Part 21
After all, Schopenhauer was right in saying that when we have no great sorrows the imagination invents small ones which torment us quite as much as the others. When one sees the peculiar delight lovers take in teasing and torturing each other, one feels tempted to believe with Zimmermann that there _is_ “eine Lust am Schmerze”—that pain in itself contains a gratification, an “ecstasy of woe,” distinct from positive pleasure itself.
Yet it is hardly necessary to take refuge in such an emotional paradox in order to account for the value and luxury of Lovers’ Quarrels and all the various mixed moods of Love. A sufficient explanation is afforded by the principles of _Contrast_ and emotional _Persistence_.
Owing to the fact that feeling seems to have a regular pulsation or rhythm, our hours of anguish are always interrupted by intervals of hope and happy retrospection—as in Chopin’s funeral march, where the gloomy dirge is interrupted for a time by a delicious melody of happy reminiscence, like a heavenly voice of consolation. When the nervous tension has become too great the string breaks and the bow resumes its straightness and elasticity. Hence it is that an uncertain lover actually gloats over the anguish of doubt and jealousy: for he has an instinctive fore-feeling that when the reaction of hope and confidence will come, he will enjoy an ecstasy of the imagination of which an always confident love has no conception.
Uninterrupted enjoyment of lovers’ bliss would soon dull the edge of pleasure, as an unbroken succession of sweet concords in music would cloy the æsthetic sense. The introduction of discords raises a longing for their resolution which, if gratified, restores to the concords their original charm and freshness, and thus prolongs the pleasures of music. A tourist after spending a month on the top of a Swiss mountain becomes comparatively indifferent to the scene of which he knows every detail by heart; but let his peak be hidden in dense clouds for a few days, and he cannot fail, on emerging again into sunlight, to greet the view with the same thrill of delight as on the day of his arrival.
It is their constant and unexpected changes from joy to sadness, from tears to smiles, that constitute the greatest charm of Heine and Chopin and make them the lyric poet and musician _par excellence_ for lovers. Either a gladsome rainbow suddenly appears to illumine their lurid landscape; or, again, “their plenteous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.”
Even the famous
“For ought that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth”—
what is it but another way of stating that that Love which has met with no impediments, in which anguish and delight have not warmed one another by mutual friction, has never broken out into a conflagration sufficiently brilliant to be recorded “by tale or history” as a remarkable specimen of “true love.” It is the plot-interest that fascinates the reader as well as the lover himself; it is the impediments and emotional conflicts, the _coyness of fate_, that constitute the principal charm in a tale of love; and it would take a very clever novelist to attract readers by an account of a courtship of which the happy result was a foregone conclusion at every stage.
Thus the magic effect of contrasted emotions suggests why pleasure alternating with woe in Love is more intense than pleasure uninterrupted. A mountaineer who has been wading through snowfields all day up to his knees enjoys the comforts of his slippers, a bright fire, and a cup of tea in the evening, twice as much as a man who has been all day at home.
On reflection, however, it seems as if Contrast, far from reducing things to their first principles, itself needed an explanation. _Why_ is it that by contrasting two emotions we heighten their colour? A partial explanation was, indeed, suggested in speaking of discords: anguish begets desire, and the more intense desire has been, the more lively is its gratification. A more profound solution of the problem, however, is found in the fact that feelings have their _echoes_, which continue sometimes long after the original tone has ceased; and if meantime a new tone is sounded, it blends with the echo and produces a mixed feeling.
The sense of Temperature affords a simple illustration of this “echo.” Place two basins before you, one filled with tepid, the other with ice-cold, water. Put your right hand in the ice-water one minute, leaving the left in your pocket. Then put both hands into the tepid water. It will seem still tepid to the left, but quite warm to the right hand.
Some psychologists, however, deny that pleasures and pains ever coalesce into one feeling—that there is such a thing as a mixed feeling. They contend that the attention can be fixed on only one feeling at a time, that the stronger crowds out the weaker, and that it is only their rapid succession that makes two feelings appear simultaneous, just as a firebrand swung around rapidly _seems_ to form a fiery circle.
Now it is quite true that the _attention_ can be fixed on only one feeling at any given moment, and that the stronger crowds out the weaker so far as the attention is concerned: yet this does not prevent the prevailing feeling from being affected by the echo of the one which preceded it. If a man, buried in the labyrinths of a big hotel, is waked up in the night by cries of fire; though it may prove a false alarm, yet the effect of the fright will remain with him and cast a gloom over his whole day’s doings, however pleasant in themselves. And a doubtful lover’s enjoyment of his sweetheart’s sweetest smiles is often galled by the remembrance that on the preceding day she smiled just as sweetly on his odious rival. “For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done,” says Shakspere.
