“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
THERE is only one event in life which really astonishes a man and
startles him out of his prepared opinions. Everything else befalls him
very much as he expected. Event succeeds to event, with an agreeable
variety indeed, but with little that is either startling or intense; they
form together no more than a sort of background, or running accompaniment
to the man’s own reflections; and he falls naturally into a cool,
curious, and smiling habit of mind, and builds himself up in a conception
of life which expects to-morrow to be after the pattern of to-day and
yesterday. He may be accustomed to the vagaries of his friends and
acquaintances under the influence of love. He may sometimes look forward
to it for himself with an incomprehensible expectation. But it is a
subject in which neither intuition nor the behaviour of others will help
the philosopher to the truth. There is probably nothing rightly thought
or rightly written on this matter of love that is not a piece of the
person’s experience. I remember an anecdote of a well-known French
theorist, who was debating a point eagerly in his _cénacle_. It was
objected against him that he had never experienced love. Whereupon he
arose, left the society, and made it a point not to return to it until he
considered that he had supplied the defect. “Now,” he remarked, on
entering, “now I am in a position to continue the discussion.” Perhaps
he had not penetrated very deeply into the subject after all; but the
story indicates right thinking, and may serve as an apologue to readers
of this essay.
When at last the scales fall from his eyes, it is not without something
of the nature of dismay that the man finds himself in such changed
conditions. He has to deal with commanding emotions instead of the easy
dislikes and preferences in which he has hitherto passed his days; and he
recognises capabilities for pain and pleasure of which he had not yet
suspected the existence. Falling in love is the one illogical adventure,
the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our
trite and reasonable world. The effect is out of all proportion with the
cause. Two persons, neither of them, it may be, very amiable or very
beautiful, meet, speak a little, and look a little into each other’s
eyes. That has been done a dozen or so of times in the experience of
either with no great result. But on this occasion all is different.
They fall at once into that state in which another person becomes to us
the very gist and centrepoint of God’s creation, and demolishes our
laborious theories with a smile; in which our ideas are so bound up with
the one master-thought that even the trivial cares of our own person
become so many acts of devotion, and the love of life itself is
translated into a wish to remain in the same world with so precious and
desirable a fellow-creature. And all the while their acquaintances look
on in stupor, and ask each other, with almost passionate emphasis, what
so-and-so can see in that woman, or such-an-one in that man? I am sure,
gentlemen, I cannot tell you. For my part, I cannot think what the women
mean. It might be very well, if the Apollo Belvedere should suddenly
glow all over into life, and step forward from the pedestal with that
godlike air of his. But of the misbegotten changelings who call
themselves men, and prate intolerably over dinner-tables, I never saw one
who seemed worthy to inspire love—no, nor read of any, except Leonardo da
Vinci, and perhaps Goethe in his youth. About women I entertain a
somewhat different opinion; but there, I have the misfortune to be a man.
There are many matters in which you may waylay Destiny, and bid him stand
and deliver. Hard work, high thinking, adventurous excitement, and a
great deal more that forms a part of this or the other person’s spiritual
bill of fare, are within the reach of almost any one who can dare a
little and be patient. But it is by no means in the way of every one to
fall in love. You know the difficulty Shakespeare was put into when
Queen Elizabeth asked him to show Falstaff in love. I do not believe
that Henry Fielding was ever in love. Scott, if it were not for a
passage or two in _Rob Roy_, would give me very much the same effect.
These are great names and (what is more to the purpose) strong, healthy,
high-strung, and generous natures, of whom the reverse might have been
expected. As for the innumerable army of anæmic and tailorish persons
who occupy the face of this planet with so much propriety, it is palpably
absurd to imagine them in any such situation as a love-affair. A wet rag
goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to be
much impressed by romantic scenery. Apart from all this, many lovable
people miss each other in the world, or meet under some unfavourable
star. There is the nice and critical moment of declaration to be got
over. From timidity or lack of opportunity a good half of possible love
cases never get so far, and at least another quarter do there cease and
determine. A very adroit person, to be sure, manages to prepare the way
and out with his declaration in the nick of time. And then there is a
fine solid sort of man, who goes on from snub to snub; and if he has to
declare forty times, will continue imperturbably declaring, amid the
astonished consideration of men and angels, until he has a favourable
answer. I daresay, if one were a woman, one would like to marry a man
who was capable of doing this, but not quite one who had done so. It is
just a little bit abject, and somehow just a little bit gross; and
marriages in which one of the parties has been thus battered into consent
scarcely form agreeable subjects for meditation. Love should run out to
meet love with open arms. Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people
who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a
pair of children venturing together into a dark room. From the first
moment when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage
after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read the
expression of their own trouble in each other’s eyes. There is here no
declaration properly so called; the feeling is so plainly shared, that as
soon as the man knows what it is in his own heart, he is sure of what it
is in the woman’s.
This simple accident of falling in love is as beneficial as it is
astonishing. It arrests the petrifying influence of years, disproves
cold-blooded and cynical conclusions, and awakens dormant sensibilities.
