anks of the mediaeval knights who translated amorous hyperbole into
action, challenging every knight to battle unless he acknowledged the
superior beauty of his lady. A great romancer is the lover; he
retouches the negative of his beloved, in his imagination, removes
freckles, moulds the nose, rounds the cheeks, refines the lips, and
adds lustre to the eyes until his ideal is realized and he sees
Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

... For to be wise and love
Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.

VII. PRIDE

I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that or this
I might grow proud the while.
--_Herrick_.

Let fools great Cupid's yoke disdain,
Loving their own wild freedom better,
Whilst proud of my triumphant chain
I sit, and court my beauteous fetter.
--_Beaumont_.

COMIC SIDE OF LOVE

"There was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself as the
lover doth of the person beloved," said Bacon; "and therefore it is
well said that it is impossible to love and be wise."

Like everything else in this world, love has its comic side. Nothing
could be more amusing, surely, than the pride some men and women
exhibit at having secured for life a mate whom most persons would not
care to own a day. The idealizing process just described is
responsible for this comedy; and a very useful thing it is, too; for
did not the lover's fancy magnify the merits and minify the faults of
the beloved, the number of marriages would not be so large as it is.
Pride is a great match-maker. "It was a proud night with me," wrote
Walter Scott,

"when I first found that a pretty young woman could think it
worth her while to sit and talk with me hour after hour in a
corner of the ball-room, while all the world were capering
in our view."

Such an experience was enough to attune the heart-strings to
love. The youth felt flattered, and flattery is the food of love.

A MYSTERY EXPLAINED

Pride explains some of the greatest mysteries of love. "How _could_
that woman have married such a manikin?" is a question one often
hears. Money, rank, opportunity, lack of taste, account for much, but
in many instances it was pride that first opened the heart to love;
that is, pride was the first of the ingredients of love to capitulate,
and the ot