However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation. It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.
"But to see her were to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever." [8]
Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a warm love has been won by faithful devotion.
Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love, for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9]
Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10]
Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished
"O that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her."
And many will doubtless have felt
"O Love! what hours were thine and mine
In lands of Palm and Southern Pine,
In lands of Palm, of Orange blossom,
Of Olive, Aloe, and Maize and Vine."
What is true of space holds good equally of time.