We do, indeed, find, at a comparatively early stage, evidences of one
girl or man being chosen in preference to others; but when we examine
these cases closely we see that the choice is not based on _personal_
qualities but on utilitarian considerations of the most selfish or
sensual description. Thus Zöller, in the passage just referred to,
says of the negro:

"It is true that when he buys a woman he prefers a young
one, but his motive for so doing is far from being mental
admiration of beauty. He buys the younger ones because they
are youthful, strong, and able to work for him."

Similarly Belden, who lived twelve years among the Plains Indians,
states (302) that "the squaws are valued by the middle-aged men only
for their strength and ability to work, and no account whatever is
taken of their personal beauty." The girls are no better than the men.
Young Comanche girls, says Parker (Schoolcraft, V., 683) "are not
averse to marry very old men, particularly if they are chiefs, as they
are always sure of something to eat." In describing Amazon Valley
Indians, Wallace says (497-498) that there is

"a trial of skill at shooting with the bow and arrow,
and if the young man does not show himself a good
marksman, the girl refuses him, on the ground that he
will not be able to shoot fish and game enough for the
family."

These cases are typical, and might be multiplied indefinitely; they
show how utterly individual preference on personal grounds is out of
the question here. It is true that many of our own girls marry for
such utilitarian reasons; but no one would be so foolish as to speak
of these marriages as love-matches, whereas in the cases of savages we
are often invited by sentimentalists to witness the "manifestation of
love" whenever a man shows a utilitarian or sensual interest in a
particular girl. A modern civilized lover marries a girl for her own
sake, because he is enamoured of her individuality, whereas the
uncivilized suitor cares not a fig for the other's individuality; he
takes her as an instrument of lust, a drudge, or as a means of raising
a family, in order that the superstitious rites of ancestor-worship
may be kept up and his selfish soul rest in peace in the next world.
He cares not for her personally, for if she proves barren he
repudiates her and marries another. Trial marriages are therefore
widely prevalent. The Dyaks of Borneo, as St. John tells us, often
make as many as seven or eight such marriages; with them marriage is
"a business of partnership for the purpose of having children,
dividing labor, and by means of their offspring providing for their
old age."


A STORY OF AFRICAN LOVE

An amusing incident related by Ernst von Weber (II., 215-6) indicates
how easily utilitarian considerations override such skin-deep
preference as may exist among Africans. He knew a girl named Yanniki
who refused to marry a young Kaffir suitor though she confessed that
she liked him. "I cannot take him," she said, "as he can offer only
ten cows for me and my father wants fifteen." Weber observed, that it
was not kind of her father to let a few cows stand in the way of her
happiness; but the African damsel did not fall in with his sentimental
view of the case. Business and vanity were to her much more important
matters than individual preference for a particular lover, and she
exclaimed, excitedly:

"What! You expect my father to give me away for ten
cows? That would be a fine sort of a bargain! Am I not
worth more than Cilli, for whom the Tambuki chief paid
twelve cows last week? I am pretty, I can cook, sew,
crochet, speak English, and with all these
accomplishments you want my father to dispose of me for
ten miserable cows? Oh, sir, how little you esteem me!
No, no, my father is quite right in refusing to yield
in this matter; indeed, in my opinion he might boldly
ask thirty cows for me, for I am worth that much."


SIMILARITY OF INDIVIDUALS AND SEXES

It is not difficult to explain why among the lower races individual
preference either does not occur at all or is so weak and utilitarian
that the difference of a few cows more or less may decide a lover's
fate. Like sunflowers in the same garden, the girls in a tribe differ
so little from one another that there is no particular cause for
discrimination. They are all brought up in exactly the same way, eat
the same food, think the same thoughts, do the same work--carrying
water and wood, dressing skins, moving tents and utensils, etc.; they
are alike uneducated, and marry at the same childish age before their
minds can have unfolded what little is in them; so that there is small
reason why a man should covet one of them much more than another. A
savage may be as eager to possess a woman as a miser is to own a gold
piece: but he has little more reason to prefer one girl to another
than a miser has to prefer one gold piece to another of the same size.

