Part 24 (1/2)
Such ethereal love too is the prerogative of a young maiden, whose imagination is immaculate, ignorant of impurity.
Her feelings have the fragrancy, The freshness of young flowers.
No, no, the utmost share Of my desire shall be, Only to kiss that air That lately kissed thee.
In high school, when sentimental impulses first manifest themselves in a girl, she is more likely than not to transfer them to a girl. Her feelings, in these cases, are not merely those of a warm friends.h.i.+p, but they resemble the pa.s.sionate, self-sacrificing att.i.tude of romantic love. New York schoolgirls have a special slang phrase for this kind of love--they call it a ”crush,” to distinguish it from a ”mash,” which refers to an impression made on a man. A girl of seventeen told me one day how madly she was in love with another girl whose seat was near hers; how she brought her flowers, wiped her pens, took care of her desk; ”but I don't believe she cares for me at all,”
she added, sadly.
PATHOLOGIC LOVE
Such love is usually as innocent as a b.u.t.terfly's flirtation with a flower.[42] It has a pathologic phase, in some cases, which need not be discussed here. But I wish to call attention to the fact that even in abnormal states modern love preserves its purity. The most eminent authority on mental pathology, Professor Krafft-Ebing, says, concerning erotomania:
”The kernel of the whole matter is the delusion of being singled out and loved by a person of the other s.e.x, who regularly belongs to a higher social cla.s.s.
And it should be noted that the love felt by the patient toward this person is a romantic, ecstatic, but entirely 'Platonic' affection.”
I have among my notes a remarkable case, relating to that most awful of diseases that can befall a woman--nymphomania.[43] The patient relates:
”I have also noticed that when my affections are aroused, they counteract animal pa.s.sion. I could never love a man because he was a man. My tendency is to wors.h.i.+p the good I find in friends. I feel just the same toward those of my own s.e.x. If they show any regard for me, the touch of a hand has power to take away all morbid feelings.”
A MODERN SENTIMENT
There are all sorts and conditions of love. To those who have known only the primitive (sensual) sort, the conditions described in the foregoing pages will seem strange and fantastic if not fict.i.tious--that is, the products of the writers' imaginations.
Fantastic they are, no doubt, and romantic, but that they are real I can vouch for by my own experience whenever I was in love, which happened several times. When I was a youth of seventeen I fell in love with a beautiful, black-eyed young woman, a Spanish-American of Californian stock. She was married, and I am afraid she was amused at my mad infatuation. Did I try to flirt with her? A smile, a glance of her eyes, was to me the seventh heaven beyond which there could be no other. I would not have dared to touch her hand, and the thought of kissing her was as much beyond my wildest flights of fancy as if she had been a real G.o.ddess. To me she was divine, utterly unapproachable by mortal. Every day I used to sit in a lonely spot of the forest and weep; and when she went away I felt as if the son had gone out and all the world were plunged into eternal darkness.
Such is romantic love--a supersensual feeling of crystalline purity from which all gross matter has been distilled. But the love that includes this ingredient is a modern sentiment, less than a thousand years old, and not to be found among savages, barbarians, or Orientals. To them, as the perusal of past and later chapters must convince the reader, it is inconceivable that a woman should serve any other than sensual and utilitarian purposes. The whole story is told in what Dodge says of the Indians, who, ”animal-like, approach a woman only to make love to her”; and of the squaws who do not dare even go with a beau to a dance, or go a short distance from camp, without taking precautions against rape--precautions without which they ”would not be safe for an instant” (210, 213).
PERSIANS, TURKS, AND HINDOOS
We shall read later on of the obscene talk and sights that poison the minds of boys and girls among Indians, Polynesians, etc., from their infancy; in which respect Orientals are not much better than Hurons and Botocudos. ”The Persian child,” writes Mrs. Bishop (I., 218),
”from infancy is altogether interested in the topics of adults; and as the conversation of both s.e.xes is said by those who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, the purity which is one of the greatest charms of childhood is absolutely unknown.”
Of the Turks (at Bagdad) Ida Pfeiffer writes _(L.J.R.W._, 202-203) that she found it
”very painful to notice the tone of the conversation that goes on in these harems and in the baths. Nothing can exceed the demureness of the women in public; but when they come together in these places, they indemnify themselves thoroughly for the restraint. While they were busy with their pipes and coffee, I took the opportunity to take a glance into the neighboring apartments, and in a few minutes I saw enough to fill me at once with disgust and compa.s.sion for these poor creatures, whom idleness and ignorance have degraded almost below the level of humanity. A visit to the women's baths left a no less melancholy impression.
There were children of both s.e.xes, girls, women, and elderly matrons. The poor children! how should they in after life understand what is meant by modesty and purity, when they are accustomed from their infancy to witness such scenes, and listen to such conversation?”
These Orientals are too coa.r.s.e-fibred to appreciate the spotless, peach-down purity which in our ideal is a maiden's supreme charm. They do not care to prolong, even for a year what to us seems the sweetest, loveliest period of life, the time of artless, innocent maidenhood.
They cannot admire a rose for its fragrant beauty, but must needs regard it as a thing to be picked at once and used to gratify their appet.i.te. Nay, they cannot even wait till it is a full-blown rose, but must destroy the lovely bud. The ”civilized” Hindoos, who are allowed legally to sacrifice girls to their l.u.s.ts before the poor victims have reached the age of p.u.b.erty, are really on a level with the African savages who indulge in the same practice. An unsophisticated reader of _Kalidasa_ might find in the King's comparison of Sakuntala to ”a flower that no one has smelt, a sprig that no one has plucked, a pearl that has not yet been pierced,” a recognition of the charm of maiden purity. But there is a world-wide difference between this and the modern sentiment. The King's att.i.tude, as the context shows, is simply that of an epicure who prefers his oysters fresh. The modern sentiment is embodied in Heine's exquisite lines:
DU BIST WIE EINE BLUME.
E'en as a lovely flower So fair, so pure, thou art; I gaze on thee and sadness Comes stealing o'er my heart.
My hands I fain had folded Upon thy soft brown hair, Praying that G.o.d may keep thee So lovely, pure, and fair.
--_Trans, of Kate Freiligrath Kroeker_.