Part 7 (1/2)
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 partic.i.p.ation 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 partners.h.i.+ps 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_.
b.u.t.tERFLY 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 pa.s.sion for one; it is a fickle feeling which, like a giddy b.u.t.terfly, 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: