The Germans, it is well known, are deficient in Gallantry, at least in
conjugal life, and often treat their wives more as upper servants than
as companions. Perhaps it was the unconscious desire to justify this
conjugal attitude that induced one of the leading German psychologists,
Horwicz, to pen these lines:—
“Love can only be excited by strong and vivid emotions, and it is almost
immaterial whether these emotions are agreeable or disagreeable. The Cid
wooed the proud heart of Donna Ximene, whose father he had slain, by
shooting one after another of her pet pigeons. Such persons as arouse in
us only weak emotions, or none at all, are obviously least likely to
incline us toward them.... Our aversion is most apt to be bestowed on
individuals who, as the phrase goes, are ‘neither warm nor cold’;
whereas impulsive, choleric people, though they may readily offend us,
are just as capable of making us warmly attached to them.”
How that modern genius, who lived two thousand years ago and called
himself Ovid, would have opened his eyes in wonder at this
German-mediæval Art of Love! He, queer fellow, believed that a lover
should never be otherwise than pleasantly associated in his sweetheart’s
mind. If she is spoiled by over-indulgence, do not, he says in effect,
take away her dainties with your own hand. If she is unwell, do not hand
her the bitter medicine in person: “Let your rival mix the cup for her.”
So long as the professional manslayer is the highest ideal of woman’s
tender heart, lovers will do well to follow mediæval methods of
Courtship and make themselves as disagreeable as possible. When the
millennium arrives, and wholesale duels to avenge offended national
“honour” will, like private duels to avenge individual “honour,” have
become obsolete, then the Ovidian psychology of Love will begin to
prevail. Then will the lover endeavour to avoid all harshness and to be
only agreeably associated in the mind of his goddess—through bright,
cheerful conversation, harmless and sincere compliments, mutual
enjoyment of excursions and artistic entertainments, the avoidance of
disagreeable topics, of jealous suspicions and reproaches, etc.; hoping
thus to become the nucleus around which her dreams of matrimonial
happiness will gradually crystallise.