The dream of life indeed can last with none of us,—
As if the thing beloved were all a Saint,
And every place she entered were a shrine:5
but it must be our own fault, when it has past away, if the realities disappoint us: they are not “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,” unless we ourselves render them so. The preservation of the species is not the sole end for which love was implanted in the human heart; that end the Almighty might as easily have effected by other means: not so the developement of our moral nature, which is its higher purpose. The comic poet asserts that
Verum illud verbum est vulgo quod dici solet,
Omnes sibi esse melius malle, quam alteri:6
but this is not true in love. The lover never says
Heus proximus sum egomet mihi;6
He knows and understands the falsehood of the Greek adage,
φιλεῖ δ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ πλεῖον οὐδείς οὐδένα.
and not lovers alone, but husbands and wives, and parents feel that there are others who are dearer to them than themselves. Little do they know of human nature who speak of marriage as doubling our pleasures and dividing our griefs: it doubles, or more than doubles both.
5 GONDIBERT.