LESSONS IN LOVE.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 131, 17 March 1883, Page 424

LESSONS IN LOVE.

A iiADT ■wrote to the Obseb/veb. two weeks ago under the deceitful title of " Old Maid," telling us the old, old story, how that women are all for loye, and should therefore be cherished. Now, we are very far from denying the main proposition laid down by •" Old Maid." No doubt women are more prone to seek love and men to seek ambition. What we would like to establish is this, that if love is to women what ambition, beer, billiards, skittles, and women are to men, it is time that love were vai'ied by some more substantial mental food. By love we mean the Inclination of the one sex to the other. Love is a sort of dissipation. A clerical poet says, "The lazy man the most doth love," and this remark applies equally to women. They could do with less love and more variety of work. Women's nature bears only one kind of fruit — the manifestation of sexual love. Man's nature is far more varied and versatile, and bears a variety of fruits. A woman is like a watch, never at rest, always tick, tick, ticking, and never getting beyond one thing — love. A man is like a Bteam engine, often in repose, but with a pow.er that can be utilised for a multitude of purposes, of which love is only a subordinate one. That women bear nothing but love-fruit is partly a result of their natural constitution, but nearly as much the result of education. If they cannot love well and be constant, then there is no reason for their being. They are not taught to do much else. Because women show more constancy than men in love affairs and do not take the initiative in public places, a notion has sprung up that they have a superior nature to men. Now, the fact is, their constancy and softness pf demeanour are more the result of necessity than of disposition. A woman is constant because, as a rule, she has not one fiftieth parb the same temptation that a man has. No man spreads his wiles for her, but if he wants her he comes, and she can soon tell what he- is driving 'at. On the other hand, a man is beset with women wheresoever he goes, and is continually (even without being conscious of it) stepping over the nets which they have deftly laid about him. Women's constancy and gentleness depend upon seclusion. We see this clearly in the case of female politicians, actresses, society-leaders, and professional beauties. From all of these the constancy has nearly disappeared, and a good deal of the true gentleness. They have got a working sphere other than that of mere love, and while they show a fuller nature, they often exhibit more of the hard, selfish, unkind characteristics supposed to be peculiar to the male than men themselves. The female nature is not generous, especially towards its own sex, and when a woman obtains influence or power, she will use ' it far more ruthlessly, callously, and often more indelicately, than a man. A professional beauty, drunken with the incense of society, will ruin her husband with more than masculine selfishness. A woman besotted with illicit love will tear, trample upon, and sacrifice innocent individuals without a qualm, and resort to subterfuges perfectly astounding to the iil-dissembhng male. "Old Maid" draws fallacious distinction between woman's love and men's love. We will call her loye sexual love, for that is clearly what she means. There are three elements combined in sexual love : There is the instinctive inclination or pas- ' sion pure (" Old Maid " would call it passion impure), there i« vanity, and there is intellectual admiration and sympathy. In our opinion, the bulk of marriages result from the first twoelements. They are the consequence of a good deal of passion on the part of the man, and a good deal of vanity on the part of the woman. It is by such blind-fold marriages as these that the world is kept going. If there were no marriages but those based upon congeniality and intellectual sympathy, we should, most of us, .probably not be here. It is a most unfortunate thing, but men are inclined to jump at any woman whose physical points attract them, and women are disposed to yield to the man who tickles their vanity the most. The man would " possess," the woman would " be possessed." Now, " Old Maid " thinks that this yielding sensation, this dreamy desire "to be possessed," is "pure love." Missy, you are wrong ; it is a mixture of vanity and passion, taking the form of self -abandonment. Your idea of purity is the result of the law of marriage which has taught you that you must be possessed only after compliance with certain legal formalities-. The "Belle Sauvage," or the faithless wife, does not trouble herself about such accidentals, but her longings and self-abandonment are every bit as natural as yours. In short, your very proper love is after all only .the instinctive inclination of nature, the compliment of the man's instinctive inclination. But because man's r6le is an active one, and yours is a passive one, you think there is something more ethereal in your sexual love than there is in that of a man. It is just six and half-a-dozen. If you doubt what I say, read Schopenhauer on the " Metaphysics of Love." If your feelings are not too much for you, you will get some eye-openers there, and will find that your so-called love is but t a manifestation of the tyrannical laws of nature divested of all social namby-pambyism. There is, however, a superior love based upon the three elements mentioned a^ove, but in which the intellectual admiration and sympathy predominate. Here the man regards the woman more as a friend and comrade than a dainty lollypop, and the woman looks upon the man as pre- ' ceptor and comrade rather than voluptuous Joe. This is a civilised union. The natural propensities of passion and vanity are subordinated to the higher faculties developed by civilisation. Such unions have in them so much of mutual respect, and so little of turbulence, that they differ from ordinary marriages, as a jug of crystal water differs from a foaming bowl of champagne. It is a source of perennial refreshment without any Jigadache, stateness, or reaction. If " Old Maid" is of this intellectual sort, I shall be happy to meet her, especially if she has only her intellectual superiority to blame for her celibacy. We are no sta^gta cankered widowers, harping upon the virtdw^H yices" o£ our " late lamented "; we _.eajoy the most Bublime ignorance of majfriage^ and are \ dxiftiiJgKiißelcably tkbouf %"ntU^ ocea n of bachelor-

I !■; . r ! -,:;., \ hood, with few external graces and such hidden virtues, that we modestly conceal ourselves behind a newspaper. Let " Old Maid " come and find them out. , .. : GrEOEGKE.