‘The same kind of feeling; but there’s vast difference of degree.’
‘To be sure. I think it’s only a matter of degree. When it rises to the point of frenzy people may strictly be said to be in love; and, as I tell you, I think that comes to pass very rarely indeed. For my own part, I have no experience of it, and think I never shall have.’
‘I can’t say the same.’
They laughed.
‘I dare say you have imagined yourself in love—or really been so for aught I know—a dozen times. How the deuce you can attach any importance to such feeling where marriage is concerned I don’t understand.’
‘Well, now,’ said Whelpdale, ‘I have never upheld the theory—at least not since I was sixteen—that a man can be in love only once, or that there is one particular woman if he misses whom he can never be happy. There may be thousands of women whom I could love with equal sincerity.’
‘I object to the word “love” altogether. It has been vulgarised. Let us talk about compatibility. Now, I should say that, no doubt, and speaking scientifically, there is one particular woman supremely fitted to each man. I put aside consideration of circumstances; we know that circumstances will disturb any degree of abstract fitness. But in the nature of things there must be one woman whose nature is specially well adapted to harmonise with mine, or with yours. If there were any means of discovering this woman in each case, then I have no doubt it would be worth a man’s utmost effort to do so, and any amount of erotic jubilation would be reasonable when the discovery was made. But the thing is impossible, and, what’s more, we know what ridiculous fallibility people display when they imagine they have found the best substitute for that indiscoverable. This is what makes me impatient with sentimental talk about marriage. An educated man mustn’t play so into the hands of ironic destiny. Let him think he wants to marry a woman; but don’t let him exaggerate his feelings or idealise their nature.’
‘There’s a good deal in all that,’ admitted Whelpdale, though discontentedly.
‘There’s more than a good deal; there’s the last word on the subject. The days of romantic love are gone by. The scientific spirit has put an end to that kind of self-deception. Romantic love was inextricably blended with all sorts of superstitions—belief in personal immortality, in superior beings, in—all the rest of it. What we think of now is moral and intellectual and physical compatibility; I mean, if we are reasonable people.’
‘And if we are not so unfortunate as to fall in love with an incompatible,’ added Whelpdale, laughing.