who loved another man's wife all his life, simply because he fell in
love with her before she married the other fellow, does not strike me as
exactly the proper thing, or exactly the manly thing. I like better the
Sensible Shepherd of George Wither, who sang jauntily:
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
Kill off your love if it be not returned, as though it were a condemned
felon. The execution is a painful scene, but the effect on your manhood
is good. "True love were very unlovely," says Sir Philip Sidney, "if it
were half so deadly as lovers term it!" "There are few people," says
Rochefoucauld, "who are not ashamed of their loves when the fit is
over." "In love we are all fools alike," says Gay. "We that are true
lovers" says Shakspeare, "run into strange capers; but as all is mortal
in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly." "O love," cries
LaFontaine, "when thou gettest dominion over us,