed a pure and tender kiss upon my
* 83 ^
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
brow. He shook his head sadly, and his eyes said:
"Nevermore — nevermore." By that time the
train had reached Agram, and he got off.
It was the most charmingly poetic tete4'tete
I have ever had.
Molnar
tactics: reconnaissance and
strategic retirement
The glance is the great weapon of virtuous
coquetry. With a glance one may say everything,
and yet one can always deny the glance, for it
cannot be repeated textually.
Stendhal
BARRAGE
It was so much gained for her that she had
him started off on abstractions, that he was dis'
coursing on truth in personal relations, on duty,
and the sacredness of love and marriage. It is
well known that these abstract propositions
serve admirably as a beginning, a starting-point.
Turgeniev
AMBUSH
The lady attended me as if she expected me
to go on.
"Consider then, madam, 11 continued I, laying
my hand upon hers, "that grave people hate love
for its name's sake, that selfish people hate it
$ 84 $
FLIRTITiG-WITH THE DICTIONARY
for their own, hypocrites for heaven's, and that
all of us, being ten times worse frightened than
hurt by the very report, — what a want of knowl'
edge in this branch of commerce a man betrays
whoever lets a word come out of his lips till
an hour or two at least after the time that his
silence upon it has become tormenting ! A course
of small quiet attentions, not so pointed as to
alarm — nor so vague as to be misunderstood; —
with now and then a look of kindness, and little
or nothing said upon it, — leaves Nature for our
mistress, and she fashions it to her mind."
"Then I solemnly declare," said the lady,
blushing, "you have been making love to me all
this while."
Sterne
SKIRMISH
"I have broken two engagements for you to*
day. How many have you broken for me?"
"None,' 1 said Selden calmly. "My only en'
gagement at Bellomont was with you. 1 '
She glanced down at him, faintly smiling.
"Did you really come to Bellomont to see me?"
"Of course I did."
Her look deepened meditatively. "Why?" she
murmured.
"Because you're such a wonderful spectacle:
I always like to see what you are doing."
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
"How do you know what I should be doing
if you were not here?"
Selden smiled. "I don't flatter myself that my
coming has deflected your course of action by a
hair's breadth. "
"That's absurd — since if you were not here I
could obviously not be taking a walk with you."
"No; but your taking a walk with me is only
another way of making use of your material.
You are an artist, and I happen to be the bit
of colour you are using to-day. It's a part of your
cleverness to be able to produce premeditated
effects extemporaneously."
She took up his charge with a touch of re'
sentment. "I don't know," she said, "why you
are always accusing me of premeditation. You
must find me a dismal kind of person if you sup'
pose that I never yield to an impulse."
"Ah, but I don't suppose that: haven't I told
you that your genius lies in converting impulses
into intentions?"
Edith Wharton
HAND'TO'HAND COMBAT
Romeo — If I profane with my unworthiest
hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
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FLIRTIHG-WITH THE DICTIOHA R T
Juliet — Good pilgrim, you do wrong your
hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do
touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo — Have not saints lips, and holy palm'
ers too?
Juliet — Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use
in prayer.
Romeo — O, then, dear saint, let lips do what
hands do;
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet — Saints do not move, though grant for
prayers' sake.
Romeo — Then move not, while my prayers'
effect I take. (Kisses her.)
Thus from my lips by thine, my sin is purged.
Juliet — Then have my lips the sin that they
have took.
Romeo — Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly
urged !
Give me my sin again.
Sha\espeare
HEAVY SIEGE
"Why should we two wait to be introduced?' ?
he said. "We know one another. I am Alvan.
You are she of whom I have heard from Kollin:
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THE THING CALLED LOVE
who else? Lucretia, the gold-haired; the gold'
crested serpent, wise as her sire; Aurora breaking
the clouds; in short, Clotilde. — You are aware
that I hoped to meet you?"
"Is there a periodical advertisement of your
hopes? — or do they come to us by intuition? 11
"Kollin was right! The ways of the serpent
will be serpentine. I knew we must meet. It is
no true day so long as the goddess of the morning
and the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of
myself by what I have felt since I heard you."
"You are sure of your divinity?"
"Through my belief in yours."
They bowed, smiling at the courtly exchanges.
"And tell me," said he, "as to meeting
me ?"
She replied : "When we are so like the rest of
the world, we may confess our weakness."
"Unlike! For the world and I meet to part:
not we two."
Clotilde attempted an answer: it would not
come. She tried to be offended by his lordly tone,
and found it strangely inoffensive. His lording
presence and the smile that was like a waving
feather on it, compelled her so strongly to submit
and hear, as to put her in danger of seeming to
embrace this man's rapid advances.
"You leave it to me to talk."
"Could I do better?"
* 88 *
FLIRTIHG-WITH THE DICTIONARY
"You listen sweetly."
"It is because I like to hear."
"You have the pearly little ear of a shell on
the sand.' '
"With the great sea sounding near."
Alvan drew closer to her. "What if I make a
comparison of you with Paris? — the city of Paris,
Lucretia."
"Could you make it good?"
He laughed and postponed it for a series of
skimming discussions, like swallow'flights from
the nest under the eaves to the surface of the
stream, perpetually reverting to her, and pre
voking spirited replies, leading her to fly with
him in expectation of a crowning compliment
that must be singular and was evidently gather'
ing confirmation in his mind from the touchings
and probings of her character on these flights.
She was like a lady danced .off her sense of
fixity, to whom the appearance of her whirling
figure in the mirror is both wonderful and reas'
suring; and she liked to be discussed, to be com'
pared with anything, for the sake of being the
subject, so as to be sure it was she that listened
to a man that was a stranger, claiming her for his
own; sure it was she that, by not breaking from
him, implied consent; she that went speeding
in this magical rapid round which slung her
more and more out of her actual into her imag'
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
ined self, compelled her to proceed, denied her
the right to faint and call the world for aid and
catch at it, though it was close by and at a signal
would stop the terrible circling.
The world was close by and had begun to
stare.
Meredith
V. FLIRT ATIOH: A relation or mood estab-
lished between a woman and the man who is
ma\ing love to her. It is vaguely delicious and
dangerously progressive from innocence to guilt,
but presumptively terminable at any of the inter-
mediate stages.
Paul Hervieu, in Larousse's French Dictionary
Gervase — Just you and I — together — on the
top of the world like this.
Melisande — Yes, that's what I feel too.
A. A. Milne
How many very wantonly pleasant sports
spring from the most decent and modest lan'
guage on love!
Montaigne
Flirting is the virtuous woman 's way of being
sinful — and the sinful woman's way of being
virtuous.
Bourget
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FLIRTITiG-WITH THE DICTIONARY
To flirt is to nibble hors-d'oeuvres instead of
making a full meal.
Cairon
Flirtation is the hypocrisy of the senses.
Schnitzler
THE DO WNRIGHTNESS OF A KING
King Henry — I know no ways to mince it in
love, but directly to say, "I love you": then if
you urge me, farther than to say: "Do you, in
faith?" — I wear out my suit. ... I cannot look
greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor have I
no cunning in protestation. . . . Dear Kate, take
a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he
perforce must do thee right, because he hath not
the gift to woo in other places; for those fellows
of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves
into ladies' favours, they do always reason
themselves out again.
Sha\espeare
* 9 1 *
WOMEN IN LOVE
V
VI
WOMEN IN LOVE
THE FINE GENTLEMAN
"Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley.
He has not such a fine air and way of talking as
Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough.
But Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man."
"Mr. Knightley 's air is so remarkably good
that it is not fair to compare Mr. Martin with
him. You might not see one in a hundred, with
gentleman so plainly written as in Mr. Knight'
THE HANDSOME TRAITOR
One of those spectators was Tito Melema.
Bright in the midst of brightness, he sat in the
window of the room above Nello's shop, his
right elbow resting on the red drapery hanging
from the window-sill, and his head supported in
a backward position by his right hand, which
pressed the curls against his ear. His face wore
that bland liveliness, as far removed from excit-
ley."
Jane Austen
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THE mmG CALLED LOVE
ability as from heaviness or gloom, which marks
the companion popular alike among men and
women — the companion who is never obstrusive
or noisy from uneasy vanity or excessive animal
spirits, and whose brow is never contracted by
resentment or indignation.
George Eliot
A LORD OF CREATION
Reginald was a perfect model of manly beauty,
and seemed in his person to have realised all
that Grecian sculpture had imagined of faultless
form and feature. ... He had good feelings, great
sensibility, and ardent, romantic imagination,
and a high-spirited scorn of everything mean and
base; and although he was at the same time head-
strong, self-willed, and impetuous, the slave of
impulse and the sport of passion, yet, as his im-
pulse often led him to what was good, and his
passion was a mere gust, these in early life
showed scarcely as defects, but seemed merely
the natural exuberance of youthful blood and
unchecked spirits.
Susan Ferrier
THE YOUNG ARTIST
Valerio was the handsomest fellow in Venice.
He was not so tall, but better proportioned and
more robust than his brother. His fine face ex'
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WOMEH I7i LOVE
pressed at a first glance only good nature, cour'
age and frankness. It required some attention to
discover in his great blue eyes the sacred fire
that slumbered there, often under a shade of
quiet indifference, whose lustre, although not
altered, was at least veiled, by a slight expression
of fatigue. This half-pallor ennobled his beauty,
and tempered the serene audacity of his look.
George Sand
AN INTELLECTUAL MAN OF AFFAIRS
He stood beside the window, with his hands
on his sides, moodily looking out. Thus strongly
defined against the sunset light, he would have
impressed himself on a stranger as a man no
longer in his first youth, extraordinarily hand'
some so far as the head was concerned, but of a-
somewhat irregular and stunted figure; stunted,
however, only in comparison with what it had
to carry; for in fact he was of about middle height.