Hitherto the man had found it a good policy to disbelieve the existence
of any enjoyment which was out of his reach; and thus he turned his back
upon the strong sunny parts of nature, and accustomed himself to look
exclusively on what was common and dull. He accepted a prose ideal, let
himself go blind of many sympathies by disuse; and if he were young and
witty, or beautiful, wilfully forewent these advantages. He joined
himself to the following of what, in the old mythology of love, was
prettily called _nonchaloir_; and in an odd mixture of feelings, a fling
of self-respect, a preference for selfish liberty, and a great dash of
that fear with which honest people regard serious interests, kept himself
back from the straightforward course of life among certain selected
activities. And now, all of a sudden, he is unhorsed, like St. Paul,
from his infidel affectation. His heart, which has been ticking accurate
seconds for the last year, gives a bound and begins to beat high and
irregularly in his breast. It seems as if he had never heard or felt or
seen until that moment; and by the report of his memory, he must have
lived his past life between sleep and waking, or with the preoccupied
attention of a brown study. He is practically incommoded by the
generosity of his feelings, smiles much when he is alone, and develops a
habit of looking rather blankly upon the moon and stars. But it is not
at all within the province of a prose essayist to give a picture of this
hyperbolical frame of mind; and the thing has been done already, and that
to admiration. In _Adelaide_, in Tennyson’s _Maud_, and in some of
Heine’s songs, you get the absolute expression of this midsummer spirit.
Romeo and Juliet were very much in love; although they tell me some
German critics are of a different opinion, probably the same who would
have us think Mercutio a dull fellow. Poor Antony was in love, and no
mistake. That lay figure Marius, in _Les Misérables_, is also a genuine
case in his own way, and worth observation. A good many of George Sand’s
people are thoroughly in love; and so are a good many of George
Meredith’s. Altogether, there is plenty to read on the subject. If the
root of the matter be in him, and if he has the requisite chords to set
in vibration, a young man may occasionally enter, with the key of art,
into that land of Beulah which is upon the borders of Heaven and within
sight of the City of Love. There let him sit awhile to hatch delightful
hopes and perilous illusions.
One thing that accompanies the passion in its first blush is certainly
difficult to explain. It comes (I do not quite see how) that from having
a very supreme sense of pleasure in all parts of life—in lying down to
sleep, in waking, in motion, in breathing, in continuing to be—the lover
begins to regard his happiness as beneficial for the rest of the world
and highly meritorious in himself. Our race has never been able
contentedly to suppose that the noise of its wars, conducted by a few
young gentlemen in a corner of an inconsiderable star, does not re-echo
among the courts of Heaven with quite a formidable effect. In much the
same taste, when people find a great to-do in their own breasts, they
imagine it must have some influence in their neighbourhood. The presence
of the two lovers is so enchanting to each other that it seems as if it
must be the best thing possible for everybody else. They are half
inclined to fancy it is because of them and their love that the sky is
blue and the sun shines. And certainly the weather is usually fine while
people are courting. . . In point of fact, although the happy man feels
very kindly towards others of his own sex, there is apt to be something
too much of the magnifico in his demeanour. If people grow presuming and
self-important over such matters as a dukedom or the Holy See, they will
scarcely support the dizziest elevation in life without some suspicion of
a strut; and the dizziest elevation is to love and be loved in return.
Consequently, accepted lovers are a trifle condescending in their address
to other men. An overweening sense of the passion and importance of life
hardly conduces to simplicity of manner. To women, they feel very nobly,
very purely, and very generously, as if they were so many Joan-of-Arc’s;
but this does not come out in their behaviour; and they treat them to
Grandisonian airs marked with a suspicion of fatuity. I am not quite
certain that women do not like this sort of thing; but really, after
having bemused myself over _Daniel Deronda_, I have given up trying to
understand what they like.
If it did nothing else, this sublime and ridiculous superstition, that
the pleasure of the pair is somehow blessed to others, and everybody is
made happier in their happiness, would serve at least to keep love
generous and great-hearted. Nor is it quite a baseless superstition
after all. Other lovers are hugely interested. They strike the nicest
balance between pity and approval, when they see people aping the
greatness of their own sentiments. It is an understood thing in the
play, that while the young gentlefolk are courting on the terrace, a
rough flirtation is being carried on, and a light, trivial sort of love
is growing up, between the footman and the singing chambermaid. As
people are generally cast for the leading parts in their own
imaginations, the reader can apply the parallel to real life without much
chance of going wrong. In short, they are quite sure this other
love-affair is not so deep seated as their own, but they like dearly to
see it going forward. And love, considered as a spectacle, must have
attractions for many who are not of the confraternity. The sentimental
old maid is a commonplace of the novelists; and he must be rather a poor
sort of human being, to be sure, who can look on at this pretty madness
without indulgence and sympathy. For nature commends itself to people
with a most insinuating art; the busiest is now and again arrested by a
great sunset; and you may be as pacific or as cold-blooded as you will,
but you cannot help some emotion when you read of well-disputed battles,
or meet a pair of lovers in the lane.
