eciate the peculiar appropriateness of the term.
What is the dictionary definition of "romantic"?

"Pertaining to or resembling romance, or an ideal state of
things; partaking of the heroic, the marvellous, the
supernatural, or the imaginative; chimerical, fanciful,
extravagantly enthusiastic."

Every one of these terms applies to love in the sense in which I use
the word. Love is ideal, heroic, marvellous, imaginative, chimerical,
fanciful, extravagantly enthusiastic; its hyperbolic adoration even
gives it a supernatural tinge, for the adored girl seems more like an
angel or a fairy than a common mortal. The lover's heroine is as
fictitious as any heroine of romance; he considers her the most
beautiful and lovable person in the world, though to others she may
seem ugly and ill-tempered. Thus love is called romantic, because it
is so great a romancer, attributing to the beloved all sorts of
perfections which exist only in the lover's fancy. What could be more
fantastic than a lover's stubborn preference for a particular
individual and his conviction that no one ever loved so frantically as
he does? What more extravagant and unreasonable than his imperious
desire to completely monopolize her affection, sometimes guarding her
jealously even from her girl friends or her nearest relatives? What
more romantic than the tortures and tragedies, the mixed emotions,
that doubt or jealousy gives rise to? Does not a willing but coyly
reserved maiden romance about her feelings? What could be more
fanciful and romantic than her shy reserve and coldness when she is
longing to throw herself into the lover's arms? Is not her proud
belief that her lover--probably as commonplace and foolish a fellow as
ever lived--is a hero or a genius a romantic exaggeration? Is not the
lover's purity of imagination, though real as a feeling, a romantic
illusion, since he craves ultimate possession of her and would be the
unhappiest of mortals if she went to a nunnery, though she promised to
love him always? What could be more marvellous, more chimerical, than
this temporary suppression of a strong appetite at the time when it
would be supposed to manifest itself most irresistibly--this
distilling of the finer emotions, leaving all the gross, material
elements behind? Can you imagine anything more absurdly romantic than
the gallant attentions of a man on his knees before a girl whom, with
his stronger muscles, he could command as a