"Mrs. Jameson has noticed that in All's Well that Ends Well (I., 180-89), Helena mockingly reproduces this style of amorous antithesis. Helena, who lives so effectively in the world of fact, is contemptuous toward all unreality and affectation."
Now, it is quite true that expressions like "cold fire" and "sick health" sound unreal and affected to sober minds, and it is also true that many poets have exercised their emulous ingenuity in inventing such antitheses just for the fun of the thing and because it has been the fashion to do so. Nevertheless, with all their artificiality, they were hinting at an emotional phenomenon which actually exists. Romantic love is in reality a state of mind in which cold and heat may and do alternate so rapidly that "cold fire" seems the only proper expression to apply to such a mixed feeling. It is literally true that, as Bailey sang, "the sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love;" literally true that "the sweets of love are washed with tears," as Carew wrote, or, as H.K. White expressed it, "'Tis painful, though 'tis sweet to love." A man who has actually experienced the feeling of uncertain love sees nothing unreal or affected in Tennyson's
The cruel madness of love
The honey of poisoned flowers,
or in Drayton's
'Tis nothing to be plagued in hell
But thus in heaven tormented,
or in Dryden's
I feed a flame within, which so torments me
That it both pains my heart, and yet enchants me:
'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove it,
or in Juliet's
Good-night! good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
This mysterious mixture of moods, constantly maintained through the alternations of hope and doubt, elation and despair,