Humboldt observed (_P.E_., 141) that "in barbarous nations there is a
physiognomy peculiar to the tribe or horde rather than to any
individual." It has been noted by various observers that the lower the
race is the more do its individuals thus resemble one another. Nay,
this approximation goes so far as to make even the two sexes much less
distinct than they are with us. Professor Pritsch, in his classical
treatise on the natives of South Africa (407), dwells especially on
the imperfect sexual differentiation of the Bushmen. The faces,
stature, limbs, and even the chest and hips of the women differ so
little from those of the men that in looking at photographs (as he
says and illustrates by specimens), one finds it difficult to tell
them apart, though the figures are almost nude. Both sexes are equally
lean and equally ugly. The same may be said of the typical
Australians, and in Professor and Mrs. Agassiz's _Journey in Brazil_
(530) we read that

"the Indian woman has a very masculine air, extending
indeed more or less to her whole bearing; for even her
features have rarely the feminine delicacy of higher
womanhood. In the Negro, on the contrary, the
narrowness of chest and shoulder characteristic of the
woman is almost as marked in the man; indeed, it may
well be said, that, while the Indian female is
remarkable for her masculine build, the negro male is
equally so for his feminine aspect."

In the _Jesuit Relations_ there are repeated references to the
difficulty of distinguishing squaws from male Indians except by
certain articles of dress. Burton writes of the Sioux _(C.O.S_., 59)
that "the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the sexes." In
Schoolcraft (V., 274) we are told concerning the Creek women that
"being condemned to perform all the hard labor, they are _universally
masculine in appearance_, without one soft blandishment to render them
desirable or lovely." Nor is there anything alluringly feminine in the
disposition which, as all observers agree, makes Indian women more
cruel in torture than the most pitiless men. Equally decisive is the
testimony regarding the similarity of the sexes, physical and mental,
in the islands of the Pacific. Hawkesworth (II., 446) found the women
of New Zealand so lacking in feminine delicacy that it was difficult
to distinguish them from the men, except by their voices. Captain Cook
(II., 246) observed in Fiji differences in form between men and
females, but little difference in features; and of the Hawaiians he
wrote that with few exceptions they

"have little claim to those peculiarities that
distinguish the sex in other countries. There is,
indeed, a more remarkable equality in the size, color,
and figure of both sexes, than in most places I have
visited."


PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS

A most important inference may be deduced from these facts. A man does
not, normally, fall in love with a man. He falls in love with a woman,
because she is a woman. Now when, as in the cases cited, the men and
women differ only in regard to the coarsest anatomical peculiarities
known as the primary sexual qualities, it is obvious that their "love"
also can consist only of such coarse feelings and longings as these
primary qualities can inspire. In other words they can know the great
passion only on its sensual side. Love, to them, is not a sentiment
but an appetite, or at best an instinct for the propagation of the
species.

Of the secondary sexual qualities--those not absolutely necessary for
the maintenance of the species--the first to appear prominently in
women is _fat_; and as soon as it does appear, it is made a ground of
individual preference. Brough Smyth tells us that in Australia a fat
woman is never safe from being stolen, no matter how old and ugly she
may be. In the chapter on Personal Beauty I shall marshal a number of
facts showing that among the uncivilized and Oriental races in
general, fat is the criterion of feminine attractiveness. It is so
among coarse men (_i.e._, most men) even in Europe and America to this
day. Hindoo poets, from the oldest times to Kalidasa and from Kalidasa
to the present day, laud their heroines above all things for their
large thighs--thighs so heavy that in walking the feet make an
impression on the ground "deep as an elephant's hoofs."


FASTIDIOUS SENSUALITY IS NOT LOVE

It is hardly necessary to say that the "love" based on _these_
secondary qualities is not sentimental or romantic. It may,
however--and this is a very important point to remember--be extremely
violent and stubborn. In other words, there may he a strong individual
preference in love that is entirely sensual. Indeed, lust may he as
fastidious as love. Tarquinius coveted Lucretia; no other woman would
have satisfied him. Yet he did not _love_ her. Had he loved _her_ he
would have sacrificed his own life rather than offered violence to one
who valued her honor more than her life. He loved only _himself_; his
one object was to please his beloved ego; he never thought of her
feelings and of the consequences of his act to her. The literature of
ancient Rome, Greece, and Oriental countries is full of such cases of
individualized "love" which, when closely examined, reduce themselves
to cases of selfish lust--eagerness to gratify an appetite with a
particular victim, for whom the "lover" has not a particle of
affection, respect, or sympathy, not to speak of adoration or gallant,
self-sacrificing devotion. Unless we have positive evidence of the
presence of these traits of unselfish affection, we are not entitled
to assume the existence of genuine love; especially among races that
are coarse, unsympathetic, and cruel.


