Search -
Maxims by a man of the world, by the author of 'Lost sir Massingberd'.
Maxims by a man of the world by the author of 'Lost sir Massingberd' Author:James Payn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LOYE. A S there are few men who do not think that they "" can poke afire and drive a gig—and (such is the inordinate conceit of human nature), I may add, play... more » at whist—so there are few who do not flatter themselves that they have fallen in love, or, at all events, are capable of doing so upon provocation. This is an error not the less great that it is popular. Very few men ever do 'fall in love'—in the usual acceptation of that phrase—and, save at a very early age, not very many are capable of it. On the other hand, those that boast themselves of being impregnable to this tender sentiment, are often among those most liable to it. The truth is, that the world in general has (for once) chosen to accept the term " love" in the exaggerated sense in which it is used by poets; a very remarkable dialectic phenomenon. Love, instead of being apassion, is understood to be a sort of enchantment, a glamour. The victim (or whatever you please to call the person thus possessed) is supposed to see all things in a new light; the gentleman with jaundice takes all for yellow, the gentleman in love for rose-colour. Love takes up the glass of Time, and turns it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, runs itself in golden sands. The hours fly, the minutes flash by like gorgeous insects in the sunshine. The whole being of the lover is rapt, and spiritually incorporated in the Object. His thoughts are incessantly occupied with her, and he holds his newspaper upside down. He is always philandering after her, and takes no pleasure in the society of friends—I don't mean Quakers, of course, but in his old companions who were once so dear to him.' If she has a headache, he is desolated: but it is to be observed here, that if she is attacked by the mumps, or suffers from any even less di...« less