In his admirable _Dissertation on the Passions_, Hume cleverly makes use of a musical analogy to explain how different emotions may be mixed: “If we consider the human mind, we shall observe that, with regard to the passions, it is not like a wind-instrument of music, which, in running over all the notes, immediately loses the sound when the breath ceases; but rather resembles a string-instrument, where, after each stroke, the vibrations still retain some sound which gradually and insensibly decays. The imagination is extremely quick and agile, but the passions in comparison are slow and restive; for which reason, when any object is presented which affords a variety of views to the one and emotions to the other, though the fancy may change its views with great celerity, each stroke will not produce a clear and distinct note of passion, but the one passion will always be mixt and confounded with the other.”
_Lunatic, Lover, and Poet._—A still better analogy of the manner in which one feeling may be modified by another is furnished by the optical phenomenon of after-images. If we gaze very steadily for half a minute at a green wafer and then at a sheet of white paper, we see on it a _purple_ image of the wafer; purple being the complementary colour of green, _i.e._ the colour which, if mixed with green, produces white. The reason of this phenomenon is that, after looking at the green wafer, the nervous fibres in the eye which perceive that colour have become so fatigued that the fainter green waves in the white paper fail to make any perceptible impression on them; so that purple alone prevails for the moment. So to the infatuated swain who has been tortured by the green-eyed monster, Jealousy, the moment of remission, which would else be one of neutral indifference, assumes the hue of rosy hope and positive delight. Hours which to sober mortals would seem perfect blanks are thus to him full of intense feeling, simply because they are rebounds from a state of extreme tension in the opposite direction. He might be likened to a schoolboy whose sleigh is carried across the frozen river by its downward impetus and even ascends the hill on the other side some distance before it stops. Hence, like the madman and the man of genius, the amorous swain is always either down in a fit of melancholy, or in an exalted ecstasy of joy, rapidly alternating and weirdly intermingled—
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact.”
Now poets are proverbially melancholy; and madmen, as Professor Krafft-Ebing tells us, are also more commonly tortured by depressing delusions than elated by pleasant ones. Hence, if the poet’s maxim, just quoted, be true, we should expect the lover’s prevailing cast of mind to be melancholy too; and so it is. Though he enjoys moments of delirious rapture, to which sober mortals are utter strangers, yet his misgivings are incessant, even when he is almost certain of success: and it takes but little to poison his cup; for, as Professor Volkmann remarks, “one drop of anguish suffices to gall a whole ocean of joy.” So the lover becomes “pale and interesting,” loses weight and appetite, and sighs away his soul. Were this emotional fermenting process allowed to last too long, his health would suffer seriously: but fortunately it ordinarily ceases in a year or so, yielding a wine which, though less sparkling and ebullient, is more mellow and less intoxicating. Romantic Love, in other words, is metamorphosed into conjugal affection which, among other attributes of Love, strips off its characteristic trait of melancholy, whereby it is easily distinguished from all other forms of affection. Before, however, we can pass on to consider in detail the differences between Romantic and Conjugal Love, the two remaining ingredients of Romantic Love—Individual Preference and Personal Beauty—must be briefly considered.
INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE
It happens occasionally, in the Western regions of the United States, that an Indian brave casts his eyes on a buxom pale-face girl and desires her in marriage. He offers her parents two ponies for her; he offers three, five, and even seven ponies; and when still refused he is the most mystified man in the world: cannot understand how any man can be so egregiously stupid or avaricious as to refuse his daughter for _seven_ ponies! Ugh!!
It is needless to recapitulate the numerous instances cited in preceding pages, showing that throughout the world, until within a few centuries, Romantic Love could not exist because the girl’s choice, on the one hand, was utterly ignored, while the man, on the other, was equally prevented, by the lack of opportunities for courtship, from basing his choice on a real knowledge of the selected bride. The parents who did the selecting, always for the bride, and sometimes even for the bridegroom, were guided in their choice by money and rank and not by Health and Beauty, which inspire Love and follow as its fruits. The history of Love, till within three or four centuries ago, might, in short, be summed up in six words: No Choice, no Love, no Beauty—except in those rare cases where special hygienic advantages prevailed, or where lucky chance brought together a youth and a maiden who in the ordinary course of events would have fallen in Love with one another.
There is reason to believe, however, that even if in the early ages of the world the young had been allowed greater freedom in choosing a lover, Romantic Love, in its more ardent phases, would not have flourished to any great extent among primitive, ancient, and mediæval nations: for the reason that Love depends on Individualisation, and our remote ancestors were not so diversely individualised as we are.
