s; and he must be rather a poor sort of human being, to be sure,
who can look on at this pretty madness without indulgence and sympathy.
For nature commends itself to people with a most insinuating art; the
busiest is now and again arrested by a great sunset; and you may be as
pacific or as coldblooded as you will, but you cannot help some emotion
when you read of well-disputed battles, or meet a pair of lovers in the
lane.

Certainly, whatever it may be with regard to the world at large, this
idea of beneficent pleasure is true as between the sweethearts. To do
good and communicate is the lover's grand intention. It is the happiness
of the other that makes his own most intense gratification. It is not
possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride, humility,
pity, and passion, which are excited by a look of happy love or an
unexpected caress. To make one's self beautiful, to dress the hair, to
excel in talk, to do anything and all things that puff out the character
and attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only
to magnify oneself, but to offer the most delicate homage at the same
time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers;
for the essence of love is kindness: and indeed it may be best defined
as passionate kindness: kindness, so to speak, run mad and become
importunate and violent. Vanity in a merely personal sense exists no
longer. The lover takes a perilous pleasure in privately displaying his
weak points and having them, one after another, accepted and condoned.
He wishes to be assured that he is not loved for this or that good
quality, but for himself, or something as like himself as he can
contrive to set forward. For, although it may have been a very difficult
thing to paint the marriage of Cana, or write the fourth act of _Antony
and Cleopatra_, there is a more difficult piece of art before every one
in this world who cares to set about explaining his own character to
others. Words and acts are easily wrenched from their true significance;
and they are all the language we have to come and go upon. A pitiful job
we make of it, as a rule. For better or worse, people mistake our
meaning and take our emotions at a wrong valuation. And generally we
rest pretty content with our failures; we are content to be
misapprehended by crackling flirts; but when once a man is moonstruck
with this affection of love, he makes it a point of honour to clear such
dubiet