But the head, face, and shoulders were all re-
markably large and powerful; the colouring —
curly, black hair, grey eyes, dark complexion —
singularly vivid; and the lines of the brow, the
long nose, the energetic mouth, in their mingled
force and perfection, had made the stimulus of
many an artist before now.
Mrs. Humphry Ward
* 97 *■
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
"what every woman wants'''
Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of
the gaser." My master's colourless, olive face,
square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows,
deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth —
all energy, decision, will — were not beautiful,
according to rule; but they were more than beau-
tiful to me: they were full of an interest, an in-
fluence that quite mastered me — that took my
feelings from my own power and fettered them
in his. I had not intended to love him: the reader
knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my
soul the germs of love there detected; and now,
at the first renewed view of him, they sponta-
neously revived, green and strong! He made me
love him without looking at me.
Charlotte Bronte
DISTINCTION
If she looked up she would see him.
She knew what she would see : the fine, cross
upper-lip lifted backwards by the moustache,
the small grilled brown moustache, turned up,
that made it look crosser. The narrow, pensive
lower lip, thrust out by its light jaw. His nose —
quite a young nose — that wouldn't be Roman,
wouldn't be Sutcliffe; it looked out over your
head, tilted itself up to sniff the world, obstinate,
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WOMEH IH LOVE
alert. His eyes, young too, bright and dark,
sheltered, safe from age under the low straight
eyebrows. They would never have shaggy,
wrinkled sagging lids. Dark-brown hair, grey
above his ears, clipped close to stop its curling
like his uncle's. He liked to go clipped and clean.
You felt that he liked his own tall, straight
slenderness. «. , .
May Sinclair
THE ROMANTIC VIOLINIST
As he leaned upon the table, one slight, long,
brown hand propping his head, and half lost in
the thick, fine, brown hair which waved in large,
ample waves over his head, there was an inde-
scribable grace, ease, and negligent beauty in
the attitude. Move as he would, let him assume
any position or impossible attitude, there was
still the same grace, half careless, yet very digni'
fled, in the position he took.
All his lines were lines of beauty, but beauty
which had power and much masculine strength;
nowhere did it degenerate into fiaccidity, no-
where lose strength in grace. . . . Broad-shoul-
dered, long-armed, with a physique in every re-
spect splendid, he was yet very distinctly
removed from the mere handsome animal which
I believe enjoys a distinguished popularity in the
latter-day romance. T . „ - .„
' Jessie rothergill
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THE THlTiG CALLED LOVE
WANTED A SILENT PARTNER
Tom Beatup attracted her strongly. He was
much her own type — slow, ruminative, patient
as the beasts he tended — yet she saw him as a
being altogether more helpless than herself, one
less able to think and plan, one whom she could
"manage 1 1 tenderly. He was not so practical as
she, and more in need of affection, of which he
got less. Thyrsa sometimes pictured his round
dark head upon her breast, her arm about him,
holding him there in the crook of it, both lover
and child. . . .
Sheila Kaye^Smith
THE CONQUERING MALE
And against her will, almost without con'
scious movement, she obeyed him. The un,
tempting morsel passed from his hand to hers,
and under the compulsion of his insistence she
began to eat. She felt as if every mouthful would
choke her, but she persevered, urged by the
dread certainty that he would somehow have
his way.
. . . .There was, moreover, something comfort'
ing in his presence, something that vastly re'
assured her, making her lean upon him in spite of
herself.
.... Presently he stopped again, and without
$ ioo *
WOME?i IH LOVE
a word lifted her in his arms. She gasped a pro
test to which he made no response. His arms
compassed her like steel, making her feel helpless
as an infant.
* Ethel M. Ddl
CLARA MILITCH
"I am ready to listen to you," he began again,
"and shall be very glad if I can be of use to you
in any way . . . though I am, I confess, surprised
. . . considering the retired life I lead. . .
At these last words of his, Clara suddenly
turned to him, and he beheld such a terrified,
such a deeply wounded face, with such large
bright tears in the eyes, such a pained expression
about the parted lips, and this face was so lovely,
that he involuntarily faltered, and himself felt
something akin to terror and pity and softening.
"Ah, why . . . why are you like that?" she
said, with an irresistibly genuine and truthful
force, and how movingly her voice rang out!
"Could my turning to you be offensive to you?
... is it possible you have understood nothing?
. . . Ah, yes ! you have understood nothing, you
did not understand what I said to you, God
knows what you have been imagining about me,
you have not even dreamed what it cost me —
to write to you ! . . . You thought of nothing but
yourself, your own dignity, your peace of mind !
$ ioi %
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
. . . But is it likely I . . ." (she squeezed her hands
raised to her lips so hard, that the fingers gave a
distinct crack) . . . "As though I made any sort
of demands of you, as though explanations were
necessary first . . . 'My dear madam, ... I am,
I confess, surprised ... if I can be of any use 1
. . . Ah! I am mad! — I was mistaken in you — in
your face! . . . when I saw you the first time . . . !
Here . . . you stand If only one word. What,
not one word?"
Turgeniev
CATHERINE
"I love him more than ever you loved Edgar"
— said the infatuated girl, — "and he might love
me if you would let him!"
"I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!"
Catherine declared emphatically — and she
seemed to speak sincerely. "Nelly, help me to
convince her of her madness. Tell her what
Heathcliff is — an unreclaimed creature, without
refinement — without cultivation; an arid wilder'
ness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that
little canary into the park on a winter's day as
recommend you to bestow your heart on him!
It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child,
and nothing else, which makes that dream enter
your head. Pray don't imagine that he conceals
depths of benevolence and affection beneath a
v $ 102 $
WOMEK IK LOVE
stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond — a
pearl'Containing oyster of a rustic; he's a fierce,
pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, Let this
or that enemy alone, because it. would be un-
generous or cruel to harm them. I say, Let them
alone, because I should hate them to be wronged :
and he'd crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isa-
bella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I
know he couldn't love a Linton : and yet, he'd be
quite capable of marrying your fortune and ex'
pectations. Avarice is growing with him a be
setting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his
friend — so much so that had he thought seriously
to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my
tongue, and let you fall into this trap."
Emily Bronte
"advice to a schoolboy"
Love in women (at least) is either vanity, or
interest, or fancy. It is a merely selfish feeling.
It has nothing to do (I am sorry to say) with
friendship, or esteem, or even pity. I once asked
a girl, the pattern of her sex in shape and mind
and attractions, whether she did not think Mr.
Coleridge had done wrong in making the heroine
of his beautiful ballad story of "Genevieve" take
compassion on her hapless lover —
"When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay "
* 103 *
THE TH1KG CALLED LOVE
And whether she believed that any woman ever
fell in love through a sense of compassion; and
she made answer — "Not if it was against her
inclination !" I would take the lady's word for a
thousand pound, on this point.
William Hazlitt
JEUNE FILLE
A young girl's love is a kind of piety. We must
approach it with adoration if we are not to pre
fane it, and with poetry if we are to understand
it. If there is anything in the world which gives
us a sweet, ineffable impression of the ideal, it is
this trembling modest love. To deceive it would
be a crime. Merely to watch its unfolding life is
bliss to the beholder; he sees in it the birth of a
divine marvel.
Amid
EGO
Women wish to be loved without a why or a
wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good,
or well bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but be'
cause they are themselves. All analysis seems to
them to imply a loss of consideration, a subop
dination of their personality to something which
dominates and measures it. They will have none
of it; and their instinct is just . . . Love must
always remain a fascination, a witchery, if the
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WOMEH IH LOVE
empire of woman is to endure. Once the mystery
gone, the power goes with it. Love must always
seem to us indivisible, insoluble, superior to all
analysis, if it is to preserve that appearance of
infinity, of something supernatural and miraai'
lous, which makes its chief beauty. . . . The
feminine triumph par excellence is to convict of
obscurity that virile intelligence which makes
so much pretence to enlightenment. And when a
woman inspires love, it is then especially that
she enjoys this proud triumph. I admit that her
exultation has its grounds. Still, it seems to me
that love — true and profound love — should be a
source of light and calm, a religion and a reveta'
tion, in which there is no place left for the lower
victories of vanity.
Amid
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SOME LOVE LETTERS
SOME LOVE LETTERS
PROSPER MERIMEE TO
JENNY DAQUIN
Contrary to my usual habit, I have no distinct
recollection of that day, but am like a cat who
licks his whiskers for a long time after drinking
his milk. Admit that the peace of which you
sometimes speak with admiration, that the Kef,
which is superior even to the best that we know,
is as nothing in comparison to the happiness
"which is almost pain." Nothing is more insig'
nificant than the life of an oyster, especially of
an oyster which is not eaten. . . .
Good-bye. Do not have any second thoughts,
and give me a place in your first.
KWEI'LI TO HER HUSBAND
(A CHINESE OFFICIAL)
Dost thou know what love is? Thou canst not
till thou holdest Love itself within thy very
arms. I thought I loved thee. I smile now at the
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
remembrance of that feeble flickering that was
as like unto the real love as the faint, cold beam
of the candle is to the rays of the glorious sun.
Now — now — thou art the father of my son.
Thou hast a new place in my heart. The tie that
binds our hearts together is stronger than a rope
of twisted bamboo; it is a bond, a love bond,
that never can be severed. I am the mother of
thy first'born — thou hast given me my man'
child. Love thee — love thee! — now I \now /
I am
Thine Own.
RICHARD STEELE TO
MARY SCURLOCK
Madam,
It is the hardest thing in the world to be in
love and yet attend to business. As for me, all
who speak to me find me out, and I must lock
myself up or other people will do it for me.
A gentleman asked me this morning, "What
news from Lisbon?" and I answered, "She is
exquisitely handsome. " Another desired to
know when I had been last at Hampton Court.
I replied, "It will be on Tuesday come se'n night. 11
Prythee, allow me at least to kiss your hand
before that day, that my mind may be in some
composure. O love!
