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What Is Romantic Love?, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
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7. Pride |
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_ VII. PRIDE I dare not ask a kiss, Let fools great Cupid's yoke disdain,
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,
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 others followed suit. Probably that manikin was the first masculine being who ever showed her any attentions. "He appreciates me!" she mused. "I admire his taste--he is not like other men--I like him--I love him." The compliment of a proposal touches a girl's pride and may prove the entering-wedge of love; hence the proverbial folly of accepting a girl's first refusal as final. And if she accepts, the thought that she, the most perfect being in the world, prefers him above all men, inflates his pride to the point of exultation; thenceforth he can talk and think only in "three pil'd hyperboles." He wants all the world to know how he has been distinguished. In a Japanese poem translated by Lafcadio Hearn (_G.B.F._, 38) a lover exclaims: I cannot hide in my heart the happy knowledge that fills it;
IMPORTANCE OF PRIDE To realize fully how important an ingredient in love pride is, we need only consider the effect of a refusal. Of all the pangs that make up its agony none is keener than that of wounded pride or vanity. Hence the same lover who, if successful, wants all the world to know how he has been distinguished, is equally anxious, in case of a refusal, to keep it a secret. Schopenhauer went so far as to assert that both in the pain of unrequited love and the joy of success, vanity is a more important factor than the thwarting of sensual desires, because only a psychic disturbance can stir us so deeply. Shakspere knew that while there are many kinds of pride, the best and deepest is that which a man feels in his love. Some, he says, glory in their birth, some in their skill, some in their wealth, some in their body's force, or their garments, or horses; but ---Sonnet XCI.
VARIETIES AND GERMS While amorous pride has also an altruistic aspect in so far as the lover is proud not only of being chosen but also of another's perfections, it nevertheless belongs, in the main, in the egoistic group, and there is therefore no reason why we should not look for it in the lower stages of erotic evolution. Pride and vanity are feelings which characterize all grades of human beings from the highest to the lowest. As regards amorous pride, however, it is obvious that the conditions for its existence are not favorable among such aboriginals, _e.g._, as the Australians. What occasion is there for pride on the part of a man who exchanges his sister or daughter for another man's sister or daughter, or on the part of the female who is thus exchanged? An American Indian's pride consists not in having won the favor of one particular girl, but in having been able to buy or steal as many women as possible, married or unmarried; and the bride's pride is proportionate to her lover's prowess in this direction. I need not add that the pride at being a successful squaw-stealer differs not only in degree but in kind from the exultation of a white American lover at the thought that the most beautiful and perfect girl in the world has chosen him above all men as her sole and exclusive sweetheart. Gibbs says (I., 197-200) of the Indians of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon that they usually seek their wives among other tribes than their own.
Shooter gives an amusing account of how the African Kaffirs, when a girl is averse to a marriage, attempt to influence her feelings before resorting to compulsion.
If it ever is, we would have here a germ of amorous pride. Others may be found in Hindoo literature, as in _Malati and Madhava_, where the intermediary speaks of having dwelt on the lover's merits and rank in the presence of the heroine, in the hope of influencing her. "Extolling the lover's merits" is mentioned as one of the ten stages of love in the Hindoo _ars amandi_. In Oriental countries in general, where it is difficult or impossible for young men and women to see one another before the wedding-day, the praising of candidates by and to intermediaries has been a general custom. Dr. T. Loebel (9-14) relates that before a Turk reaches the age of twenty-two his parents look about for a bride for him. They send out female friends and intermediaries who "praise and exaggerate the accomplishments of the young man" in houses where they suspect the presence of eligible girls. These female intermediaries are called kyz-goeruedschue or "girl-seers." Having found a maiden that appears suitable, they exclaim, "What a lovely girl! She resembles an angel! What beautiful eyes! True gazelle-eyes! And her hair! Her teeth are like pearls." When the young man hears the reports of this beauty, he forthwith falls in love with her, and, although he has never seen her, declares he "will marry her and no other." A sense of humor is not given to every man: Dr. Loebel remarks seriously that this disproves the slanderous assertion so often made that the Turks are incapable of true love! In their treatment and estimate of women the ancient Greeks resembled the modern Turks. The poets joined the philosophers in declaring that "nature herself," as Becker sums them up (Ill., 315), "assigned to woman a position far beneath man." As there is little occasion for pride in having won the favor of so inferior a being, the erotic literature of the Greeks is naturally not eloquent on this subject. Such evidence of amorous pride as we find in it, and in Roman poetry, is usually in connection with mercenary women. The poets, being poor, had only one way of winning the favor of these wantons: they could celebrate their charms in verse. This aroused the pride of the hetairai, and their grateful caresses made the poets proud at having a means of winning favor more powerful even than money. But with genuine love these feelings have nothing to do.
NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SYMPTOMS OF LOVE In common with ambition and other strong passions, love has the power of changing a man's character for the time being. One of the speakers in Plutarch's dialogue on love ([Greek: Erotikos], 17) declares that every lover becomes generous and magnanimous, though he may have been niggardly before; but, characteristically enough, it is the love for boys, not for women, that is referred to. A modern lover is affected that way by love for women. He feels proud of being distinguished by the preference of such a girl, and on the principle of _noblesse oblige_, he tries to become worthy of her. This love makes the cowardly brave, the weak strong, the dull witty, the prosy poetic, the slouches tidy. Burton glows eloquent on this subject (Ill., 2), confounding, as usual, love with lust. Ovid notes that when Polyphemus courted Galatea the desire to please made him arrange his hair and beard, using the water as a mirror; wherein the Roman poet shows a keener sense of the effect of infatuation than his Greek predecessor, Theocritus, who (Id., XIV.) describes the enamoured Aischines as going about with beard neglected and hair dishevelled; or than Callimachus, concerning whose love-story of Acontius and Cydippe Mahaffy says (_G. L. and T.,_ 239):
Orlando: "What were his marks?" Rosalind:
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