But is the German field-marshal quite just to the Turk? I have before
me a passage which seems to indicate that these Orientals do know a
thing or two about the "rigmarole of love-making." It is cited by
Kremer[121] from the Kitâb almowaschâ, a book treating of social
matters in Baghdad. Its author devotes a special chapter to the
dangers lurking in female singers and musical slaves, in the course of
which he says:
"If one of these girls meets a rich young man, she sets
about ensnaring him, makes eyes at him, invites him with
gestures, sings for him ... drinks the wine he left in his
cup, throws kisses with her hands, till she has the poor
fellow in her net and he is enamoured. ... Then she sends
messages to him and continues her crafty arts, lets him
understand that she is losing sleep for love of him, is
pining for him; maybe she sends him a ring, or a lock of her
hair, a paring of her nails, a splinter from her lute, or
part of her toothbrush, or a piece of fragrant gum (chewed
by her) as a substitute for a kiss, or a note written and
folded with her own hands and tied with a string from her
lute, with a tearstain on it; and finally sealed with
Ghâlija, her ring, on which some appropriate words are
carved."
Having captured her victim, she makes him give her valuable presents
till his purse is empty, whereupon she discards him.
Was Count Moltke, then, wrong? Have we here, after all, the
sentimental symptoms of romantic love? Let us apply the tests provided
by our analysis of love--tests as reliable as those which chemists use
to analyze fluids or gases. Did the Baghdad music-girl prefer that man
to all other individuals? Did she want to monopolize him jealously?
Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided
he had plenty of money. Was she coy toward him? Perhaps; but not from
a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him
more ardent and ready to pay. Was she proud of his love? She thought
him a fool. Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure? As chaste
and pure as his. Did she sympathize with his pleasures and pains? She
dismissed him as soon as his purse was empty, and looked about for
another victim. Were his presents the result of gallant impulses to
please her, or merely advance payment for favors expected? Would he
have sacrificed his life to save her any more than she would hers to
save him? Did he respect her as an immaculate superior being, adore
her as an angel from above--or look on her as an inferior, a slave in
rank, a slave to passion?
The obvious moral of this immoral episode is that it is not
permissible to infer the existence of anything higher than sensual
love from the mere fact that certain romantic tricks are associated
with the amorous dalliance of Orientals, or Greeks and Romans.
Drinking from the same cup, throwing kisses, sending locks of hair or
tear-stained letters, adjusting a foot-stool, or fanning a heated
brow, are no doubt romantic _incidents_, but they are no proof of
romantic _feeling_ for the reason that they are frequently associated
with the most heartless and mercenary sensuality. The coquetry of the
Baghdad girl is romantic, but there is no _sentiment_ in it. Yet--and
here we reach the most important aspect of that episode--there is an
_affectation of sentiment_ in that sending of locks, notes, and
splinters from her lute; and this affectation of sentiment is
designated by the word _sentimentality_. In the history of love
sentimentality precedes sentiment; and for a proper understanding of
the history and psychology of love it is as important to distinguish
sentimentality from sentiment as it is to differentiate love from
lust.
When Lowell wrote, "Let us be thankful that in every man's life there
is a holiday of romance, _an illumination of the senses by the soul_,
that makes him a poet while it lasts," he made a sad error in assuming
that there is such a holiday of romance in every man's life; millions
never enjoy it; but the words I have italicized--"an illumination of
the senses by the soul"--are one of those flashes of inspiration which
sometimes enable a poet to give a better description of a psychic
process than professional philosophers have put forth.
From one point of view the love sentiment may be called an
illumination of the senses by the soul. Elsewhere Lowell has given
another admirable definition: "Sentiment is intellectualized emotion,
emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals of thought."
Excellent, too, is J.F. Clarke's definition: "Sentiment is nothing but
thought blended with feeling; _thought made affectionate, sympathetic,
moral_." The Century Dictionary throws further light on this word:
"Sentiment has a peculiar place between thought and feeling,
in which it also approaches the meaning of principle. It is
more than that feeling which is sensation or emotion, by
containing more of thought and by being _more lofty_, while
it contains too much feeling to be merely thought, and it
_has large influence over the will_; for example, the
sentiment of patriotism; the sentiment of honor; the world
is ruled by sentiment. The thought in a sentiment is often
that of _duty_, and is penetrated and _exalted_ by feeling."
Herbert Spencer sums up the matter concisely _(Psych_., II., 578) when
he speaks of "that remoteness from sensations and appetites and from
ideas of such sensations and appetites which is the common trait of
the feelings we call sentiments."
It is hardly necessary to point out that in our Baghdad girl's
love-affairs there is no "remoteness from sensations and appetites,"
no "illumination of the senses by the soul," no "intellectualized
emotion," no "thought made affectionate, sympathetic, moral." But
there is in it, as I have said, a touch of sentimentality. If
sentiment is properly defined as "higher feeling," sentimentality is
"_affectation_ of fine or tender feeling or exquisite sensibility."
Heartless coquetry, prudery, mock modesty, are bosom friends of
sentimentality. While sentiment is the noblest thing in the world,
sentimentality is its counterfeit, its caricature; there is something
theatrical, operatic, painted-and-powdered about it; it differs from
sentiment as astrology differs from astronomy, alchemy from chemistry,
the sham from the real, hypocrisy from sincerity, artificial posing
from natural grace, genuine affection from selfish attachment.