"A thousand torments dwell about me !
Yet who would live to live without thee? 11
# no #
SOME LOVE LETTERS
Methinks I could write a volume to you; but
all the language on earth would fail in saying
how much and with what disinterested passion
I am ever yours,
Rich. Steele
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO
MADAME HELVETIUS
. . . Passy.
Chagrined at your resolution, pronounced so
decidedly last evening, to remain single for life,
in honour of your dear husband, I went home,
fell upon my bed, thought myself dead, and
found myself in the Elysian Fields.
They asked me if I had any desire to see any
persons in particular. "Lead me to the philos'
ophers." "There are two that reside here in this
garden. They are very good neighbours and very
friendly to each other." "Who are they? 1 ' "Soc*
rates and Helveti^s." "I esteem them both
prodigiously; but let me see Helvetius first, be
cause I understand a little French and not a
word of Greek." He viewed me with much
courtesy, having known me, he said, by reputa'
tion for some time. He asked me a thousand
things about the war, and the present state of
religion, liberty, and government in France.
"You ask me nothing, then, respecting your
# in #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
friend Madame Helvetius, and yet she loves you
still excessively; it is but an hour since I was at
her house. 1 ' "Ah!" said he, "you make me recol'
lect my former felicity; but I ought to forget it
to be happy here. For many years I thought of
nothing but her. At last I am consoled. I have
taken another wife, the most like her that I could
find. She is not, it is true, quite so handsome;
but she has as much good sense and wit, and
loves me infinitely. Her continued study is
to please me; she is at present gone to look
for the best nectar and ambrosia to regale me
this evening; stay with me and you will see
her."
"I perceive," said I, "that your old friend is
more faithful than you; for many good matches
have been offered her, all of which she has re'
fused. I confess to you that I loved her myself
to excess; but she was severe to me, and has ab'
solutely refused me, for love of you." "I com'
miserate you," said he, "for your misfortune;
for indeed she is a good woman, and very amia'
ble. But the Abbe de la Roche and the Abbe
Morellet, are they not still sometimes at her
house?" "Yes, indeed, for she has not lost a single
one of your friends." "If you had gained over
the Abbe Morellet with coffee and cream to
speak for you, perhaps you would have sue'
ceeded, for he is as subtle a reasoner as Scotus or
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SOME LOVE LETTERS
St. Thomas, and puts his arguments in such good
order that they become almost irresistible: or if
you had secured the Abbe de la Roche, by giving
him some fine edition of an old classic, to speak
against you, that would have been better; for I
have always observed that when he advises any-
thing, she has a very strong inclination to do the
reverse."
At these words the new Madame Helvetius
entered with the nectar; I instantly recognised
her as Mrs. Franklin, my old American friend.
I reclaimed her, but she said to me coldly, "I
have been your good wife forty'nine years and
four months; almost half a century; be content
with that." Dissatisfied with this refusal of my
Eurydice I immediately resolved to quit those
ungrateful shades and to return to this good
world to see again the sun and you. Here I am.
Let us avenge ourselves.
POPE TO
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
After having dreamed of you several nights,
besides a hundred reveries by day, I find it
necessary to relieve myself by writing; though
this is the fourth letter I have sent.
For God's sake, madam, let not my correspond'
ence be like the traffic with the grave from
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THE THWG CALLED LOVE
whence there is no return. Unless you write to
me, my wishes must be like a poor papist's devo-
tions to separate spirits, who, for all they know
or hear from them, either may or may not be
sensible of their addresses.
None but your guardian angels can have you
more constantly in mind than I; and if they
have, it is only because they can see you always.
If ever you think of those fine young beaux of
Heaven, I beg you to reflect that you have just
as much consolation from them as I have at
present from you. . . .
BENJAMIN CONSTANT TO
MADAME RECAMIER
September 3rd, 1814.
To-morrow evening, to-morrow evening?
What is that evening to me? It will commence
for me at five o'clock in the morning. To-morrow
is to-day. Thanks to God, yesterday is passed.
I shall therefore be at your door at nine o'clock.
They will tell me that you are not there. I shall
be there between ten and eleven; will they still
tell me that you are not there?
... I seem mad to you, perhaps; but I see your
look, I repeat to myself your words. ... I am
right to be mad. I would be mad not to be so.
Till this evening, then, Mon dieu ! If you are
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SOME LOVE LETTERS
not the most indifferent of women, how much
you will make me suffer in my life! . . . Once
again, till to-night.
GEORGE SAND TO
ALFRED DE MUSSET
April 15-l7th, 1834.
. . . Do not believe, do not believe, Alfred,
that I could be happy with the thought of having
lost your heart. That I have been your mistress
or your mother, what does it matter? That I
have inspired you with love or with friendship
— that I have been happy or unhappy with you,
all that changes nothing in the state of my mind,
at present. I know that I love you and that is all.
To watch over you, to preserve you from all ill,
from all contrariety, to surround you with
distractions and pleasures, that is the need and
the regret which I feel since I have lost you.
Why has so sweet a task and one which I should
have performed with such joy become, little by
little, so bitter, and then, all at once, impossible?
How is it that I, who would have offered up all
my blood to give you a night's rest and peace,
have become for you a torment, a scourge, a
spectre? When these atrocious memories besiege
me (and at what hour do they leave me in peace?)
I almost go mad.
* 115 %
THE THITiG CALLED LOVE
BALZAC TO COUNTESS HANSKA
Dresden, October 21st, 1843.
If happiness for a woman is to know herself
unique in a heart, alone, filling it in an indispen-
sable manner, sure to shine in the intelligence of
a man as his light, sure to be his blood, to ani'
mate each heart-beat, to live in his thought as
the substance itself of that thought, and having
the certainty that it would be always and always
so; eh bien, dear sovereign of my soul, you can
call yourself happy, and happy senza brama, for
so I shall be for you till death. One can fe^l
satiety for human things, there is none for divine
things, and this word alone can explain what you
are for me.
THOMAS CARLYLE TO JANE WELCH
Scotsbrig, 12 Aug., 1826.
My darling:
my good Jane, it is an awful and delicious
thought, this of wedlock ! Need is, most pressing
need, that the heart you give your own heart to,
be well and seriously judged and found worthy.
With one whose integrity of soul you even
doubted, it were better to die a thousand deaths
than to wed.
1 swear it will break my heart if I make thee
unhappy. And yet I am a perverse mortal to
n6 $
SOME LOVE LETTERS
deal with, and the best resolutions make ship'
wreck in the sea of practice. But thou must be
a very good wife, and I will be a very good hus'
band.
JANE WELCH TO THOMAS CARLYLE
... Oh, my dearest friend, be always so good
to me, and I shall make the best and happiest
wife ! When I read in your looks and words that
you love me, then I care not one straw for the
whole universe besides. But when you fly from
me to smoke tobacco, or speak of me as a mere
circumstance of your lot, then, indeed, my heart
is troubled about many things.
JOHN KEATS TO FANNY BRAWNE
. . . My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist
without you. I am forgetful of everything but
seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there —
I see no farther. ... I have been astonished that
Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have
shuddered at it. I shudder no more — I could be
martyred for my Religion — Love is my religion
— I could die for that. I could die for you. My
Creed is Love, and you are its only tenet. You
have ravished me away by a Power I cannot re-
sist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and
even since I have seen you I have endeavoured
% 117 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
often to reason against the reasons for my love.
I can do that no more — the pain would be too
great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe with-
out you.
PRINCE BISMARCK TO
JOHANNA VON PUTTKAMER
My Heart, Schonhausen, February 7, '47.
... If I could only dream of you when you do
of me! But recently I do not dream at all — shock'
ingly healthy and prosaic; or does my soul fly
to Reinfeld in the night and associate with
yours? In that case it can certainly not dream
here; but it ought to tell about its journey in the
morning, whereas the wayward thing is as silent
about its nocturnal employments as though it,
too, slept like a badger. ... I love you, cest tout
dire.
Bismarc\
DANIEL WEBSTER TO
JOSEPHINE SEATON
Monday Morning, March 4th, , 44.
My dear Josephine:
I fear you got a wetting last evening, as it
rained fast soon after you left our door; and I
avail myself on the return of your Bonnet, to
express the wish that you are well this morning,
and without cold.
* n8 #
SOME LOVE LETTERS
I have demanded parlance with your Bonnet:
have asked it how many tender looks it has n<y
ticed to be directed under it; what soft words it
has heard, close to its side; in what instances an
air of triumph has caused it to be tossed; and
whether, ever, and when, it has quivered from
trembling emotions, proceeding from below.
But it has proved itself a faithful keeper of sc
crets, and would answer none of my questions.
It only remained for me to attempt to surprise
it into confession, by pronouncing sundry
names, one after another. It seemed quite ihv
moved by most of these, but at the apparently
unexpected mention of one, I thought its ribbons
decidedly fluttered !
I gave it my parting good wishes; hoping that
it might never cover an aching head, and that
the eyes which it protects from the rays of the
sun, may know no tears but those of joy and
affection.
Yours, dear Josephine, with affectionate re'
gard,
Dad. Webster
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE TO
HIS WIFE
I am sometimes driven to wish that you and
I could mount upon a cloud (as we used to fancy
in those heavenly walks of ours), and be borne
% 119 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
quite out of sight and hearing of the world; for
now all the people in the world seem to come
between us. How happy were Adam and Eve!
There was no third person to come between
them, and all the infinity around them only
seemed to press their hearts closer together. We
love one another as well as they; but there is no
silent and lovely garden of Eden for us. Will you
sail away with me to discover some summer
island? Do you not think that God has reserved
one for us, ever since the beginning of the world?
Foolish that I am to raise a question of it, since
we have found such an Eden — such an island
sacred to us two — whenever we have been
together. Then we are the Adam and Eve of a
virgin earth.
