e, and another an
episode of Tristan and Isolde.

De Tristan et de la reine,
De leur amour qui tant fut fine,
Dont ils eurent mainte doulour
Puis en moururent en un jour.

The naive sentiment of these poems forms a delicious contrast to the
contemporaneous mature and subtile art of Provence, and the entire
erudite armoury of love.

A great baron declared that only the man who could carry his daughter in
his arms to the summit of a certain mountain--an impossible
feat--should win her hand in marriage. No man possessed strength to
carry her farther than half way. But the knight whom she loved secretly
went out into the world, and after years of searching, discovered a
magic potion able to endow him who quaffed it with enormous strength.
Full of joy he returned home and, his beloved in his arms, began the
laborious ascent. Strong and jubilant, he laughed at the potion. But
after a while, feeling his strength ebbing away, the maiden implored
him: "Drink, I beseech thee, beloved!" "My heart is strong, to drink
were waste of time." And again she pleaded: "Drink now, beloved, thy
strength is diminishing fast." But he, eager to win her only by his own
effort, staggered on and reached the summit, only to sink to the ground
and expire. The maiden, throwing herself on his lifeless body, kissed
his eyes and lips and died with him.

We recognise in this simple tale the new form of love, mutual devotion,
and the thought of the consummation of this love, the _Love-death_,
which was not definitely realised until six hundred years later. It
originated in the Celtic soul, as the worship of woman originated in the
Romanesque (the Teutonic soul shared in the development of both). It was
a dream of the suppressed Celtic race, spending its whole soul in dreams
and producing visions of such depth and beauty that even we of to-day
cannot read them without being profoundly moved.

Next there are three love-letters written in Latin by a German woman of
the twelfth century. In very touching words she tells her lover that the
love of him can never be torn out of her heart. "I turn to you whom I
hold for ever enclosed in my inmost heart." She promises and claims
faithfulness until death: "Among thousands my heart has chosen you, you
alone can satisfy my longing, and you will never find my love wanting. I
trust myself to you, all my hope is centred in you. I could say a great
deal more," she concludes, "but there is no nee