Part 30 (1/2)
Who has ever heard of a beautiful idiot, of anyone falling in love with an imbecile? The vacant stare, the absence of intellect, make beauty and love alike impossible in such a case.
THE STRANGE GREEK ATt.i.tUDE
The important corollary follows, from all this, that in countries where women receive no education sensual love is the only kind men can feel toward them. Oriental women are of that kind, and so were the ancient Greeks. The Greeks are indeed renowned for their statuary, yet their att.i.tude toward personal beauty was of a very peculiar kind.
Their highest ideal was not the feminine but the masculine type, and accordingly we find that it was toward men only that they professed to feel a n.o.ble pa.s.sion. The beauty of the women was regarded merely from a sensual point of view. Their respectable women were deliberately left without education, wherefore their charms can have been at best of a bodily kind and capable of inspiring love of body only. There is a prevalent superst.i.tion that the Greeks of the day of Perikles had a cla.s.s of intelligent women known as hetairai, who were capable of being true companions and inspirers of men; but I shall show, in a later chapter, that the mentality of these women has been ludicrously exaggerated; they were coa.r.s.e and obscene in their wit and conversation, and their morals were such that no man could have respected them, much less loved them with a pure affection; while the men whom they are supposed to have inspired were in most cases voluptuaries of the most dissolute sort.
A COMPOSITE AND VARIABLE SENTIMENT
Our attempt to answer the question ”What is romantic love,” has taken up no fewer than two hundred and thirty-five pages, and even this answer is a mere preliminary sketch, the details of which will be supplied in the following chapters, chiefly, it is true, in a negative way, by showing what is _not_ romantic love; for the subject of this book is Primitive Love.
DEFINITION OF LOVE
Can love be defined in one sentence? The _Century Dictionary's_ definition, which is as good as any, is: ”Intimate personal affection between individuals of opposite s.e.x capable of intermarriage; the emotional incentive to and normal basis of conjugal union.” This is correct enough as far as it goes; but how little it tells us of the nature of love! I have tried repeatedly to condense the essential traits of romantic love into one brief definition, but have not succeeded. Perhaps the following will serve as an approximation. Love is an intense longing for the reciprocal affection and jealously exclusive possession of a particular individual of the opposite s.e.x; a chaste, proud, ecstatic adoration of one who appears a paragon of personal beauty and otherwise immeasurably superior to all other persons; an emotional state constantly hovering between doubt and hope, aggravated in the female heart by the fear of revealing her feelings too soon; a self-forgetful impulse to share the tastes and feelings of the beloved, and to go so far in affectionate and gallant devotion as to eagerly sacrifice, for the other's good, all comfort and life itself if necessary.
These are the essential traits. But romantic love is altogether too complex and variable to be defined in one sentence; and it is this complexity and variability that I wish to emphasize particularly.
Eckermann once suggested to Goethe that no two cases of love are quite alike, and the poet agreed with him. They did not, however, explain their seeming paradox, so diametrically opposed to the current notion that love is everywhere and always the same, in individuals as in nations; nor could they have explained it unless they had a.n.a.lyzed love into its component elements as I have done in this volume. With the aid of this a.n.a.lysis it is easy to show how and why love has changed and grown, like other sentiments; to explain how and why the love of a civilized white man must differ from that of an Australian or African savage, just as their faces differ. Since no two races look alike, and no two individuals in the same race, why should their loves be alike? Is not love the heart of the soul and the face merely its mirror? Love is varied through a thousand climatic, racial, family, and cultural peculiarities. It is varied through individual tastes and proclivities. In one case of love admiration of personal beauty may be the strongest ingredient, in another jealous monopoly, in a third self-sacrificing affection, and so on. The permutations and combinations are countless, and hence it is that love-stories are always fresh, since they can be endlessly varied. A lover's varied feelings in relation to the beloved become gradually blended into a sentiment which is a composite photograph of all the emotions she has ever aroused in him. This has given rise to the delusion that love is a simple feeling.[117]
WHY CALLED ROMANTIC
In the introductory chapter of this book I alluded briefly to my reasons for calling pure prematrimonial infatuation romantic love, giving some historic precedents for such a use of the word. We are now in a position to appreciate the peculiar appropriateness of the term.
What is the dictionary definition of ”romantic”?
”Pertaining to or resembling romance, or an ideal state of things; partaking of the heroic, the marvellous, the supernatural, or the imaginative; chimerical, fanciful, extravagantly enthusiastic.”
Every one of these terms applies to love in the sense in which I use the word. Love is ideal, heroic, marvellous, imaginative, chimerical, fanciful, extravagantly enthusiastic; its hyperbolic adoration even gives it a supernatural tinge, for the adored girl seems more like an angel or a fairy than a common mortal. The lover's heroine is as fict.i.tious as any heroine of romance; he considers her the most beautiful and lovable person in the world, though to others she may seem ugly and ill-tempered. Thus love is called romantic, because it is so great a romancer, attributing to the beloved all sorts of perfections which exist only in the lover's fancy. What could be more fantastic than a lover's stubborn preference for a particular individual and his conviction that no one ever loved so frantically as he does? What more extravagant and unreasonable than his imperious desire to completely monopolize her affection, sometimes guarding her jealously even from her girl friends or her nearest relatives? What more romantic than the tortures and tragedies, the mixed emotions, that doubt or jealousy gives rise to? Does not a willing but coyly reserved maiden romance about her feelings? What could be more fanciful and romantic than her shy reserve and coldness when she is longing to throw herself into the lover's arms? Is not her proud belief that her lover--probably as commonplace and foolish a fellow as ever lived--is a hero or a genius a romantic exaggeration? Is not the lover's purity of imagination, though real as a feeling, a romantic illusion, since he craves ultimate possession of her and would be the unhappiest of mortals if she went to a nunnery, though she promised to love him always? What could be more marvellous, more chimerical, than this temporary suppression of a strong appet.i.te at the time when it would be supposed to manifest itself most irresistibly--this distilling of the finer emotions, leaving all the gross, material elements behind? Can you imagine anything more absurdly romantic than the gallant attentions of a man on his knees before a girl whom, with his stronger muscles, he could command as a slave? Who but a romantic lover would obliterate his selfish ego in sympathetic devotion to another, trying to feel her feelings, forgetting his own? Who but a romantic lover would sacrifice his life in the effort to save or please another? A mother would indeed do the same for her child; but the child is of her own flesh and blood, whereas the beloved may have been a stranger until an hour ago. How romantic!