LEON GAMBETTA TO LEONIE LEON
Friday evening, May 23rd, 1879,
written at the distance of a ^iss.
Dear little adored woman, — Hast thou ever
penetrated to the bottom of my soul as to'day?
... I am quite sure that I have tO'day possessed
the full and entire essence of your nature. I have
lived in your life and not in mine. I would lose
with pleasure the sentiment of my personality
to pass into yours. The dream is accomplished,
the revelation is complete, I respire in the a^ure
which you inhabit, and it is fitting to say again
$ 120 &
SOME LOVE LETTERS
with the prophet-king, I feel as if I were a god,
and I am that, because the property, the gift
of the divinity, is Love. It is in you that I lose
myself for all eternity, and I have no further
desires beyond this, beyond this ineffable com'
munion. To thee, then, in thee and for thee.
RICHARD WAGNER TO
MATHILDE WESENDONCK
January 1, 1859.
Ah, I still breathe it, the magic fragrance of
those blooms thou pluck'dst me from thy heart !
They were not buds of life; so smell the wonder
blooms of heavenly death, of the eternal; so
decked they of yore the hero's corse, ere it was
burnt to godlike ashes. Into that grave of flames
and perfumes leaped his loved one, to mingle
her beloved's ashes with her own — and they
were one! One element, not two loving mortals;
one divine substance of eternity.
Thy caresses, they are the crown of my life,
the sweet roses that blossomed from the wreath
of thorns wherewith alone my head was clad.
Now am I proud and happy! Not a wish, not a
longing! Delight, supreme consciousness,
strength and aptitude for everything, for every
storm of life!
Nay! nay, repent them not! Repent them?
Never !
# 121 ^
MEN IN LOVE THROUGH
THE AGES
VIII
MEN IN LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
A GREEK HERO ODYSSEUS
"I beseech thee, O queen — art thou a goddess
or art thou mortal? If a goddess, one of those who
hold broad heaven, I must liken thee to Artemis,
daughter of great Zeus, in comeliness and stature
and form. But if thou art of this earth, then thrice
blessed are thy father and thy honoured mother,
and thriccblessed thy brethren. Full well, I
ween, are their hearts ever warmed with joy
because of thee, as they see thee entering the
dance, a plant so fair. But blessed above all others
is he who shall prevail with wooing'gifts and
lead thee to his home. For never yet have mine
eyes looked upon a mortal such as thou."
A RAJAH OF INDIA
.... And Ranga looked at her, and his heart
swelled in his breast; for she touched it not only
# 125 #
TO NAUSICAA
Homer
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
by her beauty but by the strength of her soul.
And he laughed for joy, and said: . . . O thou
fair woman, thy loveliness is wonderful, and yet
it is the least part of thy excellence. Now thou
art worthy of one better than I am. And yet, if
thou wilt give thyself to me for a wife, I will be
thy lord and thy protector in this life and the
next, and thou shalt be my divinity in human
form. And I will want food and clothing, before
thou shalt want sweetmeats and jewels." And
he stooped down and touched her feet, and put
his hand on his head: and then stood and looked
at her with a smile. And she looked at him with
affection, and said: "Thou art the man whom I
have desired to have for a husband, and now I
see that my dream was a true one. And now I
am thy wife and thy servant.""
F. W. Bain
THE ARAB OF A THOUSAND
YEARS AGO
"When I considered" (quoth Ibrahim), "I
took leave of my senses and wit and I was dazed
and my thought was confounded for amazement
at the sight of loveliness whose like is not on the
face of the earth. So I fell into a swoon, and com.
ing to myself, weeping'eyed, recited these two
couplets:
* 126 &
MEH Hi LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
"I see thee and close not mine eyes for fear,
Lest their lids prevent me beholding thee:
An I gased with mine every glance, these eyne
Ne'er could sight all the loveliness moulding
thee."
The Thousand T^ights and a Tiight:
Sir Richard Burton s Translation
AN IDYLL OF TWELFTH ' CENTURY
FRANCE: AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE
"Fair, sweet friend," quoth he, "thou shalt
not go, for then wouldst thou be my death.
And the first man that saw thee and had the
might withal, would take thee straightway into
his bed to be his leman. And once thou earnest
into a man's bed, and that bed not mine, wit ye
well that I would not tarry till I had found a
knife to pierce my heart and slay myself. Nay,
verily, wait so long I would not; but would hurl
myself so far as I might see a wall, or a black
stone, and I would dash my head against it so
mightily that the eyes would start and the brain
burst."
"Aucassin," she said, "I trow thou lovest me
not as much as thou sayest, but I love thee more
than thou lovest me."
"Ah, fair, sweet friend," said Aucassin, "it
may not be that thou shouldst love me even as
I love thee. Woman may not love man as man
* 127 %
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
loves woman; for a woman's love lies in her eye,
and the bud of her breast, and her foot's tiptoe,
but the love of a man is in his heart planted,
whence it can never issue forth and pass away."
A GERMAN MINSTREL OF THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY
She stirred a little, and leant against him, and
the springs of her heart'sorrow rose to her lips
and weighed down her head.
Then Tristan laid his arm around her gently,
and spake softly: ... "I ween, fair Iseult, that
the sea and the wind troubleth thee; the sea and
the salt wind; thou dost taste them, and they
are alike bitter to thee."
"Nay, nay, what sayest thou? I taste nor wind
nor sea. L'Amer alone doth trouble me."' 1
And Tristan whispered: "Of a sooth, sweet
heart, so doth it me. L'Amer and thou, ye are
my sorrow ! Heart's lady, sweet Iseult, thou and
the love of thee have turned my heart aside;
so far have I wandered that never more may I
find the right path. All that mine eyes behold is
but weariness and sorrow, weakness of spirit
and heaviness of heart; in all the world is there
naught that my heart doth love save thee
only."
Iseult spake: "Even so it is with me."
* 128 $
MEH IK LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
So the twain made their confession of love
each to the other; he kissed her, and she him; and
each drank of the sweetness that the heart may
offer.
Gottfried of Strassburg
THE FLOWER OF THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Romeo — With love's light wings did I o'er*
perch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.
Juliet — If they do see thee, they will murther
thee.
Romeo — Alack, there lies more peril in thine
eye
Than twenty of their swords; look thou but
sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
Juliet — I would not for the world they saw
thee here.
Romeo — I have night's cloak to hide me from
their eyes;
An but thou love me, let them find me here:
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
Sha\espeare
* 129 &
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
FRENCH SWORDSMAN AND POET
Roxane — Well, if that moment's come for us
— suppose it!
What words would serve you?
Cyrano — All, all, all, whatever
That came to me, e'en as they came, I'd fling
them
In a wild cluster, not a careful bouquet.
I love thee! I am mad! I love, I stifle!
Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep'bell,
And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee,
Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth!
All things of thine I mind, for I love all things;
I know that last year on the twelfth of May
month,
To walk abroad one day you changed your hair*
plaits !
I am so used to take your hair for daylight
That — like as when the eye stares on the sun's
disk,
One sees long after a red blot on all things —
So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision
Sees upon all things a blond stain imprinted.
Roxane (agitated) — Why, this is love indeed !
Edmond Rostand (Brian Hoo\er)
* 130 #
MEH IH LOVE THROUGH THE ACES
SENTIMENT INSPIRED BY CLARISSA
IN SEVEN VOLUMES
He threw himself upon his knees at my feet.
Who can bear, said he (with an ardour that
could not be feigned, his own eyes glistening)
who can bear to behold such sweet emotion? O
charmer of my heart! (and, respectfully still
kneeling, he took my hand with both his, press'
ing it to his lips). Command me with you, com'
mand me from you; in every way I am all implicit
obedience — but ... I appeal to everything you
know, to all you have suffered . . . whether you
can possibly have such another opportunity —
the chariot ready; my friends with impatience
expecting the result of your own appointment: a
man whose will shall be entirely your will,
imploring you, thus on his knees imploring you
— to be your own mistress; that is all; nor will I
as\ for your favour but as upon full proof I shall
appear to deserve it. Fortune, alliance, unob'
jectionable! O my beloved creature! (pressing
my hand once more to his lips) let not such an
opportunity slip. You never, never will have
such another.
Samuel Richardson
# 131 #
THE THmG CALLED LOVE
MR. VERDANT GREEN, OF A
GENERATION BACK
Mr. Verdant Green managed to say, in a
choking, faltering tone, "I wonder how much
you like me — very much?"
"Oh, I couldn't tell — how should I? . . . You
saved my life; so, of course, I am very, very grate'
ful; and I hope I shall always be your friend."
"Yes, I hope so indeed — always — and some-
thing more. Do you hope the same?"
"What do you mean? Hadn't we better go
back to the house?"
"Not just yet — it's so cool here — at least, not
cool exactly, but hot — pleasanter, that is —
much pleasanter here. . . . Don't mind me; I al-
ways feel hot when — when I am out of doors."
"Then we had better go indoors."
"Pray, don't — not yet — do stop a little
longer." And his hand . . . timidly seized Miss
Patty's arm, and then naturally, but very gently,
fell upon her waist. A thrill shot through him
like an electric flash. . . .
"Well," said Mr. Verdant Green, who was
now desperate, and mentally prepared to take
the dreaded plunge into that throbbing sea that
beats upon the strand of matrimony, "whether
you like me very much or not, I like you very
much ! — very much indeed ! Ever since I saw you,
MEH IH LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
since last Christmas, I've — I've liked you — very
much indeed! 11
"Cuthbert Bede" {Rev. Edward Bradley}
THE BARONET AND BECKY SHARP
"I say again, I want you, 11 Sir Pitt said, thump'
ing the table. "I can't git on without you. I
didn't see what it was till you went aw T ay. The
house all goes wrong. It's not the same place. All
my accounts has got muddled agin. You must
come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do come."
