celestial purple, renders the lovers blind, and veils
the true character of each from the other. We are only speaking here
of cases where each is loyal and where the sexual appetite is not
associated with the cold calculations of egoism. Reason only returns
when the first tempest of a passion which seemed insatiable has
subsided, when the honeymoon of marriage, or of a free union, has
passed. Then only is it possible to see if what remains is true love,
indifference, hatred or a mixture of these three sentiments, capable
or not of becoming more or less adaptable and tolerable. This is why
sudden amours are always dangerous, and why only long and profound
mutual acquaintance before marriage can lead to a happy and lasting
union.

Even in this case the unforseen is not absent, for it is very rarely
that one knows a man and his ancestry; moreover, acquired diseases or
mental anomalies may cause his character to degenerate later on.

Let us now examine some psychic phenomena more or less connected with
love. For reasons which we have mentioned the irradiations of sexual
love are on the whole less developed in man than in woman.

PSYCHIC IRRADIATIONS OF LOVE IN MAN

=Masculine Audacity.=--In the normal male the sentiment of sexual
power favors self-exaltation, while the contrary sentiment of
impotence, or even that of mediocre sexual power, depresses this
sentiment of exaltation. Yet, in reality, the sexual power of man has
not the capital importance for a normal and virgin woman that men
imagine, influenced as they are by self-exaltation; what imposes on
women is especially masculine audacity, and in sexual matters this
increases with experience and practice. The company of prostitutes
often renders men incapable of understanding feminine psychology, for
prostitutes are hardly more than automata trained for the use of male
sensuality. When men look among these for the sexual psychology of
woman they only find their own mirror.

Man's flirtation, and his art of paying court to women are naturally
combined with his audacity, as we have already observed in birds and
mammals, and some of the lower animals. The male seeks to please the
female to gain her favors. The brilliant colors of butterflies and
birds, song, skill and proof of strength, often come to the aid of the
male sexual instinct. Even in certain animals supplicant and plaintive
sounds assist the male after his repeated refusal, apparently or in
reality, by t