TWO STORIES OF INDIAN LOVE

From this point of view we must judge two Indian love-stories related
by Keating (II., 164-166):

I. A Chippewa named Ogemans, married to a woman called
Demoya, fell in love with her sister. When she refused
him he affected insanity. His ravings were terrible,
and nothing could appease him but her presence; the
moment he touched her hand or came near her he was
gentle as they could wish. One time, in the middle of a
winter night, he sprang from his couch and escaped into
the woods, howling and screaming in the wildest manner;
his wife and her sister followed him, but he refused to
be calmed until the sister (Okoj) laid her hand on him,
when he became quiet and gentle. This kind of
performance he kept up a long time till all the
Indians, including the girl, became convinced he was
possessed by a spirit which she alone could subdue. So
she married him and never after was he troubled by a
return of madness.

II. A young Canadian had secured the favor of a
half-breed girl who had been brought up among the
Chippewas and spoke only their language. Her name was
Nisette, and she was the daughter of a converted squaw
who, being very pious, induced the young couple to go
to an Algonquin village and get regularly married by a
clergyman. Meanwhile the Canadian's love cooled away,
and by the time they reached the village he cared no
more for the poor girl. Soon thereafter she became the
subject of fits and was finally considered to be quite
insane. The only lucid intervals she had were in the
presence of her inconstant husband. Whenever he came
near her, her reason would return, and she would appear
the same as before her illness. Flattered by what he
deemed so strong an evidence of his influence over her,
the Canadian felt a return of kindness toward her, and
was finally induced to renew his attentions, which,
being well received, they were soon united by a
clergyman. Her reason appeared to be restored, and her
improving health showed that her happiness was
complete.


FEMININE IDEALS SUPERIOR TO MASCULINE

Keating's guide was convinced that in both these cases the insanity
was feigned for the selfish purpose of working upon the feelings of
the unwilling party. Even apart from that, there is no trace of
evidence in either story that the feelings of the lovers rose above
sensual attachment, though the girl, being half white, might have been
capable of an approximation to a higher feeling. Indeed it is among
women that such approximations to a higher type of attachment must be
sought; for the uncivilized woman's basis of individual preference,
while apt to be utilitarian, is less sensual than the man's. She is
influenced by his manly qualities of courage, valor, aggressiveness,
because those are of value to her, while he chooses her for her
physical charms and has little or no appreciation of the higher
feminine qualities. Schoolcraft (V., 612) cites the following as an
Indian girl's ideal:

"My love is tall and graceful as the young pine waving
on the hill---and as swift in his course as the stately
deer. His hair is flowing, and dark as the blackbird
that floats through the air, and his eyes, like the
eagle's, both piercing and bright. His heart, it is
fearless and great--and his arm it is strong in the
fight."

Now it is true that Schoolcraft is a very unreliable witness in such
matters, as we shall see in the chapter on Indians. He had a way of
taking coarse Indian tales, dressing them up in a fine romantic garb
and presenting them as the aboriginal article. An Indian girl would
not be likely to compare a man's hair to a blackbird's feathers, and
she certainly would never dream of speaking of a "tall and graceful
pine waving on the hill." She might, however, compare his swiftness to
a deer's, and she might admire his sharp sight, his fearlessness, his
strong arm in a fight; and that is enough to illustrate what I have
just said--that her preference, though utilitarian, is less sensual
than the man's. It includes mental elements, and as moreover her
duties as mother teach her sympathy and devotion, it is not to be
wondered at that the earliest approximations to a higher type of love
are on the part of women.


SEX IN BODY AND MIND

As civilization progresses, the sexes become more and more
differentiated, thus affording individual preference an infinitely
greater scope. The stamp of sex is no longer confined to the pelvis
and the chest, but is impressed on every part of the body. The women's
feet become smaller and more daintily shaped than the men's, the limbs
more rounded and tapering and less muscular, the waist narrower, the
neck longer, the skin smoother, softer, and less hairy, the hands more
comely, with more slender fingers, the skeleton more delicate, the
stature lower, the steps shorter, the gait more graceful, the features
more delicately cut, the eyes more beautiful, the hair more luxuriant
and lustrous, the cheeks rounder and more susceptible to blushes, the
lips more daintily curved, the smile sweeter.

