ble generaliseth confidently.]

In a sense, of course, Love is necessarily a fiction, whether pleasing
or otherwise; for illusion is of the essence of it. The lover, in fact,
is like the artist who sees things through a temperament, and, by
eliminating the irrelevant, builds up the ideal on the foundation of the
real. Tityrus sees more in Amaryllis than his brother shepherds see,
just as Mr. Whistler sees more in a November fog than is visible to the
eye of the casual wayfarer who gets lost in it, and mingles profanity
with his coughs, yet, granting this, the reality and completeness of the
illusion does not admit of doubt. On no alternative hypothesis can the
great majority of marriages be explained. If commonplace people saw each
other as others see them, surely they would remain single all their
lives. Yet most people are commonplace, and most people marry. The
reality--the controlling over-mastering reality--of Love has to be
assumed to make their behaviour intelligible.

[Sidenote: Having hasted from a wedding for the purpose.]

This point struck me forcibly the last time I was present at a wedding.
It was a Jewish wedding, celebrated at the little synagogue behind the
Haymarket. I had no acquaintance with anyone concerned in the ceremony,
but had dropped in quite casually, having heard that Jewish weddings
were picturesque. The one thing that impressed me more than anything
else was the decided undesirability of both the bridegroom and the
bride. That the bride was not comely goes for little. But her forehead
indicated a limited range and low ideals; the corners of her mouth spoke
of an irritable temper; her bearing was vulgar; her voice had a twang
that made one long to take her by the shoulders and shake her violently.
She was also escorted by gaudy female relatives, by looking at whom one
could anticipate the awful possibilities of her maturity. As for the
bridegroom, he was a Hebrew of the florid type. His waistcoat was
protuberant; he had a red face with red whiskers sprawling all over it;
he wore flash jewellery; his hair shone with pomatum; there was that in
his bearing which indicated that he followed some sordid calling, such
as pawnbroking, or the backing of horses on commission. Yet one could
see that these two unattractive persons were really attracted by each
other. A great and beautiful miracle had been performed; and the power
which had performed it was that Love in which some profess to
disbeliev