GOD said--“I will create
A world in the air!”
Satan heard and answered--
“I too will be there!”
God said--“I will make of Man
A creature supreme!”--
Satan answered--“I will destroy
Thy splendid Dream!”
God said--“I will ordain
That Thou shalt no longer be!”
Satan answered--“Thou canst not, Lord,
For I am a part of Thee!”
“IMAGINARY” LOVE
“My love
Is as the very centre of the earth
Drawing all things to it.”
_Troilus and Cressida._
THERE is perhaps no emotion more elevating or more deceptive than
that sudden uplifting of the heart and yearning of the senses which
may be called “imaginary” Love. It resembles the stirring of the
sap in the roots of flowers, thrilling the very ground with hints
and promises of spring,--it is the unspeakable out-coming of human
emotion and sympathy too great to be contained within itself,--the
tremulous desire,--half vague and wholly innocent,--of the human soul
for its mate. The lower grades of passion have not as yet ruffled the
quivering white wings of this divinely sweet emotion, and the being
who is happy enough to experience it in all its intensity, is, for
the time, the most enviable on earth. Youth or maiden, whichever it
be, the world is a fairyland for this chosen dreamer. Nothing appears
base or mean,--God’s smile is reflected in every ray of sunshine, and
Nature offers no prospect that is not pleasing. It is the season of
glamour and grammarye,--a look over the distant hills is sufficient to
engage the mind of the dreaming girl with brilliant fancies of gallant
knights riding from far-off countries, with their lady’s colours pinned
to their breasts “to do or die” for the sake of love and glory,--and
the young boy, half in love with a pretty face he has seen on his way
home from school or college, begins to think with all the poets, of
eyes blue as skies, of loves and doves, and hearts and darts, in happy
unconsciousness that his thoughts are not in the least original. Yet
with all its ethereal beauty and gossamer-sense of pleasure, this
“imaginary” love is often the most pathetic experience we have or
ever shall have in life. It is answerable for numberless griefs,--for
bitter disillusions,--occasionally, too, for broken hearts. It glitters
before us, a brilliant chimera, during our very young days,--and on
our entrance into society it vanishes, leaving us to pursue it through
many phases of existence, and always in vain. The poet is perhaps
the happiest of all who join in this persistent chase after the
impossible,--for he frequently continues to imagine “imaginary” love
with ecstasy and fervour to the very end of his days. Next in order
comes the musician, who in the composition of a melancholy nocturne
or tender ballad, or in the still greater work of a romantic opera,
imagines “imaginary” love in strains of perfect sound, which waken
in the hearts of his hearers all the old feverish longings, all the
dear youthful dreams, all the delicious romances which accompanied the
lovely white-winged Sentiment in days past and dead for ever. Strange
to say, it often happens that the musician, while thus appeasing his
own insatiable thirst for “imaginary” love, is frequently aware that he
is arousing it in others; and, could he probe to the very fibres of his
thinking soul, he would confess to a certain keen satisfaction in the
fact of his being able to revivify the old restless yearning of a pain
which is sweeter to the lonely soul than pleasure.
Now this expression of the “lonely soul” is used advisedly, because,
in sad truth, every human soul is lonely. Lonely at birth,--still more
lonely at death. During its progress through life it gathers around
it what it can in the way of crumbs of love, grains of affection,
taking them tenderly and with tears of gratefulness. But it is always
conscious of solitude,--an awful yet Divine solitude, over which the
Infinite broods, watchful yet silent. Why it is brought into conscious
being, to live within a material frame and there perform certain duties
and labours, and from thence depart again, it cannot tell. All is a
mystery,--a strange Necessity, in which it cannot truly recognize
its part or place. Yet it is,--and one of the strongest proofs of
its separate identity from the body is this “imaginary” love for
which it yearns, and which it never obtains. “Imaginary” love is not
earthly,--neither is it heavenly,--it is something between both, a
vague and inchoate feeling, which, though incapable of being reduced
to any sort of reason or logic, is the foundation of perhaps all the
greatest art, music, and poetry in the world. If we had to do merely
with men as they are and women as they are, Art would perish utterly
from the face of the earth. It is because we make for ourselves
“ideal” men, “ideal” women, and endow these fair creations with the
sentiment of “imaginary” love, that we still are able to communicate
with the gods. Not yet have we lowered ourselves to the level of the
beasts,--nor shall we do so, though things sometimes seem tending that
way. Realism and Atheism have darkened the world, as they darken it
now, long before the present time, and as defacements on the grandeur
of the Universe they have not been permitted to remain. Nor will they
be permitted now,--the reaction will, and must inevitably set in. The
repulsive materialism of Zola, and others of his school,--the loose
theories of the “smart” set, and the moral degradation of those who
have no greater God than self,--these things are the merest ephemera,
destined to leave no more mark on human history than the trail of a
slug on one leaf of an oak. The ideal must always be triumphant,--the
soul can only hope to make way by climbing towards it. Thus it is
with “imaginary” or ideal Love,--it must hold fast to its ideal, or
be content to perish on the plane of sensual passion, which exhausts
itself rapidly, and once dead is dead forever and aye.