But the mind has sex as well as the body. It is still in process of
evolution, and too many individuals still approximate the type of the
virago or the effeminate man; but the time will come for all, as it
has already come for many, when a masculine trait in a woman's
character will make as disagreeable an impression as a blacksmith's
sinewy arm on the body of a society belle would make in a ball-room.
To call a woman pretty and sweet is to compliment her; to call a man
pretty and sweet would be to mock or insult him. The ancient Greeks
betrayed their barbarism in amorous matters in no way more
conspicuously than by their fondness for coy, effeminate boys, and
their admiration of masculine goddesses like Diana and Minerva.
Contrast this with the modern ideal of femininity, as summed up by
Shakspere:

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?


TRUE FEMININITY AND ITS FEMALE ENEMIES

A woman's voice differs from a man's not only in pitch but in timbre;
its quality suggests the sex. There is great scope for variety, from
the lowest contralto to the highest soprano, as there is in man's from
the lowest bass to the highest tenor; a variety so great that voices
differ as much as faces and can be instantly recognized; but unless it
has the proper sexual quality a voice affects us disagreeably. A
coarse, harsh voice has marred many a girl's best marriage chances,
while, on the other hand, it may happen that "the ear loveth before
the eye." Now what is true of the male and female voice holds true of
the male and female mind in all its diverse aspects. We expect men to
be not only bigger, stronger, taller, hardier, more robust, but more
courageous and aggressive, more active, more creative, more sternly
just, than women; while coarseness, cruelty, selfishness, and
pugnacity, though not virtues in either sex, affect us much less
repulsively in men than in women, for the reason that the masculine
struggle for existence and competition in business foster selfishness,
and men have inherited pugnacious instincts from their fighting
ancestors, while women, as mothers, learned the lessons of sympathy
and self-sacrifice much sooner than men. The distinctively feminine
virtues are on the whole of a much higher order than the masculine,
which is the reason why they were not appreciated or fostered at so
early an epoch. Gentleness, modesty, domesticity, girlishness,
coyness, kindness, patience, tenderness, benevolence, sympathy,
self-sacrifice, demureness, emotionality, sensitiveness, are feminine
qualities, some of which, it is true, we expect also in gentlemen; but
their absence is not nearly so fatal to a man as it is to a woman. And
as men gradually approach women in patience, tenderness, sympathy,
self-sacrifice, and gentleness, it behooves women to keep their
distance by becoming still more refined and feminine, instead of
trying, as so many of them do, to approach the old masculine
standard--one of the strangest aberrations recorded in all social
history.

Men and women fall in love with what is unlike, not with what is like
them. The refined physical and mental traits which I have described in
the preceding paragraphs constitute some of the secondary sexual
characters by which romantic love is inspired, while sensual love is
based on the primary sexual characters. Havelock Ellis (19) has well
defined a secondary sexual character as "one which, by more highly
differentiating the sexes, helps to make them more attractive to each
other," and so to promote marriages. And Professor Weissmann, famed
for his studies in heredity, opens up deep vistas of thought when he
declares (II., 91) that

"all the numerous differences in form and function
which characterize sex among the higher animals, all
the so-called 'secondary sexual characters,' affecting
even the highest mental qualities of mankind, are
nothing but adaptations to bring about the union of the
hereditary tendencies of two individuals."

Nature has been at work on this problem of differentiating the sexes
ever since it created the lowest animal organisms, and this fact,
which stands firm as a rock, gives us the consoling assurance that the
present abnormal attempts to make women masculine by giving them the
same education, employments, sports, ideals, and political aspirations
as men have, must end in ignominious failure. If the viragoes had
their way, men and women would in course of time revert to the
condition of the lowest savages, differing only in their organs of
generation. How infinitely nobler, higher, more refined and,
fascinating, is that ideal which wants women to differ from men by
every detail, bodily and mental; to differ from them in the higher
qualities of disposition, of character, of beauty, physical and
spiritual, which alone make possible the existence of romantic love as
distinguished from lust on one side and friendship on the other.


