Is this the beginning of a tempestuous, surging
passion? But stop; does such a passion have a beginning? Should it not
be in flood before we know what we are about? I don't want you to
answer.

[Illustration]

"One of my difficulties is that I cannot reason from experience. I
cannot say to myself, During the spring of 1886, and again in October,
1888, your breast has known the insurgence of a tempestuous passion. Do
you now note the same symptoms? Have you experienced a sudden sinking
at the heart, followed by thrills of exultation? Now I cannot even say
that my appetite has fallen off, but I am smoking more than ever, and it
is notorious that I experience sudden chills and thrills. Is this
passion? No, I am not done; I have only begun.

[Illustration]

"In 'As You Like It,' you remember, the love symptoms are described at
length. But is _Rosalind_ to be taken seriously? Besides, though
she wore boy's clothes, she had only the woman's point of view. I have
consulted Stevenson's chapters on love in his delightful 'Virginibus
Puerisque,' and one of them says, 'Certainly, if I could help it, I
would never marry a wife who wrote.' Then I noticed a book published
after that one, and entitled 'The New Arabian Nights, by Mr. and Mrs.
Robert Louis Stevenson.' I shut 'Virginibus Puerisque' with a sigh, and
put it away.

[Illustration]

"But this inquiry need not, I feel confident, lead to nothing.
Negatively I know love; for I do not require to be told what it is not,
and I have my ideal. Putting my knowledge together and surveying it
dispassionately in the mass, I am inclined to think that this is really
love.

[Illustration]

"I may lay down as Proposition I. that surging, tempestuous passion
comes involuntarily. You are heart-whole, when, as it were, the gates
of your bosom open, in she sweeps, and the gates close. So far this is
a faithful description of my case. Whatever it is, it came without any
desire or volition on my part, and it looks as if it meant to stay. What
I ask myself is--first, What is it? secondly, Where is it? thirdly, Who
is it? and fourthly, What shall I do with it? I have thus my work cut
out for me.

[Illustration]

"What is it? I reply that I am stumped at once, unless I am allowed to
fix upon an object definitely and precisely. This, no doubt, is arguing
in a circle; but Descartes himself assumed what he was to try to prove.
This, then, being permitted, I have chosen my object, and we c