"Come — as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out.
"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like, 11 the
Baronet said, grasping his crape hat. "There!
will that zatusfy you? Come back and be my
wife. You're vit vor't. Birth be hanged. You're
as good a lady as ever I see. . . . Will you come?
Yes or no?"
"Oh, Sir Pitt!" Rebecca said, very much
moved.
"Say 'y es / Becky," Sir Pitt continued. "I'm
an old man, but a good'n. I'm good for twenty
years. I'll make you happy, zee if I don't. You
shall do what you like; spend what you like;
and 'ave it all your own way. I'll make you a
settlement. I'll do everything reg'lar. Look
yere!" and the old man fell down on his knees
and leered at her like a satyr.
VV. M. Thac\eray
% 133 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
ANGEL CLARE AND TESS
Clare jumped up from his seat, and, leaving
his pail to be kicked over if the milcher had such
a mind, went quickly toward the desire of his
eyes, and, kneeling down beside her, clasped
her in his arms.
Tess was taken completely by surprise, and
she yielded to his embrace with unreflecting
inevitableness. Having seen that it was really
her lover who had advanced, and no one else,
her lips parted, and she sank upon him in her
momentary joy, with something very like an
ecstatic cry.
He had been on the point of kissing that toe
tempting mouth of hers, but he checked himself,
even for tender conscience' sake. "Forgive me,
Tess dear," he whispered. "I ought to have
asked. I — did not know what I was doing. I do
not mean it as a liberty at all — I — am devoted to
you, Tessie, dearest, with all my soul."
Thomas Hardy
THE PASSION OF OSMOND
"What I wish to say to you," he went on at
last, looking up, "is that I find I am in love with
you."
Isabel instantly rose from her chair.
"Ah, keep that till I am tired!" she murmured.
* 134 *
MEH IH LOVE THROUGH THE AGES '
4 'Tired of hearing it from others? 1 ' And Os-
mond sat there, looking up at her. "No, you
may heed it now, or never, as you please. But,
after all, I must say it now." . . . Then he got up
and came near her, deeply respectful, as if he
were afraid he had been too familiar.
"I am thoroughly in love with you. 11
The tears came into Isabel's eyes. . . . "Oh,
don't say that, please," she answered ... in a
tone of entreaty which had nothing of conven-
tional modesty, but which expressed the dread
of having ... to choose and decide.
'1 haven't the idea that it will matter much
to you," said Osmond. "I have too little to offer
you. What I have — it's enough for me; but it's
not enough for you. I have neither fortune, nor
fame, nor extrinsic advantages of any kind. So I
offer nothing. I only tell you because I think it
can't offend you, and some day or other it may
give you pleasure. It gives me pleasure, I assure
you," he went on, standing there before her,
bending forward a little, turning his hat, which
he had taken up, slowly round, with a movement
which had all the decent tremor of awkward-
ness and none of its oddity, and presenting to
her his keen, expressive, emphatic face. "It gives
me no pain, because it is perfectly simple. For
me you will always be the most important
woman in the world." Henry James
* 135 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
A SHEIK OF TO'DAY A l'anGLAISE
Her body was aching with the grip of his
powerful arms, her mouth was bruised with his
savage kisses. She clenched her hands in anguish.
"Oh, God!" she sobbed, with scalding tears
that scorched her cheeks. "Curse him! Curse
him!"
And with the words on her lips he came,
silent, noiseless, to her side. With his hands on
her shoulders he forced her to her feet. His eyes
were fierce, his stern mouth parted in a cruel
smile, his deep, slow voice half angry, half mv
patiently amused. "Must I be valet as well as
lover?"
Edith M. Hull
THE FRENCH SCULPTOR
Dechartre insisted on wishing to make
Therese admire what she did not understand.
For her sake certainly he would have sacrificed
Dante and all the poets, with the rest of the
universe. But by her side, in the ardour of his
desire, beholding her tranquil, he was irritated
by her smiling beauty. He felt bound to impose
on her his ideas, his artistic passions, even his
fancies and caprices. In a low voice and in quick
argumentative words he remonstrated with her.
"How vehement you are," she said.
MEH IK LOVE THROUGH THE AGES
Then he whispered in her ear, in a passionate
voice which he vainly sought to moderate:
"You must take my soul with me. It would
give me no joy to win you with a soul that
was not my own."
At these words there passed over Therese a
little shudder of fear and joy.
Anatole France
% 137 *
LITTLE COURSE
LOVE-MAKING
A LITTLE COURSE IN LOVE'MAKING
These are days when \nowledge calls aloud from
the advertising pages. On the authority of the
teachers themselves, we favoured moderns may
learn by mail such things as our benighted fore
fathers never dreamed of — how to alter the cabriole
legs with which nature has endowed us to Heppel-
white, how to have a Compelling Personality, or
to play the Tenor Banjo in One Minute.
It has seemed as if there were one slight gap in
this encyclopedic offering — despite the gentleman
who offers to reveal the Secrets of Sex Fascination.
So we have gathered from some of the many
acute writers, from ancient Egyptians to Ovid,
from Theocritus to Dryden, from Byron and de
Maupassant to Marie Corelli, a few scattering
precepts in the universally appealing art-science of
Efficiency in Love. Most of these counsellors were
clearly Go-Getters: they advise out of their own
rich experience. That even such experts occasion-
ally differ is merely another evidence of the com-
plexity of the subject and the need for erecting a
scientific basis of sound practice.
#■ 141 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
W ALL'MOTTO
Why makest thou it so strange?
She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;
Then why should he despair that knows to court
it
With words, fair looks, and liberality?
Sha\espeare
A PESSIMIST
I know the nature of women. When you will,
they will not; when you will not, they come of
their own accord.
Terence
THE WAZIR PTAH'HOTEP COUNSELS
KING ASSA (PERHAPS 3,000 B. C.)
If thou wouldest be wise, provide for thine
house, and love thy wife that is in thine arms.
Fill her stomach, clothe her back; oil is the rem'
edy of her limbs. Gladden her heart during her
lifetime, for she is an estate profitable unto its
lord. Be not harsh, for gentleness mastereth her
more than strength. Give to her that for which
she sigheth and that toward which her eye
looketh; so shalt thou keep her in thy house.
Translated by Brian Brown
% 142 $
A LITTLE COURSE W LOVE-MAKING
THE YOUNG SINGER SHOWS HER
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND
HER FEELINGS
(Malavi\a, having approached the King, sings
the four" part composition):
My beloved is hard to obtain; be then without
hope with respect to him, O my heart! Ha! the
outer corner of my left eye throbs somewhat:
how is this man, seen after a long time, to be
obtained?
My lord, consider that I look upon thee with
ardent longing.
(She goes through a pantomime expressive of
the sentiment.)
Vidusha\a (aside) — Ha! ha! this lady may be
said to have made use of this composition in four
parts for the purpose of flinging herself at your
nead - Kalidasa (Fifth Century)
LOVE AMONG THE FLOWERS
You with mallow sighings, hyacin thine breath,
Honey clover speeches, rose smiles for your
mate,
Marjoram kisses, love'embraces in a parsley
wreath,
Tiger'lily laughter, larkspur gait, —
Pour the wine and read the poem as the sacred
laws dictate. Pherecrates (About 430 b. c.)
# 143 &
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
simaetha's spell to win
back delphis
Where are my bay4eaves? Come, Thestylis;-
where are my love'charms 7 Come, crown me the
bowl with the crimson flower o 1 wool; I would
fain have the fircspell to my cruel dear that for
twelve days hath not so much as come anigh
me, the wretch, nor knows whether I be alive
or dead; nay, nor ever hath knocked upon my
door, implacable man. I warrant ye Love and
the Lady be gone away with his feat fancy.
In the morning Til to Timagetus' school and
see him, and ask what he means to use me so;
but for tonight, I'll put the spell o' fire upon
him.
So shine me fair, sweet Moon; for to thee, still
Goddess, is my song, to thee and that Hecat
infernal who makes e'en the whelps to shiver on
her goings to and fro where these tombs be and
the red blood lies. All hail to thee, dread and
awful Hecat! I prithee so bear me company
that this medicine of my making prove potent
as any of Circe's or Medea's or Perimed's of
the golden hair.
Wrynec\, wrynec\, draw him hither \
Theocritus (Translated by J. M. Edmonds)
* 144 #
A LITTLE COURSE 17i LOVE-MAKING
WISDOM OF SIR HUDIBRAS
He that will win his dame must do
As love does when he draws his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.
Samuel Butler
THE SONG OF THE SIRENS
And I anointed therewith (with wax) the
ears of all my men in their order, and in the ship
they bound me hand and foot upright in the
mast-stead, and to the mast they fastened the
rope-ends, and themselves sat down, and smote
the grey sea water with their oars. But when the
ship was within the sound of a man's shout
from the land, we fleeing swiftly on our way,
the Sirens espied the swift ship speeding toward
them, and they raised their clear- toned song:
"Hither, come hither, renowned Odys-
seus, great glory of the Achasans, here stay
thy barque, that thou mayest listen to the
voice of us twain. For none hath ever driven
by this way in his black ship, till he hath
heard from our Hps the voice sweet as the
honey comb, and hath had joy thereof and
gone on his way the wiser. For lo, we know
* i45 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
all things, all the travail that in wide Troy
land the Argives and Trojans bare by the
gods' designs, yea, and we know all that shall
hereafter be upon the fruitful earth."
So spake they, uttering a sweet voice, and my
heart was fain to listen, and I bade my company
unbind me, nodding at them with a frown;
but they bent to their oars and rowed on.
Homer (Translated by Andrew Lang)
If you wish to be loved, love.
Seneca
THE ART OF LOVE FEMININE
When first a lover you'd design to charm,
Beware, lest jealousies his soul alarm;
Make him believe with all the skill you can,
That he, and only he's the happy man.