MYSTERIES OF LOVE

If these secondary sexual characters could be destroyed by the
extraordinary--one might almost say criminal--efforts of unsexed
termagants to make all women ape men and become like them, romantic
love, which was so slow in coming, would disappear again, leaving only
sensual appetite, which may be (selfishly) fastidious and intense, but
has no depth, duration, or altruistic nobility, and which, when
satiated, cares no more for the object for which it had temporarily
hungered. It is these secondary sexual characters, with their subtle
and endless variations, that have given individual preference such a
wide field of choice that every lover can find a girl after his heart
and taste. A savage is like a gardener who has only one kind of
flowers to choose between--all of one color too; whereas we, with our
diverse secondary characters, our various intermixtures of
nationalities, our endless shades of blonde and brunette, and
differences in manners and education can have our choice among the
lilies, roses, violets, pansies, daisies, and thousands of other
flowers--or the girls named after them. Samuel Baker says there are no
broken hearts in Africa. Why should there be when individuals are so
similar that if a man loses his girl he can easily find another just
like her in color, face, rotundity, and grossness? A civilized lover
would mourn the loss of his bride--though he were offered his choice
of the beauties of Baltimore--because it would be _absolutely
impossible to duplicate her_.

In that last line lies the explanation of one of the mysteries of
modern love--its stubborn fidelity to the beloved after the choice has
been made. But there is another mystery of individual preference that
calls for an explanation--its capriciousness, apparent or real, in
making a choice--that quality which has made the poets declare so
often that "love is blind." On this point much confusion of ideas
prevails.

Matters are simplified if we first dispose of those numerous cases in
which the individual preference is only approximate. If a girl of
eighteen has the choice between a man of sixty and a youth of twenty,
she will, if she exercises a _personal_ preference, take the youth, as
a matter of course, though he may be far from her ideal. Such
preference is generic rather than individual. Again, in most cases of
first love, as I have remarked elsewhere (_R.L.P.B_., 139) "man falls
in love with woman, woman with man, not with a particular man or
woman." Young men and women inherit, from a long series of ancestors,
a disposition to love which at puberty reveals itself in vague
longings and dreams. The "bump of amativeness," as a phrenologist
might say, is like a powder magazine, ready to explode at a touch, and
it makes no great difference what kind of a match is applied. In later
love affairs the match is a matter of more importance.

Robert Burton threw light on the "capriciousness" and accidentally of
this kind of (apparent) amorous preference when he wrote that "it is
impossible, almost, for two young folks equal in years to live
together and not be in love;" and further he says, sagaciously:

"Many a serving man, by reason of this opportunity and
importunity, inveigles his master's daughter, many a
gallant loves a dowdy, many a gentleman runs after his
wife's maids; many ladies dote upon their men, as the
queen in Aristo did upon the dwarf, many matches are so
made in haste and they are compelled, as it were by
necessity, so to love, which had they been free, come
in company with others, seen that variety which many
places afford, or compared them to a third, would never
have looked upon one another."

Such passions are merely pent-up emotions seeking to escape one way or
another. They do not indicate real, intense preference, but at best an
approach to it; for they are not properly individualized, and, as
Schopenhauer pointed out, the differences in the intensity of
love-cases depend on their different degrees of individualization--an
_aperçu_ which this whole chapter confirms. Yet these mere
approximations to real preference embrace the vast majority of
so-called love-affairs. Genuine preference of the highest type finds
its explanation in special phases of sympathy and personal beauty
which will be discussed later on.

What is usually considered the greatest mystery of the amorous passion
is the disposition of a lover to "see Helen's beauty in a brow of
Egypt." "What can Jack have seen in Jill to become infatuated with
her, or she in him?" The trouble with those who so often ask this
question is that they fix the attention on the beloved instead of on
the lover, whose lack of taste explains everything. The error is of
long standing, as the following story related by the Persian poet
Saadi (of the thirteenth century) will show (346):


AN ORIENTAL LOVE-STORY

"A king of Arabia was told that Mujnun, maddened by
love, had turned his face toward the desert and assumed
the manners of a brute. The king ordered him to be
brought in his presence and he wept and said: 'Many of
my friends reproach me for my love of her, namely
Laila; alas! that they could one day see her, that my
excuse might be manifest for me.' The king sent for her
and beheld a person of tawny complexion, and feeble
frame of body. She appeared to him in a contemptible
light, inasmuch as the lowest menial in his harem, or
seraglio, surpassed her in beauty and excelled her in
elegance. Mujnun, in his sagacity, penetrated what was
passing in the king's mind and said: 'It would behove
you, O King, to contemplate the charms of Laila through
the wicket of a Mujnun's eye, in order that the miracle
of such a spectacle might be illustrated to you.'"