With all its folly, sweetness, piteousness, and pathos, “imaginary”
love is the keynote of Art,--its fool-musings take shape in exquisite
verse, in tales of romance and adventure, in pictures that bring the
nations together to stand and marvel, in music that makes the strong
man weep. It is the most supersensual of all delicate sensations,--as
fine as a hair, as easily destroyed as the gnat’s wing;--a rough touch
will wound it,--a coarse word will kill it,--the sneer of the Realist
shuts it in a coffin of lead and sinks it fathoms deep in the waters of
despair. Strange and cruel as the fact may seem, Marriage appears to
put an end to it altogether.
“Think you if Laura had been Petrarch’s wife
he would have written sonnets to her all his life?”
inquires Lord Byron. He certainly would not. The “imaginary” love of
Petrarch was the source of his poetic inspiration; if he had ever
dragged it down to the level of the commonplace Actual, he would have
killed his Muse. In a similar way the love of Dante for Beatrice was of
the “imaginary” quality. Those who read the “Vita Nuova” will scarcely
fail to see how the great poet hugs his love-fancies and feeds himself
with delicious extravagances in the way of idealized and sublimated
soul-passion. He dissects every fine hair of a stray emotion, and
writes a sonnet on every passing heart-beat. Dante’s wife never became
so transfigured in her husband’s love. Why? Alas, who can say! No
reason can be given save that perchance “familiarity breeds contempt,”
and that the unattainable seems always more beautiful than the
attained. The delight of possession would appear to be as brief as the
flowering of a rose. Lovers are in haste to wed,--but when the knot is
once irrevocably tied, in nine cases out of ten they wish it could be
untied again. They no longer imagine “imaginary” love. The glamour is
gone. Illusions are all over. The woman is no longer the removed, the
fair, the chaste, the unreachable,--the man ceases to be the proud, the
strong,--the hero endowed with the attributes of the gods. “Imaginary”
love then resolves itself into one of two things,--a firm, every-day
close and tender _friendship_, or else a sick disappointment often
ending in utter disgust. But the divine emotion of “imaginary” love has
fled,--the Soul is no longer enamoured of its Ideal--and the delicate
psychic passion which inspires the poet, the painter, the musician,
turns at once to fresh objects of admiration and pursuit. For it
is never exhausted,--unlike any purely earthly sense, it knows no
satiety. Deceived in one direction, it flies in another. Dissatisfied
with worldly things, it extends its longing heavenwards,--there at
least it shall find what it seeks,--not now, but hereafter! Age does
not blunt this fine emotion, for, as may often be remarked with some
beautiful souls in the decline of bodily life, the resigning of earthly
enjoyments gives them no pain,--and the sweet placidity of expectation,
rather than the dull apathy of regret, is their chief characteristic.
“Imaginary” love still beckons them on;--what has not been found Here
will be found There!
Happy, and always to be envied, are those who treasure this aerial
sentiment of the spiritual brain! It is the dearest possession of
every true artist. In every thought, in every creative work or plan,
“imaginary” love goes before, pointing out wonders unseen by less
enlightened eyes,--hiding things unsightly, disclosing things lovely,
and making the world fair to the mind in all seasons, whether of storm
or calm. Intensifying every enjoyment, adding a double thrill to the
notes of a sweet song, lending an extra glow to the sunshine, an added
radiance to the witchery of the moonlight, a more varied and exquisite
colouring to the trees and flowers, a charm to every book, a delight
to every new scene, “imaginary” love, a very sprite of enchantment,
helps us to believe persistently in good, when those who love not at
all, neither in reality nor in idealization, are drowning in the black
waters of suicidal despair.
So it is well for us--those who can--to imagine “imaginary” love. We
shall never grasp the Dream in this world--nevertheless let us fly
after it as though it were a Reality! Its path is one of sweetness more
than pain,--its ways are devious, yet even in sadness still entrancing.
Better than rank, better than wealth is this talisman, which with a
touch brings us into close communication with the Higher worlds. Let
us “imagine” our friends are true; let us “imagine” we are loved for
our own sakes alone,--let us “imagine,” as we welcome our acquaintances
into our homes, that their smiles and greetings are sincere--let us
imagine “imaginary” love as the poets do,--a passion tender, strong,
and changeless--and pursue it always, even if the objects, which for a
moment its passing wings have brushed, crumble into dust beneath that
touch of fire! So shall our lives retain the charm of constant Youth
and Hope,--so shall the world seem always beautiful to us,--so shall
the Unimaginable glory of the future Real-in-Love shine nearer every
day in our faithful, fond pursuit of its flying Shadow!