Where both deliberate the love is slight. Who ever loved that love not at first sight? Marlowe. Love and joy are torches lit From altar-fires of sacrifice. —Coventry Patmore. Elsworth had lived all this time hitherto in Spain without falling in love;—quite a phenomenal attitude for a healthy young fellow in a land like this, where the women’s eyes, their figures, and incomparable grace, usually make havoc with the men’s hearts. But as yet he had escaped the notice of Cupid, or perhaps the little god was disgusted with his peculiar theories on the subject, and had let him alone out of contempt. Our hero held that love was a kind of zymotic disease, and, like its congeners, could only be caught where there was a predisposition or suitable nidus in the patient. He thought it was very like hydrophobia in some respects, and might be compared to small pox in others. The best way to minimise its attacks was to get vaccinated in early life. You could have a mild “cultivation” of the bacillus. He thought he had undergone this business with Linda, and attributed his immunity to that cause. Now the “protection” of the aforesaid inoculation was very severely tried when Mildred appeared on the scene. Mildred was so sweet and angelic, so kindred in every way to his ideal of what a perfect woman These acute observers knew all about the beautiful Englishwoman who had met their friend, and the guide told them a good deal of his own impressions on the matter. They all agreed that he was in love. At last our hero was fain to confess there was truth in the poet’s lines, that “In the arithmetic of life, The smallest unit is a pair.” He tried hard to shake it off. Somebody says (but we do not believe him) that by a strong effort of will, a man can rid himself of hydrophobia, and even preach eloquent sermons whilst suffering from Asiatic cholera. It may be so. The martyrs have done more, if the Bollandists are to be credited. But putting all such exceptional cases on one side, there is no denying that this love business is a very subtle and insidious malady, with very pronounced and persistent symptoms. They say seeds found in ancient mummies have retained their vitality to the present day. Love germs are hard to kill also. You cannot detect them by the microscope, or destroy them by cold or heat. Cupid uses poisoned darts. Prophylaxis? There is none except, perhaps, books and hard study, though Now, with all respect to Love “cultivations,” as Pasteur would call them, there is as much uncertainty about the business as in uglier maladies. For think what Love is—inoculation from a well-aimed bolt of Cupid. Now Cupid hits whom he wills, and you cannot hire the god by the day to go shooting with you; you cannot indicate his mark, direct his aim, or choose his weapon. He will not lend his bow and arrows, neither can he be wooed by cajolery nor coaxed by prayer. He is the most independent little deity, and cares for nothing but having his own sweet will upon us mortals. What he is chiefly to be praised for is the absence of favouritism and perfect impartiality which he always shows. None ever bribed him, none ever clad himself in panoply impervious to his darts. You may be hit before your beard has downed your chin with faintest bloom. You may go shot free till you are grey and bent, and then have to plaster up your hurt when you should be composing your epitaph, like the poor old queen in Browning’s play. Love is like inspiration; it is not to be commanded, bought, or sold, not even given when deserved. The most unworthy are often most favoured, and the faithful suppliants at the capricious god’s gates often go empty away. You may go “far from the madding crowd,” and hide yourself in the desert. You may bury yourself in a cave in the Thebaid, as the hermits of Egypt did, and you will be hit; while you might have been unscathed in the assemblies of Beauty. Ah, the lives of the Thaumaturgists tell us nothing about all this! Like the testimonials to the quack medicines, we know all about the cures, but what about the failures? Do you think St. Simeon Stylites, atop of his pillar, was out of reach of that bow? Not he! Is he not an ungrateful archer? Does he not come creeping to our doors with wet wings and cold body, craving our warmth and food, and then transfix us? That is just his way, So when Mildred had departed from Granada, and Elsworth was left alone and had time to examine his hurt, he found it was deep. Things were not the same to him as before that day when he rushed out to drive away the rude children who were annoying her. “Ah, blessed children,” he would often say, “you opened heaven to me!” “O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,— How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?” Here in this out-of-the-way corner of civilization, then, he had been unearthed, and it was no longer possible to shut himself from the observation of his friends and relatives; he would soon have to return to society and explain his conduct. He was fain to confess that his energies had long demanded a wider field for their exercise. He had done a certain amount |