who will receive pardon neither in this world nor the next.

This is nothing new. It is the attitude of the established whenever its
conventions are attacked. It was the attitude of the Jew toward Christ,
of the Roman toward the Christian, of the Christian toward the infidel
and the heretic. And it is sincere and natural. All things desire to
endure, and they die hard. Love will die hard, as died the idolatries
of our forefathers, the geocentric theory of the universe, and the
divine right of kings.

So, I say, the rancour and warmth of the established when attacked is
sincere. The world is mastered by the convention of love, and when one
profanes love's Holy of Holies the world is unutterably shocked and
hurt. Love is a thing for lovers only. It must not be approached by the
sacrilegious scientist. Let him keep to his physics and chemistry,
things definite and solid and gross. Love is for ardent speculation, not
laboratory analysis. Love is (as the reverend prior and the learned
bodies told brother Lippo of man's soul):--

"--a fire, smoke ... no, it's not ...
It's vapour done up like a new-born babe--
(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)
It's ... well, what matters talking, it's the soul!"

I thoroughly understand the popular sentimental repugnance to a
scientific discussion of love. Because I dissect love, and weigh and
calculate, it is denied that I am capable of experiencing love. It is
too radiant and glorious a thing for a dull clod like me to know. And
because I cannot experience love and be made mad by it, my fitness to
describe its phenomena is likewise denied. Only the lover may describe
love. And only the lunatic, I suppose, may compose a medical brochure on
insanity.

HERBERT.

XXXI

FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE

LONDON,
October 7, 19--.

It is true that you have a hard task before you, but it is not because
you are fighting convention and shattering illusion; it is because you
are assailing a good. Love has never acquired the prestige of the
established, and the run of marriages are prompted by advantage,
routine, or passion. So you are no innovator, Herbert. The idolatry of
love will not be overthrown by a drawn battle between those of the Faith
and those of the Reformation. Nothing so spectacular awaits us.

I have a friend who has undertaken to translate "Inferno" into English,
keeping to the _terza rima_. "It is like climbing the Matterho