Certainly, whatever it may be with regard to the world at large, this
idea of beneficent pleasure is true as between the sweethearts. To do
good and communicate is the lover’s grand intention. It is the happiness
of the other that makes his own most intense gratification. It is not
possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility, pity
and passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected
caress. To make one’s self beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in
talk, to do anything and all things that puff out the character and
attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to
magnify one’s self, but to offer the most delicate homage at the same
time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers;
for the essence of love is kindness; and indeed it may be best defined as
passionate kindness: kindness, so to speak, run mad and become
importunate and violent. Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no
longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his
weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned.
He wishes to be assured that he is not loved for this or that good
quality, but for himself, or something as like himself as he can contrive
to set forward. For, although it may have been a very difficult thing to
paint the marriage of Cana, or write the fourth act of Antony and
Cleopatra, there is a more difficult piece of art before every one in
this world who cares to set about explaining his own character to others.
Words and acts are easily wrenched from their true significance; and they
are all the language we have to come and go upon. A pitiful job we make
of it, as a rule. For better or worse, people mistake our meaning and
take our emotions at a wrong valuation. And generally we rest pretty
content with our failures; we are content to be misapprehended by
cackling flirts; but when once a man is moonstruck with this affection of
love, he makes it a point of honour to clear such dubieties away. He
cannot have the Best of her Sex misled upon a point of this importance;
and his pride revolts at being loved in a mistake.
He discovers a great reluctance to return on former periods of his life.
To all that has not been shared with her, rights and duties, bygone
fortunes and dispositions, he can look back only by a difficult and
repugnant effort of the will. That he should have wasted some years in
ignorance of what alone was really important, that he may have
entertained the thought of other women with any show of complacency, is a
burthen almost too heavy for his self-respect. But it is the thought of
another past that rankles in his spirit like a poisoned wound. That he
himself made a fashion of being alive in the bald, beggarly days before a
certain meeting, is deplorable enough in all good conscience. But that
She should have permitted herself the same liberty seems inconsistent
with a Divine providence.
A great many people run down jealousy, on the score that it is an
artificial feeling, as well as practically inconvenient. This is
scarcely fair; for the feeling on which it merely attends, like an
ill-humoured courtier, is itself artificial in exactly the same sense and
to the same degree. I suppose what is meant by that objection is that
jealousy has not always been a character of man; formed no part of that
very modest kit of sentiments with which he is supposed to have begun the
world; but waited to make its appearance in better days and among richer
natures. And this is equally true of love, and friendship, and love of
country, and delight in what they call the beauties of nature, and most
other things worth having. Love, in particular, will not endure any
historical scrutiny: to all who have fallen across it, it is one of the
most incontestable facts in the world; but if you begin to ask what it
was in other periods and countries, in Greece for instance, the strangest
doubts begin to spring up, and everything seems so vague and changing
that a dream is logical in comparison. Jealousy, at any rate, is one of
the consequences of love; you may like it or not, at pleasure; but there
it is.
It is not exactly jealousy, however, that we feel when we reflect on the
past of those we love. A bundle of letters found after years of happy
union creates no sense of insecurity in the present; and yet it will pain
a man sharply. The two people entertain no vulgar doubt of each other:
but this pre-existence of both occurs to the mind as something
indelicate. To be altogether right, they should have had twin birth
together, at the same moment with the feeling that unites them. Then
indeed it would be simple and perfect and without reserve or
afterthought. Then they would understand each other with a fulness
impossible otherwise. There would be no barrier between them of
associations that cannot be imparted. They would be led into none of
those comparisons that send the blood back to the heart. And they would
know that there had been no time lost, and they had been together as much
as was possible. For besides terror for the separation that must follow
some time or other in the future, men feel anger, and something like
remorse, when they think of that other separation which endured until
they met. Some one has written that love makes people believe in
immortality, because there seems not to be room enough in life for so
great a tenderness, and it is inconceivable that the most masterful of
our emotions should have no more than the spare moments of a few years.
Indeed, it seems strange; but if we call to mind analogies, we can hardly
regard it as impossible.
“The blind bow-boy,” who smiles upon us from the end of terraces in old
Dutch gardens, laughingly hails his bird-bolts among a fleeting
generation. But for as fast as ever he shoots, the game dissolves and
disappears into eternity from under his falling arrows; this one is gone
ere he is struck; the other has but time to make one gesture and give one
passionate cry; and they are all the things of a moment. When the
generation is gone, when the play is over, when the thirty years’
panorama has been withdrawn in tatters from the stage of the world, we
may ask what has become of these great, weighty, and undying loves, and
the sweet-hearts who despised mortal conditions in a fine credulity; and
they can only show us a few songs in a bygone taste, a few actions worth
remembering, and a few children who have retained some happy stamp from
the disposition of their parents.