and
royal blood, clothe the body thus formed with brilliant scarfs and
shining armour, put it on the best horse that was ever foaled, or kneel
it at the feet of the most beautiful princess that ever existed, and you
have Cyrus. For the princess herself take beauty, dignity, modesty,
graciousness, etc., _quant. suff._, clothe _them_ in garments again
magnificent, and submit the total to extreme inconveniences, some
dangers, and an immense amount of involuntary travelling, but nothing
"irreparable," and you have Mandane. For the rest, with the rare and
slight exceptions mentioned, they flit like shadows ticketed with more
or less beautiful names. Even Philidaspes, the most prominent male
character after the hero by far, is, whether he be "in cog" as that
personage or "out of cog" as Prince and King of Assyria, merely a
petulant hero--a sort of cheap Achilles, with no idiosyncrasy at all. It
is the fault, and in a way the very great fault, of all the kind: and
there is nothing more to do with it but to admit it and look for
something to set against it.

How great a thing the inception (to use a favourite word of the present
day, though it be no favourite of the writer's) of the "psychological"
treatment of Love[191] was may, of course, be variously estimated. The
good conceit of itself in which that day so innocently and amusingly
indulges will have it, indeed, that the twentieth century has invented
this among other varieties of the great and venerable art of extracting
nourishment from eggs. "We have," somebody wrote not long ago--the exact
words may not be given, but the sense is guaranteed--"perceived that
Love is not merely a sentiment, an appetite, or a passion, but a great
means of intellectual development." Of course Solomon did not know this,
nor Sappho, nor Catullus, nor the fashioners of those "sentiments" of
the Middle Ages which brought about the half-fabulous Courts of Love
itself, nor Chaucer, nor Spenser, nor Shakespeare, nor Donne. It was
reserved for--but one never names contemporaries except _honoris causa_.

It is--an "of course" of another kind--undeniable that the fashion of
love-philosophy which supplies so large a part of the "yarn" of
Madeleine de Scudery's endless rope or web is not _our_ fashion. But it
is, in a way, a new variety of yarn as compared with anything used
before in prose, even in the Greek romances[192] and the _Amadis_ group
(nay, even in the _Astree_ itself). Among other things,