This story was referred to by several critics of my first book as
refuting my theory regarding the modernity of true love. They seemed
to think, with the Persian poet, that there must be something
particularly wonderful and elevated in the feelings of a lover who is
indifferent to the usual charms of femininity and prefers ugliness.
This, indeed, is the prevalent sentiment on the subject, though the
more I think of it, the more absurd and topsy turvy it seems to me. Do
we commend an Eskimo for preferring the flavor of rancid fish oil to
the delicate bouquet of the finest French wine? Does it evince a
particularly exalted artistic sense to prefer a hideous daub to a
Titian or Raphael? Does it betoken a laudable and elevated taste in
music to prefer a vulgar tune to one that has the charms of a romantic
or classical work of acknowledged beauty? Why, then, should we
specially extol Mujnun for admiring a woman who was devoid of all
feminine charms? The confusion probably arises from fancying that she
must have had mental charms to offset her ugliness, but nothing
whatever is said about such a notion, which, in fact, would have been
utterly foreign to the Oriental, purely sensual, way of regarding
women.

Fix the attention on the man in the story instead of on the woman and
the mystery vanishes. Mujnun becomes infatuated with an ugly woman
simply because he has no taste, no sense of beauty. There are millions
of such men the world over, just as there are millions who cannot
appreciate choice wines, good music, and fine pictures. Everywhere the
majority of men prefer vulgar tunes, glaring chromos, and coarse
women--luckily for the women, because most of them are coarse, too.
"Birds of a feather flock together"--there you have the philosophy of
preference so far as such love-affairs are concerned. How often do we
see a bright, lovely girl, with sweet voice and refined manners,
neglected by men who crowd around other women of their own rude and
vulgar caste! Most men still are savages so far as the ability to
appreciate the higher secondary sexual qualities in women is
concerned. But the exceptions are growing more numerous. Among savages
there are no exceptions. Romantic love does not exist among them, both
because the women have not the secondary sexual qualities, and
because, even if they had them, the men would not appreciate them or
be guided by them in their choice of mates.


II. MONOPOLISM

Whenever she speaks, my ravished ear
No other voice but hers can hear,
No other wit but hers approve:
Tell me, my heart, if this be love?
--_Lyttleton_.

Every lover of nature must have noticed how the sun monopolizes the
attention of flowers and leaves. Twist and turn them whichever way you
please, on returning afterward you will find them all facing the
beloved sun again with their bright corollas and glossy surface.
Romantic love exacts a similar monopoly of its devotees. Be their
feelings as various, their thoughts as numerous, as the flowers in a
garden, the leaves in a forest, they will always be turned toward the
beloved one.


JULIET AND NOTHING BUT JULIET

A man may have several intimate friends, and a mother may dote on a
dozen or more children with equal affection; but romantic love is a
monopolist, absolutely exclusive of all participation and rivalry. A
genuine Romeo wants Juliet, the whole of Juliet, and nothing but
Juliet. She monopolizes his thoughts by day, his dreams at night; her
image blends with everything he sees, her voice with everything he
hears. His imagination is a lens which gathers together all the light
and heat of a giant world and focuses them on one brunette or blonde.
He is a miser, who begrudges every smile, every look she bestows on
others, and if he had his own way he would sail with her to-day to a
desert island and change their names to Mr. and Mrs. Robinson Crusoe.
This is not fanciful hyperbole, but a plain statement in prose of a
psychological truth. The poets did not exaggerate when they penned
such sentiments as these:

She was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all.
--_Byron_.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me,
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.
--_Herrick_.

Give me but what that ribband bound,
Take all the rest the world goes round.
--_Waller_.

But I am tied to very thee
By every thought I have;
Thy face I only care to see
Thy heart I only crave.
--_Sedley_.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
Sae lovely sweet and fair:
I hear her voice in ilka bird,
Wi' music charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonny bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.
--_Burns_.

For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose: in it thou art my all.
--_Shakspere_.

Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
--_James Graham_.

Love, well thou know'st no partnerships allows.
Cupid averse, rejects divided vows.
--_Prior_.

O that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race
And, hating no one, love but only her.
--_Byron_.