Anon, by due degrees, small doubt create,
And let him fear some rival's better fate.
Such little arts make love its vigour hold,
Which else would languish, and too soon grow
cold.
Ovid (Translated by Dryden)
THE ART OF LOVE MASCULINE
Her wishes never, nor her will withstand:
Submit, you conquer; serve, and you'll command.
Her words approve, deny what she denies,
Like what she likes, and when she scorns, despise.
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A LITTLE COURSE IK LOVE-MAKIHG
Laugh when she smiles; when sad, dissolve in
tears;
Let every gesture sympathize with hers;
If she delights, as women will, in play,
Her stakes return, your ready losings pay.
When she's at cards, or rattling dice she throws,
Connive at cheats, and generously lose.
A smiling winner let the nymph remain,
Let your pleased mistress every conquest gain.
In heat, with an umbrella ready stand;
When walking, offer your officious hand;
Her trembling hands, tho' you sustain the cold,
Cherish, and to your warmer bosom hold.
Think no inferior office a disgrace.
When all are risen and prepare to go,
Mix with the crowd, and tread upon her toe.
Act well the lover, let thy speech abound
In dying words that represent thy wound.
Distrust not her belief; she will be movM;
All women think they merit to be loved.
Ovid (Translated by Dryden)
You must make a lover angry if you wish him
to love.
Publius Syrus
* 147 *
THE rHIHG CALLED LOVE
CONSTANT DROPPING
Teares most prevaile; with teares too thou
may'st move
Rocks to relent, and coyest maids to love.
Herric\
othello's method
Upon this hint I spoke;
She loved me for the dangers I had passed
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
Shakespeare
THE EUPHUIST
It is better to poyson her with the sweet bait
of love.
Lyly
A Douglas's idea
Til woo her as the lion woos his brides.
John Home
Why did she love him? Curious fool! — be still —
Is human love the growth of human will?
Byron
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A LITTLE COURSE IH LOVE-MAKIHG
A MASTER OF THE CRAFT
Juan would question further, but she press'd
His lips to hers, and silenced him with this,
And then dismiss'd the omen from her breast,
Defying augury with that fond kiss;
And no doubt of all methods 'tis the best:
Some people prefer wine — 'tis not amiss;
I have tried both; so those who would a part take
May choose between the headache and the
heartache.
Byron
POWER OF THE WRITTEN WORD
When Odin tried to kiss her (Wrinda, daugh'
ter of the King of the Ruthenians) at his de-
parture, she repulsed him so that he tottered
and smote his chin upon the ground. Straightway
he touched her with a piece of bark whereon
runes were written, and made her like unto one
in frenzy: which was a gentle revenge to take
for all the insults he had received.
Saxo Grammaticus
THE STRAIGHTFORWARD
SCANDINAVIAN
And as Skiold thus waxed in years and valour
he beheld the perfect beauty of Alfhild, daughter
of the King of the Saxons, sued for her hand, and.
$ 149
THE THIKG CALLED LOVE
for her sake, in the sight of the armies of the
Teutons and the Danes, challenged and fought
with Skat, governor of Allemannia, and a suitor
for the same maiden; whom he slew, afterwards
crushing the whole nation of the Allemannians,
and forcing them to pay tribute, they being sub'
jugated by the death of their captain. . . .
Thus delivered of his bitterest rival in wooing,
he took as the prize of combat the maiden for the
love of whom he had fought, and wedded her in
marriage.
Saxo Grammaticus
A SOCIETY IDEAL
In affairs of love a woman is perhaps most
easily ensnared by a man who can combine pas'
sion with pleasantry and hot pursuit with social
tact and diplomacy.
Marie Corelli
BEAUCHAMP AND RENEE
And becoming entirely selfish he impressed
his total abnegation of self upon Renee so that
she could have worshipped him. A lover that
was like a starry frost, froze her veins, bewildered
her intelligence. She yearned for meridian
warmth, for repose in a directing hand; and let
it be as hard as one that grasps a sword: what
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A LITTLE COURSE I?i LOVE-MAKING
matter? unhesitatingness was the warrior virtue
of her desire. George Meredith
THE MASTERFUL MINISTER
"The man I could love," Babbie went on . . .
"must not spend his days in idleness as the men
I know do."
"I do not."
"He must be brave, no mere worker among
others, but a leader of men."
"All ministers are."
". . . He must understand me."
"I do."
"And be my master."
"It is his lawful position in the house."
"He must not yield to my coaxing or tern*
pers."
"It would be weakness."
"But compel me to do his bidding; yes, even
thrash me if "
" — If you won't listen to reason. Babbie,"
cried Gavin, "I am that man!" Rime
AUDACE, TOUJOURS l'aUDACE
A pressing lover seldom wants success,
Whilst the respectful, like the Greek, sits down,
And wastes a ten years' siege before one town.
Nicholas Rome
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
PROHIBITION
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind
Let all her ways be unconfin'd,
And clap your padlock — on her mind.
Prior
A FRENCH ARTIST
Accepting his statement as a sort of jest, of
no real importance, she would say gaily on enter'
ing: "Well, how goes your love tO'day?"
He would reply lightly, yet with perfect
seriousness, telling her of the progress of his
malady, in all its intimate details, and of the
depth of the tenderness that had been born and
was daily increasing. He analysed himself mi'
nutely before her, hour by hour, since their sepa'
ration the evening before, with the air of a pro-
fessor giving a lecture; and she listened with
interest, a little moved, and somewhat disturbed
by this story which seemed one in a book of
which she was the heroine. When he had enu'
merated, in his gallant and easy manner, all the
anxieties of which he had become the prey, his
voice sometimes trembled, in expressing by a
word, or only by an intonation, the tender ach'
ing of his heart.
And she persisted in questioning him, vibrat'
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A LITTLE COURSE I7i LOVE-MAKING
ing with curiosity, her eyes fixed upon him, her
ear eager for those things that are disturbing
to know but charming to hear.
de 'Maupassant
IN TAHITI
Everyone has a white flower behind their ear.
Mamua has given me one. Do you know the
significance of a white flower worn over the ear?
A white flower over the right ear means "I
am looking for a sweetheart." And a white
flower over the left ear means "I have found a
sweetheart. 11 And a white flower over each ear
means "I have one sweetheart, and am looking
for another.' 1 A white flower over each ear, my
dear, is dreadfully the most fashionable way of
adorning yourself in Tahiti.
Rupert Broo\e
THE MAN OR THE MANNER
A third rode up at a startling pace —
A suitor poor, with a homely face —
No doubts appeared to bind him.
He kissed her lips and he pressed her waist,
And off he rode with the maiden, placed
On a pillion safe behind him.
And she heard the suitor bold confide
This golden hint to the priest who tied
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THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
The knot there's no undoing:
"With pretty, young maidens who can choose,
'Tis not so much the gallant who woos
As the gallant's way of wooing."
W. S. Gilbert
SINGULARITY, OR GOOD LOOKS?
Saint'Clair, after modestly pleading inex'
perience in this delicate subject, gave as his
opinion that the chief way to please a woman
is to be singular, to be different from others.
But he did not think it possible to give a general
prescription for singularity.
"According to your view," said Jules, "a
lame or hump-backed man would have a better
chance of pleasing than one of ordinary make."
"You push things too far," retorted Saint'
Clair, "but I am willing to accept all the conse-
quences of my proposition. For example, if I
were hump-backed, instead of blowing out my
brains I would make conquests. In the first place,
I would try my wiles on those who are generally
tender-hearted; then on those women — and
there are many of them — who set up for being
original — eccentric, as they say in England.
To begin with, I should describe my pitiful con-
dition, and point out that I was the victim of
Nature's cruelty. I should try to move them to
sympathy with my lot, I should let them suspect
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A LITTLE COURSE I7i LOVE-MAKING
that I was capable of a passionate love. I should
kill one of my rivals in a duel, and I should pre'
tend to poison myself with a feeble dose of
laudanum. After a few months they would not
notice my deformity, and then I should be on
the watch for the first signs of affection. With
women who aspire to originality conquest is
easy. Only persuade them that it is a hard'and'
fast rule that a deformed person can never have
a love affair, they will immediately then wish
to prove the opposite/'
"What a Don Juan!" cried Jules.
"... As for me," said Themines, renewing the
conversation, "the longer I live, the more clearly
I see that the chief singularity which attracts
even the most obdurate, is passable features" —
and he threw a complaisant glance in a mirror
opposite — "passable features and good taste in
dress," and he filliped a crumb of bread off his
coat.
Prosper Merim'ee
% 155 *
MAN PROPOSES
MAN PROPOSES
Why don't the men propose, mamma, Why
don't the men propose ?
T. H. Bayly
AN ENGLISH KING'S WAY
King Henry — ... I know no ways to mince
it in love, but directly to say "I love you":
then, if you urge me further than to say "Do
you in faith?" I wear out my suit. Give me your
answer; i faith do: and so clap hands and a bar-
gain. How say you, lady?
Katharine — Sauf vostre honneur, me under'
stand veil.
King Henry — Marry, if you would put me
to verses, or to dance for your sake, Kate, why
you undid me: for the one, I have neither words
nor measure, and for the other, I have no strength
in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength.
If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting
into my saddle with my armour on my back,
under the correction of bragging be it spoken,
I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I
* 159 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
might buffet for my love, or bound my horse
for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and
sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But before God,
Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;
only downright oaths, which I never use till
urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst
love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face
is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in
his glass for love of anything he sees there, let
thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain sol'
dier: if thou canst love me for this, take me; if
not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but
for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too.
And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow
of plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce
must do thee right, because he hath not the gift
to woo in other places; for these fellows of in'
finite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into
ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves
out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a
rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fail, a
straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn
white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face
will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a
good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or,
rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines
bright and never changes, but keeps his course
truly. If thou would have such a one, take me;
$ 160 $
MAH PROPOSES
and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a
king. And what sayest thou then to my love?
speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
Katharine — Is it possible dat I sould love
de enemy of France?
