Professor von Krafft-Ebing, in his admirable Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, thus characterises Erotomania in general: "The kernel of the whole matter is the delusion of being singled out and loved by a person of the other sex, who regularly belongs to a higher social sphere. And it deserves to be noted that the love felt by the patient towards this person is a romantic, ecstatic, but entirely ‘Platonic’ affection. In this respect these patients remind one of the knight-errants and minstrels of bygone times, whom Cervantes has so incisively lashed in his Don Quixote....
"From the looks and gestures of the beloved individual they draw the inference that they in return are not regarded with indifference. With astonishing rapidity they lose their self-possession. The most harmless incidents are regarded by them as signs of love, and an encouragement to draw near. Even newspaper advertisements relating to others are supposed to come from the person in question. Finally, hallucinations make their appearance, by the aid of which the patients begin to be conversant with the object of their love. Illusions also supervene; in the conversations of others the patient fancies he hears references to his love-affairs. He feels happy, exalted in his estimate of himself....
“At last the patient compromises himself by acting in consonance with his delusion, thus making himself ridiculous and impossible in society, and necessitating his confinement in an asylum.”
THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE
The insane freaks of erotomaniacs, and the analogous, ludicrous exaggerations in the expression and conduct of lovers, may be regarded as the pathologic and the comic sides of Love’s Language.
Normally, Romantic Love has no fewer than three languages:—Words, Facial Expression, and Caresses, including Kisses. It will at once be seen that this classification involves a crescendo <, from the weakest form of expression to its climax in kissing. Kissing, indeed, though it comes under the head of Caresses, is of so much significance that it may be regarded, if not as a separate language of Love, at least as a special dialect—perhaps the long-sought world-language intelligible to all?
I.—WORDS
Though the greatest poets have striven to become virtuosi in the art of expressing Love in written language, yet words are the weakest and least trustworthy mode of expressing the amorous emotions. Least trustworthy, because the male flatterer, as well as the female coquette, constantly use language to conceal their thoughts and real emotions. Weakest, because words are less eloquent even than silence. For—
“They that are rich in words must needs discover
They are but poor in that which makes a lover;”