The appropriateness of the word romantic is still further emphasized by the consideration that, just as romantic art, romantic literature, and romantic music are a revolt against artificial rules and barriers to the free expression of feeling, so romantic love is a revolt against the obstacles to free matrimonial choice imposed by parental and social tyranny.
Indeed, I can see only one objection to the use of the word--its frequent application to any strange or exciting incidents, whence some confusion may ensue. But the trouble is obviated by simply bearing in mind the distinction between romantic _incidents_ and romantic _feelings_ which I have summed up in the maxim that _a romantic love-story is not necessarily a story of romantic love_. Nearly all the tales brought together in this volume are romantic love-stories, but not one of them is a story of romantic love. In the end the ant.i.thesis will aid us in remembering the distinction.
In place of ”romantic” I might have used the word ”sentimental”; but in the first place that word fails to indicate the essentially romantic nature of love, on which I have just dwelt; and secondly, it also is liable to be misunderstood, because of its unfortunate a.s.sociation with the word sentimentality, which is a very different thing from sentiment. The differences between sentiment, sentimentality, and sensuality are indeed important enough to merit a brief chapter of elucidation.
SENSUALITY, SENTIMENTALITY, AND SENTIMENT
From beginnings not yet understood--though Haeckel and others have speculated plausibly on the subject--there has been developed in animals and human beings an appet.i.te which insures the perpetuation of the species as the appet.i.te for food does that of the individual. Both these appet.i.tes pa.s.s through various degrees of development, from the utmost grossness to a high degree of refinement, from which, however, relapses occur in many individuals. We read of Indians tearing out the liver from living animals and devouring it raw and b.l.o.o.d.y; of Eskimos eating the contents of a reindeer's stomach as a vegetable dish; and the books of explorers describe many scenes like the following from Baker's _Ismailia_ (275) relating to the antics of negroes after killing a buffalo:
”There was now an extraordinary scene over the carca.s.s; four hundred men scrambling over a ma.s.s of blood and entrails, fighting and tearing with each other and cutting off pieces of flesh with their lance-heads, with which they escaped as dogs may retreat with a bone.”
APPEt.i.tE AND LONGING
What aeons of culture lie between such a scene and a dinner party in Europe or America, with its refined, well-behaved guests, its table etiquette, its varied menu, its choice viands, skilfully cooked and blended so as to bring out the most diverse and delicate flavors, its esthetic features--fine linen and porcelains, silver and cut gla.s.s, flowers, lights--its bright conversation, and flow of wit. Yet there are writers who would have us believe that these Indians, Eskimos, and Africans, who manifest their appet.i.te for food in so disgustingly coa.r.s.e a way, are in their love-affairs as sentimental and aesthetic as we are! In truth they are as gross, gluttonous, and selfish in the gratification of one appet.i.te as in that of the other. To a savage a woman is not an object of chaste adoration and gallant devotion, but a mere bait for wanton l.u.s.t; and when his l.u.s.t hath dined he kicks her away like a mangy dog till he is hungry again. In Ploss-Bartels[118]
may be found an abundance of facts culled from various sources in all parts of the world, showing that the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity of many savages is not even restrained by the presence of spectators. At the phallic and baccha.n.a.lian festivals of ancient and Oriental nations all distinctions of rank and all family ties were forgotten in a carnival of l.u.s.t. Licentious orgies are indeed carried on to this day in our own large cities; but their partic.i.p.ants are the criminal cla.s.ses, and occasionally some foolish young men who would be very much ashamed to have their doings known; whereas the orgies and phallic festivals of savages and barbarians are national or tribal inst.i.tutions, approved by custom, sanctioned by religion, and indulged in openly by every man and woman in the community; often regardless even of incest.
More shockingly still are the grossness and diabolical selfishness of the savage's carnal appet.i.te revealed by his habit of sacrificing young girls to it years before they have reached the age of p.u.b.erty.
Some details will be found in the chapters on Australia, Africa, and India. Here it may be noted--to indicate the wide prevalence of a custom which it would be unjust to animals to call b.e.s.t.i.a.l, because beasts never sink so low--that Borneans, as Schwaner notes, marry off girls from three to five; that in Egypt child-wives of seven or eight can be seen; that Javanese girls may be married at seven; that North American Indians often took brides of ten or eleven, while in Southern Australia girls were appropriated as early as seven. Hottentot girls were not spared after the age of seven, nor were Bushman girls, though they did not become mothers till ten or twelve years old; while Kaffir girls married at eight, Somals at six to eight. The cause of these early marriages is not climatic, as some fancy, but simply, as Roberton has pointed out, the coa.r.s.eness of the men. The list might be extended indefinitely. In Old Calabar sometimes, we read in Ploss,