BUTTERFLY LOVE

The imperative desire for an absolute monopoly of one chosen girl,
body and soul--_and one only_--is an essential, invariable ingredient
of romantic love. Sensual love, on the contrary, aims rather at a
monopoly of all attractive women--or at least as many as possible.
Sensual love is not an exclusive passion for one; it is a fickle
feeling which, like a giddy butterfly, flits from flower to flower,
forgetting the fragrance of the lily it left a moment ago in the sweet
honey of the clover it enjoys at this moment. The Persian poet Sadi,
says (_Bustan_, 12), "Choose a fresh wife every spring or New Year's
Day; for the almanack of last year is good for nothing." Anacreon
interprets Greek love for us when he sings:

"Can'st count the leaves in a forest, the waves in the sea?
Then tell me how oft I have loved. Twenty girls in Athens,
and fifteen more besides; add to these whole bevies in
Corinth, and from Lesbos to Ionia, from Caria and from
Rhodos, two thousand sweethearts more.... Two thousand did I
say? That includes not those from Syros, from Kanobus, from
Creta's cities, where Eros rules alone, nor those from
Gadeira, from Bactria, from India--girls for whom I burn."

Lucian vies with Anacreon when he makes Theomestus (_Dial. Amor._)
exclaim: "Sooner can'st thou number the waves of the sea and the
snowflakes falling from the sky than my loves. One succeeds another,
and the new one comes on before the old is off." We call such a thing
libertinism, not love. The Greeks had not the name of Don Juan, yet
Don Juan was their ideal both for men and for the gods they made in
the image of man. Homer makes the king of gods tell his own spouse
(who listens without offence) of his diverse love-affairs (_Iliad_,
xiv., 317-327). Thirteen centuries after Homer the Greek poet Nonnus
gives ([Greek: Dionusiaka], vii.) a catalogue of twelve of Zeus's
amours; and we know from other sources (_e.g., Hygin, fab._, 155) that
these accounts are far from exhaustive. A complete list would match
that yard-long document made for Don Juan by Leporello in Mozart's
opera. A French writer has aptly called Jupiter the "Olympian Don
Juan;" yet Apollo and most of the other gods might lay claim to the
same title, for they are represented as equally amorous, sensual, and
fickle; seeing no more wrong in deserting a woman they have made love
to, than a bee sees in leaving a flower whose honey it has stolen.

Temporarily, of course, both men and gods focus their interest on one
woman--maybe quite ardently--and fiercely resent interference, as an
angry bee is apt to sting when kept from the flower it has
accidentally chosen; but that is a different thing from the monopolism
of true love.


ROMANTIC STORIES OF NON-ROMANTIC LOVE

The romantic lover's dream is to marry one particular woman and her
alone; the sensual lover's dream embraces several women, or many. The
unromantic ideal of the ancient Hindoo is romantically illustrated in
a story told in the _Hitopadesa_ of a Brahman named Wedasarman. One
evening someone made him a present of a dish of barley-meal. He
carried it to the market hall and lay down in a corner near where a
potter had stored his wares. Before going to sleep, the Brahman
indulged in these pleasant reveries:

"If I sell this dish of meal I shall probably get ten
farthings for it. For that I can buy some of these
pots, which I can sell again at a profit; thus my money
will increase. Then I shall begin to trade in
betel-nuts, dress-goods and other things, and thus I
may bring my wealth up to a hundred thousand. With that
I shall be able to marry _four wives_, and to the
youngest and prettiest of them I shall give my
tenderest love. How the others will be tortured by
jealousy! But just let them dare to quarrel. They shall
know my wrath and feel my club!"

With these words he laid about him with his club, and of course broke
his own dish besides many of the potter's wares. The potter hearing
the crash, ran to see what was the matter, and the Brahman was
ignominiously thrown out of the hall.

The polygamous imagination of the Hindoos runs riot in many of their
stories. To give another instance: _The Kathakoça, or Treasury of
Stories_ (translated by C.H. Tawney, 34), includes an account of the
adventures of King Kánchanapura, who had five hundred wives; and of
Sanatkumara who beheld eight daughters of Mánavega and married them.
Shortly afterward he married a beautiful lady and her sister. Then he
conquered Vajravega and married one hundred maidens.

Hindoo books assure us that women, unless restrained, are no better
than men. We read in the same _Hitopadesa_ that they are like
cows--always searching for new herbs in the meadows to graze on. In
polyandrous communities the women make good use of their
opportunities. Dalton, in his book on the wild tribes of Bengal, tells
this quaint story (36):

"A very pretty Dophla girl once came into the station
of Luckimpur, threw herself at my feet and in most
poetical language asked me to give her protection. She
was the daughter of a chief and was sought in marriage