King Henry — No; it is not possible you
should love the enemy of France, Kate; but, in
loving me, you should love the friend of France;
for I love France so well, that I will not part
with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and,
Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then
yours is France and you are mine.
Katharine — I cannot tell vat is dat. . . .
Katharine — Sauf vostre honneur, le Francois
que vous parlez est meilleur que TAnglois lequel
je parle.
King Henry — No, faith, is't not, Kate; but
thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most
truly falsely, must needs be granted to be much
at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus
much English, Canst thou love me?
Katharine — I cannot tell.
King Henry — Can any of your neighbours
tell, Kate? I'll ask them. Come, I know thou
lovest me; and at night when you come into
your closet youll question this gentlewoman
about me; and I know, Kate, you will to her
dispraise those parts in me that you love with
your heart; but, good Kate, mock me mercifully;
% 161 $
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee
cruelly. If ever thou be'st mine, Kate, — as I
have a saving faith within me tells me thou
shalt, — I get thee with scambling, and thou
must therefore needs prove a good soldier'
breeder. Shall not thou and I, between Saint
Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half
French, half English, that shall go to Constants
nople, and take the Turk by the beard? shall we
not? what sayest thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
(King Henry V.) Sha\espeare
A FRENCH MONARCH OF THE
DAYS OF ROMANCE
Then the king began for to speake in this
maner and sayd. Gentill damoysell pleasaunt,
vertuous, garnished of al beautie in whome I
have totali set the love of my herte, is it not
wel your wil that I be your husband. Pleaseth it
you not to be my wife and spouse thende that
I make you to be crowned as quene and lady of
Lilefort. May ye finde in your herte by suche
maner to accomplishe my wil, that you and I
might be assembled and conionct by mariage.
Answere ye nowe and say your advise. Ha sir
saide she right humblye. I am not digne ne
sufEsaunt that ye do to me suche honour, for the
handmaiden or subgecte ought not ne marye
nor in any thinge compare to her prence and
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MAH PROPOSES
lorde. But sith that it pleaseth you to commaund
me so to doo, in disparsinge to me of your grace
I wer right simple and evil instruct if I refused
your pleasure, and the excellent honour that
ye so benignely and of your goodnesse unto me
present. For if it shoulde please you to marye
me to the least knight of your noble company
yet ought I to consent of right. Wherfore to
you that is my lorde, and to other incomparable:
I am all redy to obey and accept your good and
noble wil in the honour wherto ye require me,
the which with good herte I ottroye and graunt
you. And then king Oriant tooke her by the
hand and said Certes lady I promise you on the
faith of knighthod that as long as ye be on live
never to espouse other woman than you, and I
assure you even here that I shal be your hus'
bande. And thus bi a comin accorde and by the
consentement of them bothe was promised the
saide mariage with one cordiall love.
Helyas, the Knight of the Swanne. (Copland)
mr. pickwick's unconscious
proposal to mrs. bardell
" 'Chops and Tomata Sauce. Yours, Pickwick.'
"Chops! Gracious heavens! and Tomata
Sauce ! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive
and confiding female to be trifled away by such
shallow artifices as these?" Charles Dic\ens
* 163 *
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
A SELF'CONSCIOUS RUSSIAN
"You say that, Alexandra Pavlovna, because
you don't know me. You think I am a stock, a
perfect stock, a sort of wooden man; but if you
knew that I could melt like sugar and pass whole
days on my knees! 1 ''
"I must say I should like to see that."
Leschnieff arose suddenly. "Well, marry me,
Alexandra, and you will see it."
Alexandra blushed crimson.
"What did you say, Michael Michaelovitch?"
she said with embarrassment.
"I said," answered Leschnieff, "what has for
a long time been on the tip of my tongue. I have
now said it, and you can act on it as you please.
In order not to embarrass you, I will go away.
Yes, I'm going. ... If you consent to be my wife
... if that is not disagreeable to you, send some'
one after me."
Alexandra wanted to detain Leschnieff, but
he went quickly into the garden without his hat
and leaned on a little gate, letting his eyes wan'
der in the distant prospect.
"If you please, sir," said a maidservant behind
him, "my mistress told me to ask you to come
in."
Turgeniev
% 164 $
MAN PROPOSES
WITH THE HELP OF BUDGE
"Yes," continued Budge, "I know all about
it. Only Uncle Harry don't say it right. What
he calls espect, I calls Jove."
There was an awkward pause — it seemed an
age. Another blunder, and all on account of
those dreadful children. I could think of no
possible way to turn the conversation; stranger
yet, Miss Mayton could not do so either. Some'
thing must be done — I could at least be honest,
come what would — I would be honest.
"Miss Mayton," said I, hastily, earnestly, but
in a very low tone, "Budge is a marplot, but he
is a truthful interpreter for all that. But what'
ever my fate may be, please do not suspect me
of falling suddenly into love for a holiday's
diversion. My malady is of some months'
standing. I "
"I want to talk some," observed Budge.
"You talk all the whole time. I — I — when I
loves anybody, I kisses them."
Miss Mayton gave a little start, and my
thoughts followed each other with unimagined
rapidity. She did not turn the conversation — it
could not be possible that she could not. She
was not angry, or she would have expressed
herself. Could it be that
$ 165 #
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
I bent over and acted upon Budge's sugges'
tion. As she displayed no resentment, I pressed
my lips a second time to her forehead; then she
raised her head slightly, and I saw, in spite of
darkness and shadows, that Alice Mayton had
surrendered at discretion.
John Habberton
IN THE REFINED SIXTIES
Roderick advanced a step. "Me void ! Je suis
revenu" was all he said, speaking in French, as
seemed most natural.
"Oui J oui / oui r and, with a glad cry, Silence
clasped her hands, the first impulsive gesture
he had ever seen her use. "Oui, il est revenu f*
The minute afterward — he knew not how;
in truth, neither ever did know — he felt her in
his arms, gathered close to his breast, sheltering
and sheltered there as if it were her natural
refuge. He did not kiss her — he dared not; but
he touched her soft hair as it lay on his shoulder;
he pressed her, all shaking with sobs, to his
breast; he called her by her name, first, "ma
cousine" and then "Silence." An instant more,
and putting her a little apart from him, so that
he could look down into her eyes, he breathed,
rather than spoke, another word — an English
word — "My wife!"
Silence shrank back for one moment, trembling
« 166 &
MAK PROPOSES
violently, drooped her face, all scarlet, and then
lifted it up with a strange pathos of entreaty,
almost appeal, as if she had but him in the whole
world.
"Your mother, 1 ' he whispered — "your mother
knew it all.""
"Then — yes f*
Roderick drew her back again, close into his
very heart, and pressed his lips upon hers. In that
long, silent, solemn troth-plight the two became
one — forever.
"Miss MulockT (Diana Maria Crm^)
JE AMES STARTS TO "aLIe' 1
HIMSELF WITH THE "ARISTOXY"
Lady Hangelina, too, igspawstulated in her
hartfl way. "Mr. De la Pluche (seshee), why,
why press this point? You can't suppose that
you will be happy with a person like me?"
"I adoar you, charming gal!" says I. "Never,
never go to say any such thing."
"You adored Mary Ann first," answers her
Ladyship; "you can't keep your eyes off her
now. If any man courts her you grow so jealous
that you begin beating him. You will break
the girl's heart if you don't marry her, and
perhaps some one else's — but you don't mind
thtft."
"Break yours, you adoarible creature! I'd die
* 167 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
first! And as for Mary Harm, she will git over
it; people's arts ain't broakn so easy. Once for
all, suckmstances is changed betwigst me and
her. It's a pang to part with her" (says I, my
fine hi's filling with tears), "but part from her
I must."
It was curius to remark abowt that singlar gal,
Lady Hangelina, that melumcolly as she was
when she was talking to me, and ever so disml —
yet she kep on laffing every minute like the
juice and all.
"What a sacrifice!" says she; "it's like Na'
poleon giving up Josephine. What anguish it
must cause to your susceptible heart!"
"It does," says I — "Hagnies!" (Another lafF.)
"And if — if I don't accept you — you will in'
vade the States of the Emperor my papa, and
I am to be made the sacrifice and the occasion
of peace between you!"
"I don't know what you're eluding to about
Joseyfeen and Hemperors your Pas; but I know
that your Pa's estate is over hedaneers mop
gidged; that if some one dont elp him, he's no
better than an old pawper; that he owes me a
lot of money; and that I'm the man that can
sell him up hoss 6? foot; or set him up agen —
that's what I know, Lady Hangelina," says I,
with a hair as much as to say, "Put that in your
Ladyship's pipe and smoke it."
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MAH PROPOSES
And so I left her, and nex day a serting fash'
nable paper enounced —
"Marriage in High Life. — We hear that a
matrimonial union is on the tapis between a
gentleman who has made a colossal fortune in
the Railway World, and the only daughter of a
noble earl, whose estates are situated in D —
d-dles — x. An early day is fixed for this interest'
fa g eVent -" W.M. Thackeray
THE RECKLESSNESS OF PASSION
Rosier was silent for a moment. "There is one
thing I am sure he knows!" he broke out pres'
ently. "He knows that when I come here, it is,
with all respect to him, with all respect to Mrs.
Osmond, who is so charming — it is really," said
the young man, "to see you!"
"To see me?" asked Pansy, raising her vaguely
troubled eyes.
"To see you; that's what I come for," Rosier
repeated, feeling the intoxication of a rupture
with authority. Pansy stood looking at him,
simply, intently, openly; a blush was not needed
to make her face more modest.
"I thought it was for that," she said.
"And it was not disagreeable to you?"
