Little Dinners With the Sphinx, and Other Prose Fancies

by Richard Le Gallienne

WHEN Juliet made her immortal remark concerning the unimportance of names, she was very evidently labouring under great excitement; and it is pertinent to remark too that, being a woman, she came of a sex accustomed from time immemorial to change its name. Besides, in spite of her exclamation: “O Romeo, Romeo—wherefore art thou Romeo?” it is clear from the context that she was really thinking of her lover’s surname, rather than his Christian name:

“Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”

In fact, like any woman in love, she had already forgotten her own surname, and desired, above all things in the world, to write her name, and work it in stitchery as: Juliet Montague. There is little doubt that in the seclusion of her chamber, she had already dipped her seldom-used quill into her ink-horn, and written it over thus many times:

Juliet Montague
Juliet Montague
Juliet Montague
.......
.......
.......

And, if I be wrong in this, of this I am quite sure—that for Romeo, at all events, there was only one name by which to call a woman, the name of Juliet. Indeed, I would venture almost to say that true love knows its affinity by no other sign so surely as the first sound of the destined name. You remember how in Paradise, Rossetti heard the lovers

“Saying each to each
Their heart-remembered names.”

“Their souls were in their names!” says George Meredith, when Richard cried out the name of “Lucy,” and Lucy the name of “Richard.” Their souls—and their inexorable futures!

So was it with Dante when he first saw her who was called “‘Beatrice’ by those who knew not wherefore.” And so, I believe, it is with every man and woman. In fact, I should hardly count it a fancy if it were told me that in our cradles some spirit whispers into the still sensitive porcelain of our ears the name to which our lives shall answer as to the master-word of some dead magician.

We do not know the name—till we hear it, and, meanwhile, may have many mistaken fancies about it. Some beautiful girl of our acquaintance may be so full of charm for us as to cause us so to fall in love with her that we imagine hers to be the destined name. But, after a while that prescience in our ears saves us from the illusion. The ear does not give back that fairy chime when we hear her name, which it can give only to the sound of the name of names. Often our ears seem on the point of vibrating, as a woman tells us her name for the first name, but, after all—it was a false alarm of beauty, and we still go on seeking for the sound that alone can ring true. It may be that, in despair of ever hearing it, we content ourselves with another name; but that is a dangerous course, for one never knows when the fairy name may be spoken in our ears, calling us irresistibly to follow.

Thus I have known of men who were quite sure that their fate-name was Ann, tired out with waiting to hear it, marry another of the name of Mary—and then on their honeymoon, at last hear the name of Ann calling in their ears, with cruel unpunctuality. If only Ann had appeared and spoken her mystic name a month before—how different all would have been! And one could give others examples of other names heard too late.