_Sexual Divergence._—Comparative ethnology, psychology, and biology show that specialisation is a product of higher evolution, _i.e._ that individual traits are developed in proportion as we proceed higher in the scale of life, physical and intellectual. It is true there are no two flowers in the fields, no two leaves in a forest, exactly alike in every detail: but the differences are infinitesimal, and almost require a microscope to see them. It is also true that the sheep in a flock, which appear almost alike to a casual observer, are individually known to the shepherd. _Possibly_ a sharp-sighted and patient naturalist might live to distinguish himself by distinguishing the individuals in a swarm of bees, or a caravan of ants: but this would be counted little short of a miracle.
Furthermore, ordinary observers find it almost as difficult to distinguish individuals in a crowd of Chinese, Negroes, or Indians, as in a bee-hive. Closer acquaintance does reveal differences: but they are rarely so great as those between individuals in civilised communities. And in these civilised communities themselves we find greater differences, sexual differences pre-eminently, the higher we ascend. Between a peasant and his wife the difference, both physical and mental, is surely not half so great as that between a lawyer and his wife, a physician or professor and his wife. “The lower the state of culture,” says Professor Carl Vogt, “the more similar are the occupations of the two sexes;” and similarity of occupation entails similarity of attitude, expression, and mental habits. Mr. Higginson’s notion that civilisation tends to make the sexes more and more alike is true only as regards legal rights and social privileges; regarding their mental traits and physical appearance exactly the reverse is true. The peasant’s wife may have a tender heart for him and her children, but her domestic drudgery and hard labour in the fields make her features, her voice, and manners harsh and masculine. And who has not read a hundred times that the Indian squaws look quite as stern, stolid, unemotional, and masculine as their husbands?
That the ancient Greeks, though they may have possessed it, had but little regard for Individuality is shown especially in their sculpture, and in the fact that with them even marriage was considered less a private than a social matter. Lycurgus, Solon, and Plato agreed in viewing marriage as “a matter in which the state had a right to interfere;” and for the purpose of providing the state with legitimate citizens, it was therefore regarded as obligatory. The absence of emotional expression in Greek statues equally shows their indifference to Individualisation and their ignorance of Love: for Love is inspired not so much by regularity of features as by fascinating variety of emotional expression.
Thus the absence or disregard of individual traits among ancient nations helps, like the absence of individual Choice, to account for the absence of Romantic Love, the very essence of which—as distinguished from mere sexual passion—is the insistance on individual traits and the mutual adaptation of the lovers.
What sublime—or ridiculous—extremes, this absorption in individual traits reaches in Modern Love, no one need be told. Not only does the lover consider his maiden’s frowns more beautiful than other maidens’ smiles, but he longs to kiss the floor on which she has walked; and every ribbon that has clasped her waist, every jewel that has touched her ear or neck, becomes charged with a subtle and mysterious electric current that would shock him with a thrill of recognition should his fingers come in contact with them on a table, even in a dark room.
_Making Women Masculine._—Nothing proves so irrefutably the hopelessness of the task undertaken by a few “strong-minded” women—namely, to equalise the sexes by making women more masculine—than the fact thus revealed by anthropology and history: that the tendency of civilisation has been to make men and women more and more unlike, physically and emotionally. Whatever approximation there may have been has been entirely on the part of the men, who have become less coarse or “manly,” in the old acceptation of that term, and more femininely refined; while women have endeavoured to maintain the old distance by a corresponding increase of refinement on their part. Should the Woman’s Rights viragoes ever succeed in establishing their social ideal, when women will share all the men’s privileges, make stump speeches, and—of course—go back to the harvest fields and to war with them—then good-bye, Romantic Love! But there is no danger that these Amazons will ever carry their point. They might as well try to convince women to wear beards; or men, crinolines.
Were any further proof needed that the sexes have been continually diverging instead of converging, it would be found in the fact that the young of both sexes are more alike than adults: in accordance with the law that the individual goes through the same stages of development as the race. And there are embryological facts which indicate even that there is some truth in the Platonic myth that the sexes at first were not separated; but that such separation took place probably for three reasons: to secure a division of labour; to prevent the full hereditary transmission of injurious qualities; and, thirdly, to secure the benefits of cross-fertilisation,—a result which in the higher spheres of human life is attained through Love, which is based on opposite or complementary qualities, and scorns near relationship.
_Love and Culture._—The dependence of Love on Individualisation, and the dependence of Individualisation, in turn, on Culture, help us also to explain an apparent difficulty regarding the non-existence of Love among the lower classes in ancient Greece and elsewhere. For these classes were not subjected to the same chaperonage as the higher circles: and it might be inferred therefore that the possibility of free Choice must have led to real love-matches. Perhaps it did in those rare cases where culture had sent a rootlet down into a lower social stratum. But as a rule one would have looked in vain among the lower classes—as one does to-day, despite poetic fiction—for minds sufficiently refined to comprehend and feel the highly-complex and idealised group of emotions which constitute Romantic Love. Of course it would be absurd to include in this statement people of refinement who through misfortune have been plunged into abject poverty. They do not belong to the “Great Unwashed”—ὁἱ πολλοί.