"I couldn't tell; I didn't know; you never
told me," said Pansy.
& 169 3fc
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
"I was afraid of offending you."
"You don't offend me, 11 the young girl mur'
mured, smiling as if an angel had kissed her.
"You like me then, Pansy?" Rosier asked very
gently, feeling very happy.
"Yes — I like you."
They had walked to the chimney'piece, where
the big cold Empire clock was perched; they
were well within the room and beyond observa'
tion from without. The tone in which she had
said these four words seemed to him the very
breath of nature, and his only answer could be
to take her hand and hold it a moment. Then
he raised it to his Hps. Henry James
AN ORIENTAL REMEMBRANCE
So he smoked again.
The fragrant fumes of his pipe, with the light
of the lamp playing upon them, laid a shining
ribbon of gold from his heart to the pavilion.
His feet stepped softly upon it. He reached
the pavilion, and entered.
The Plum Blossom was sitting erect on a chair
of ebony and lacquer encrusted with rose^quarts,
and the sweep of his heart's desire came down
upon Yung Han-Rai like a gentle, silvered
miracle.
"Hayah! my bridegroom!" she said, rising,
and bowing low.
# 170 *
MA7i PROPOSES
"Hayah! my bride P he replied, and kow
towed three times.
He trembled a little. In his blood he felt puis*
ing the whole earth with her myriad expressions
of life and the making of life, as if dancing to
the primal rhythm of all creation.
He looked at her.
He saw her very clearly. The poppy smoke
had faded into memory.
Her face was like a tiny ivory flower, beneath
the great wedding-crown of paper-thin gold
leaves, with emeralds like drops of frozen green
fire, with carved balls of moonstone swinging
from the lobes of her ears. The finger-nails of her
right hand were very long, and encased by
pointed filagrees of lapis lazuli studded with seed
pearls.
She wore a long gown, that was like a current
of glossy silver, embroidered with trailing
powder-blue clouds and peach blossoms, and
along the bottom of the skirt, a golden dragon
in whose head shimmered the seven mystic
jewels. The jacket, with its loose sleeves of
plum-colour encircled by bands of coral lotus
buds, was tight and short, of apple-green satin
embroidered with sprays of yulan magnolias and
guelder roses, looped with fretted buttons of
white jade; while her slippers were of porcelain,
of the one called Ting-yao, which is fifth in rank
# 171 *
THE TH1HG CALLED LOVE
among all perfect porcelains, thin as a paper of
rice, fragile as the wings of the silk-moth, melo-
dious as the stone tying when gently struck by a
soft hand, violet as a summer's night and with
an over-glase like the amber bloom of grapes.
Again he kowtowed.
She was very close to him. Nothing separated
them except the delicate threshold between
dream and fact. Beyond that threshold there was
peace, there was love, there was the eternal thrill
of fulfilment, there was an end of those yearn-
ings, of the loneliness and the pains of actual life
that had bruised his soul these many years.
So he smoked again. He enveloped himself in
a thick, strongly scented poppy cloud, and he
stepped a little beyond the threshold, and knelt
at her feet.
"I love you, Plum Blossom," he said. "I love
you, O very small Blossom of the Plum Tree!" —
and he reached for the \in, the Chinese lute,
which was at her elbow on a pillow of yellow
satin embroidered with an iridescent rain of
pearls.
His fingers caressed the instrument. They
brushed over the cords.
The ancient Tartar melody winged up in
minor, wailing harmonies, like the fluting of
long-limbed rice birds flying against the dead-
gold of the autumn sky; and he sang:
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MAH PROPOSES
"I love you. You are in my heart. You are in
my soul. You are in the soul within my soul,
where the world has not been spotted by dirt
and lies, but is pure as the laughter of little
children; where there are no fetters of the flesh
nor galls of earthly restraint; where the winds
roam the pathless skies of outer creation, with
none but the Buddha's will to check their vaga'
bond waywardness.
Achmed Abdullah
"toilers of the sea"
Deruchette joined her two hands in a sup'
pliant attitude, and looked at the speaker, silent,
with fixed eyes, and trembling from head to foot.
The voice continued: —
"I love you. God made not the heart of man
to be silent. He has promised him eternity with
the intention that he should not be alone. There
is for me but one woman upon earth. It is you.
I think of you as of a prayer. My faith is in
God and my hope in you. What wings I have,
you bear. You are my life and already my SU'
preme happiness. 11
"Sir," said Deruchette, "there is no one to
answer in the house! 11
The voice rose again: —
"Yes, I have encouraged that dream. Heaven
has not forbidden us to dream. You are like a
% 173 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
glory in my eyes. I love you deeply, mademoi-
selle. To me you are holy innocence. I know it is
the hour at which your household has retired to
rest, but I had no choice of any other moment.
... I speak to you, mademoiselle, without ven*
turing to approach you; I would step even
farther back if it was your wish that my shadow
should not touch your feet. You alone are su'
preme. You will come to me if such is your will.
I love and wait.
"I did not know, sir," stammered Deruchette,
"that any one remarked me on Sundays and
Thursdays. ..."
The voice continued: —
"God manifests his will in the flowers, in the
light of dawn, in the spring; and love is of His
ordaining. You are beautiful in this holy shadow
of night. This garden has been tended by you;
in its perfumes there is something of your breath.
The affinities of our souls do not depend on us.
They cannot be counted with our sins. You
were there, that was all. I was there, that was
all. I did nothing but feel that I loved you.
Sometimes my eyes rested upon you. I was
wrong, but what could I do? It was through
looking at you that all happened. . . . To have
your spirit in my house — this is the terrestrial
paradise for which I hope. Say, will you be
mine. . . . Oh, be my betrothed; will you not?
* 174 #
MAH PROPOSES
More than once have my eyes, in spite of my
self, addressed to you that question. I love you;
answer me. . . ."
Deruchette hung her head, and murmured,
"Oh! I worship him. 1 '
. . . There was a pause. No leaf among the
trees was stirred. ... In the midst of that retire'
ment, like a harmony making the silence more
complete, rose the wide murmur of the sea.
The voice was heard again: —
. . . "You are silent."
"What would you have me say?"
"I wait for your reply."
"God has heard it," said Deruchette.
Then the voice became almost sonorous, and
at the same time softer than before, and these
words issued from the leaves as from a burning'
bush : —
"You are my betrothed. Come then to me.
Let the blue sky, with all its stars, be witness of
this taking of my soul to thine, and let our first
embrace be mingled with that firmament."
Deruchette arose and remained an instant
motionless, looking straight before her, doubtless
into another's eyes. Then, with slow steps, with
head erect, her arms drooping, but with the
fingers of her hands wide apart, like one who
leans on some unseen support, she advanced
toward the trees, and was out of sight.
* 175 *
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
A moment afterward, instead of the one
shadow upon the graveled walk, there were two.
They mingled together.
Victor Hugo
THE BISHOP'S EPISTOLARY EFFORT
"The Palace, Melchester, June 28, 18 —
"My dear Lady Constantine:
"During the two or three weeks that have
elapsed since I experienced the great pleasure of
renewing my acquaintance with you, the varied
agitation of my feelings has clearly proved that
my only course is to address you by letter, and
at once. Whether the subject of my communica-
tion be acceptable to you or not, I can at least
assure you that to suppress it would be far less
natural, and upon the whole less advisable, than
to speak out frankly, even if afterward I hold
my peace forever.
"The great change in my experience during
the past year or two — the change, that is, which
has resulted in my advancement to a bishopric
— has frequently suggested to me, of late, that
a discontinuance in my domestic life of the soli'
tude of past years was a question which ought
to be seriously contemplated. But whether I
should ever have contemplated it without the
great good fortune of my meeting with you is
doubtful. However, the thing has been consid'
$ 176 $
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
MAN PROPOSES
ered at last, and without more ado I candidly ask
if you would be willing to give up your life at
Welland, and relieve my household loneliness
here by becoming my wife.
"I am far from desiring to force a hurried de-
cision on your part, and will wait your good
pleasure patiently, should you feel any uncer-
tainty at the moment as to the step. I am quite
disqualified by habit and experience, for the
delightful procedure of urging my suit in the
ardent terms which would be so appropriate
toward such a lady, and so expressive of my
inmost feeling. In truth, a prosy cleric of five'
and forty wants encouragement to make him
eloquent. Of this, however, I can assure you:
that if admiration, esteem, and devotion can
compensate in any way for the lack of those
qualities which might be found to burn with
much outward brightness in a younger man,
those it is my power to bestow for the term of
my earthly life. Your steady adherence to church
principles and your interest in ecclesiastical
polity (as was shown by your bright questioning
on those subjects during our morning walk
round your grounds) have indicated strongly to
me the grace and appropriateness with which
you would fill the position of a bishop's wife,
and how greatly you would add to his reputation
should you be disposed to honour him with
* 177 %
THE THIHG CALLED LOVE
your hand. Formerly there have been times when
I was of opinion — and you will rightly appre'
date my candour in owning it — that a wife was
an impediment to a bishop's due activities; but
constant observation has convinced me that, far
from this being the truth, a meet consort infuses
life into episcopal influence and teaching.
"Should you reply in the affirmative I will at
once come to see you, and with your permission
will, among other things, show you a few plain,
practical rules which I have interested myself
in drawing up for our future guidance. Should
you refuse to change your condition, on my
account, your decision will, as I need hardly say,
be a great blow to me. In any event, I could not
do less than I have done, after giving the subject
my full consideration. Even if there be a slight
deficiency of warmth on your part, my earnest
hope is that a mind comprehensive as yours will
perceive the immense power for good that you
might exercise in the position in which a union
with me would place you, and allow that per'
ception to weigh with you in determining your
answer.
"I remain, my dear Lady Constantine, with
the highest respect and devotion,
"Yours always, C. Melchester."
Thomas Hardy
THE END
# 178 ^
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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