THE BACILLUS OF LOVE.
Where both deliberate the love is slight.
Who ever loved that love not at first sight?
_Marlowe._
Love and joy are torches lit
From altar-fires of sacrifice.
—_Coventry Patmore._
Elsworth had lived all this time hitherto in Spain without falling in
love;—quite a phenomenal attitude for a healthy young fellow in a land
like this, where the women’s eyes, their figures, and incomparable
grace, usually make havoc with the men’s hearts. But as yet he had
escaped the notice of Cupid, or perhaps the little god was disgusted
with his peculiar theories on the subject, and had let him alone out of
contempt. Our hero held that love was a kind of zymotic disease,
and, like its congeners, could only be caught where there was a
predisposition or suitable nidus in the patient. He thought it was very
like hydrophobia in some respects, and might be compared to small pox
in others. The best way to minimise its attacks was to get vaccinated
in early life. You could have a mild “cultivation” of the bacillus. He
thought he had undergone this business with Linda, and attributed his
immunity to that cause. Now the “protection” of the aforesaid
inoculation was very severely tried when Mildred appeared on the scene.
Mildred was so sweet and angelic, so kindred in every way to his ideal
of what a perfect woman should be, that he had to confess to himself
that, impossible as it was for him to descend to the weakness of
falling in love, nothing possibly could be more delightful than to have
Mildred always near him. It will be seen that our young doctor had very
imperfectly studied all the phases which his disorder of love could
assume. Far more capable physicians in this branch of practice were his
gipsy friends. The Gitanos at once detected that he was suffering from
the malady in one of its acutest forms. No man should ever doctor
himself; he cannot diagnose properly; it is as unwise as to be one’s
own lawyer. It was remarked that he had lost his gaiety, was absorbed
in his own thoughts, and spoke often abstractedly, sighed frequently,
and had a “far-off look” about his eyes which showed them that his
heart was not at Granada.
These acute observers knew all about the beautiful Englishwoman who had
met their friend, and the guide told them a good deal of his own
impressions on the matter. They all agreed that he was in love. At last
our hero was fain to confess there was truth in the poet’s lines, that
“In the arithmetic of life,
The smallest unit is a pair.”
He tried hard to shake it off. Somebody says (but we do not believe
him) that by a strong effort of will, a man can rid himself of
hydrophobia, and even preach eloquent sermons whilst suffering from
Asiatic cholera. It may be so. The martyrs have done more, if the
Bollandists are to be credited. But putting all such exceptional cases
on one side, there is no denying that this love business is a very
subtle and insidious malady, with very pronounced and persistent
symptoms. They say seeds found in ancient mummies have retained their
vitality to the present day. Love germs are hard to kill also. You
cannot detect them by the microscope, or destroy them by cold or heat.
Cupid uses poisoned darts. Prophylaxis? There is none except, perhaps,
books and hard study, though even these have been known to fail. Still,
in the present state of medical science, we must be thankful for small
mercies.
Now, with all respect to Love “cultivations,” as Pasteur would call
them, there is as much uncertainty about the business as in uglier
maladies. For think what Love is—inoculation from a well-aimed bolt of
Cupid. Now Cupid hits whom he wills, and you cannot hire the god by the
day to go shooting with you; you cannot indicate his mark, direct his
aim, or choose his weapon. He will not lend his bow and arrows, neither
can he be wooed by cajolery nor coaxed by prayer. He is the most
independent little deity, and cares for nothing but having his own
sweet will upon us mortals. What he is chiefly to be praised for is the
absence of favouritism and perfect impartiality which he always shows.
None ever bribed him, none ever clad himself in panoply impervious to
his darts. You may be hit before your beard has downed your chin with
faintest bloom. You may go shot free till you are grey and bent, and
then have to plaster up your hurt when you should be composing your
epitaph, like the poor old queen in Browning’s play.
Love is like inspiration; it is not to be commanded, bought, or sold,
not even given when deserved. The most unworthy are often most
favoured, and the faithful suppliants at the capricious god’s gates
often go empty away. You may go “far from the madding crowd,” and hide
yourself in the desert. You may bury yourself in a cave in the Thebaid,
as the hermits of Egypt did, and you will be hit; while you might have
been unscathed in the assemblies of Beauty. Ah, the lives of the
Thaumaturgists tell us nothing about all this! Like the testimonials to
the quack medicines, we know all about the cures, but what about the
failures? Do you think St. Simeon Stylites, atop of his pillar, was out
of reach of that bow? Not he! Is he not an ungrateful archer? Does he
not come creeping to our doors with wet wings and cold body, craving
our warmth and food, and then transfix us? That is just his way, the
rogue. “All is fair in love and war,” he cries; and so he transfixed
our hero, and wonderful to relate on this occasion benevolently hit our
heroine too—double violence. He is not always in this humour. That is
the worst of it! When maid and swain are wounded at once, Romeo and
Juliet like, where is the harm, though poison and the tomb follow with
winged feet? To have loved so is worth the cost. The mischief of it is,
when one truly loves, and the other thinks perhaps she loves, and is
not hit at all. That is just where all the misery comes, for you can’t
catch love like the cholera, by frightening yourself into it. You must
have the true vaccine or you won’t get the vesicle. Is not that a
horrible simile? Does Cupid poison his darts, and is it a disease he
produces after all, and is he a doctor? Hush! The euphemism for the
Erinnyes was Eumenides, remember. Do not let us draw their attention by
needless plain speaking.
So when Mildred had departed from Granada, and Elsworth was left alone
and had time to examine his hurt, he found it was deep. Things were not
the same to him as before that day when he rushed out to drive away the
rude children who were annoying her. “Ah, blessed children,” he would
often say, “you opened heaven to me!”
“O love, my love! if I no more should see
Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?”
Here in this out-of-the-way corner of civilization, then, he had been
unearthed, and it was no longer possible to shut himself from the
observation of his friends and relatives; he would soon have to return
to society and explain his conduct.
He was fain to confess that his energies had long demanded a wider
field for their exercise. He had done a certain amount of work which
would last. Tho seed sown must bear fruit some day, and in the
voluntary retirement he had embraced, he had found a strong internal
felicity which could have come to him in no other way. A growing
conviction took hold of him that he was being prepared, by an unseen
Hand, for some great work which would require all that self-command,
that conviction of right, that neglect of selfish ease, which had come
to him during these Spanish days. He had found that in the lowest of
our race, there is lying dormant that spark of the Divine essence which
needs but the call of sympathy to awaken. With these poor folk he had
spent some of the happiest years of his life, among them had found many
real friends, and had learned in their company a thousand things to
enable him to benefit mankind.