When Stendhal asserts that in France Love exists only in the lower classes, while Max Nordau states that in Germany it is to be found in the higher classes only, they are probably both right—allowance being made for rare exceptions. What Love _does_ exist in France—and it is preciously scarce—cannot possibly prevail except among the working people; and in Germany among the corresponding class it must be equally scarce, whereas in the middle and higher classes, where chaperonage is not nearly so strict and idiotic as in France, Cupid does contrive to find an occasional target for his arrows.
PERSONAL BEAUTY
Fanny Brawne having complained to Keats that he seemed to ignore all her other qualities and have eyes for her beauty alone, Keats thus justified himself: “Why may I not speak of your beauty, since without that I could never have loved you? I cannot conceive any beginning of such love as I have for you but beauty. There may be a sort of love for which, without the least sneer at it, I have the highest respect, and can admire it in others: but it has not the richness, the bloom, the full form, the enchantment of love after my own heart.”
Fanny Brawne is not the only girl who has thus complained to her lover about his exclusive emphasising of her Personal Beauty. But all such complaints are useless. In Modern Love the Admiration of Personal Beauty is by far the strongest of all ingredients, and is becoming more so every year: fortunately, for thereby Romantic Love is becoming more and more idealised and converted into a pure æsthetic sentiment. Goldsmith, indeed, laid stress on the virtue of choosing a wife on the same principle that guided her in choosing a wedding-ring—for qualities that will wear. But Personal Beauty _does_ wear, with proper hygienic care.
_Feminine Beauty in Masculine Eyes._—In masculine Love, regard for youthful feminine Beauty has always played a _rôle_ more or less important. But the effects of this kind of sexual selection in the lower races in increasing the amount of physical beauty in the world, have been commonly neutralised by the crude æsthetic notions prevailing among men as to what constituted feminine beauty. The weakness of the æsthetic overtone in Love, moreover, has hitherto prevented it from competing successfully with other marriage-motives. On the continent of Europe, to this day, the ugliest girl with a dowry of a few thousands is sure to find a husband and transmit her bodily and his mental ugliness to her offspring; while girls who could transmit a considerable amount of beauty, physical and mental, to their children, are left to fade away as old maids, because they have no money.
In this respect America sets a noble example to most parts of Europe. Thousands of young Americans marry penniless beauties every year, although they might have rich ugly girls for the asking. This is one of the things Frenchmen and Germans cannot understand, and class as “Americanisms.” And then they wonder why it is that there are so many pretty girls in Canada and the United States. Another “Americanism,” gentlemen. These pretty girls are the issue of Love-matches. Their mothers were selected for their Beauty, not for money or rank.
Not but that there are numerous exceptions to this golden rule of Love. Were there not, ugly women would be scarcer than they are, even in America.
_Masculine Beauty in Feminine Eyes._—In woman’s Love the admiration of Personal Beauty has played a much less significant _rôle_ than in man’s Love. If, nevertheless, the average man in most countries is perhaps a better specimen of masculine Beauty than the average woman of feminine Beauty, this is owing to the facts that sons as well as daughters may inherit their mother’s beauty, and that men, leading a more active and athletic life, are more beautiful than women in proportion as they are more healthy.
In the past barbarous times the constant wars and the unsettled state of social affairs made it important for women to select men not for their beauty, but for their energy, courage, and manly prowess. Desdemona falls in Love with the Moor despite his colour and ugliness; and why? Othello himself tells us—
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them.”
And it is on beholding Orlando vanquishing the Duke’s wrestler that Rosalind falls in Love with him. As Celia remarks: “Young Orlando, that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart, both in an instant.”
Women are conservative; and in the ludicrous feminine eagerness to make immortal heroes of the ephemeral victors in a boat-race or baseball match, we see an echo, in these peaceful days, of a feminine trait imprinted on them in warlike times.
Intellectual supereminence, in the meantime, was ignored by women. Petrarch’s verses made no impression on Laura, and Dante could not even win Beatrice with such poetic beauties as these lines—
“Whatever her sweet eyes are turned upon, Spirits of Love do issue thence in flame, Which through their eyes who then may look on them Pierce to the heart’s deep chamber every one. And in her smile Love’s image you may see Whence none can gaze upon her steadfastly.”
There is, however, already a large class of superior women who have discovered that brains have displaced muscle in the successful struggle for existence, and that strong nerves are the true storage-batteries of courage and vigour in modern life. Hence the homage paid to men of genius.