an now go
on again. What is it? Some might evade the difficulty by taking a middle
course. You are not, they might say, in love as yet, but you are on
the brink of it. The lady is no idol to you at present, but neither is
she indifferent. You would not walk four miles in wet weather to get
a rose from her; but if she did present you with a rose, you would not
wittingly drop it down an area. In short, you have all but lost your
heart. To this I reply simply, love is not a process, it is an event.
You may unconsciously be on the brink of it, when all at once the ground
gives way beneath you, and in you go. The difference between love and
not-love, if I may be allowed the word, being so wide, my inquiry should
produce decisive results. On the whole, therefore, and in the absence of
direct proof to the contrary, I believe that the passion of love does
possess me.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

"Where is it? This is the simplest question of the four. It is in the
heart. It fills the heart to overflowing, so that if there were one drop
more the heart would run over. Love is thus plainly a liquid: which
accounts to some extent for its well-recognized habit of surging. Among
its effects this may be noted: that it makes you miserable if you be
not by the loved one's side. To hold her hand is ecstasy, to press it,
rapture. The fond lover--as it might be myself--sees his beloved depart
on a railway journey with apprehension. He never ceases to remember that
engines burst and trains run off the line. In an agony he awaits the
telegram that tells him she has reached Shepherd's Bush in safety.
When he sees her talking, as if she liked it, to another man, he is
torn, he is rent asunder, he is dismembered by jealousy. He walks beneath
her window till the policeman sees him home; and when he wakes in the
morning, it is to murmur her name to himself until he falls asleep again
and is late for the office. Well, do I experience such sensations, or do
I not? Is this love, after all? Where are the spills?

"I have been taking for granted that I know who it is. But is this
wise? Nothing puzzles me so much as the way some men seem to know, by
intuition, as it were, which is the woman for whom they have a passion.
They take a girl from among their acquaintance, and never seem to
understand that they may be taking the wrong one. However, with certain
reservations, I do not think I go too far in saying that I know who she
is. There is one