Lover's Leap

“ Thus, the pair of lovers could be jarred apart by misunderstood motives, by accident of fate, by jealous rivals, by irate parents, by crafty guardians, by scheming relatives, and so forth and so forth; they could be reunited by a brave deed of the man lover, by a similar deed of the woman lover, by change of heart in one lover or the other, by forced confession of crafty guardian, scheming relative, or jealous rival, by voluntary confession of same, by discovery of some unguessed secret, by lover storming girl’s heart, by lover making long and noble self-sacrifice, and so on, endlessly. ”

“ I remember hearing of an instance of this nature, when the lady gave her ci-devant lover an ingenious reproof, after they had been separated some time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference of profit to true affection. ”

“ As a reward for these sacrifices, I will bring you as much pleasure as pain.” And the incredible part about it is, that the lover triumphs. The form which his speech takes carries it. He says but one phrase: “I love you.” A lover is a herald who proclaims either the merit, the beauty, or the wit of a woman. What does a husband proclaim?
To sum up all, the love which a married woman inspires, or that which she gives back, is the least creditable sentiment in the world; in her it is boundless vanity; in her lover it is selfish egotism. ”

“ Vigils the heart's penance keeping;
Shedding tears, that while they fall,
Are ashamed to weep at all.
There are darker hours in store,
Loving—yet beloved no more.
When the lover's heart is changed,
And the lover's eye has ranged. ”

“ Up she went, and I says, 'Now there's two of them!' but as she went shootin' up past him she reaches out a hand and grabs her well-intended by the foot and clings on. For a second or two they was all one ball, and then down they come. Gradual. Slow and gradual. They was too heavy for the air-current when together that way, and down they come. So that's why we call this here lot Lover's Leap. This Sally person leaped up and saved this Joe feller. ”

“ This is Leander, the horror of fathers, husbands, and guardians, the delight of wives, daughters, and wards—in one word, the lover—the very beau-ideal of a lover; young, handsome, ardent, ready for anything, winning over strict old duennas, bribing pert waiting-maids, climbing up rope-ladders, overcoming every obstacle to reach the fair mistress of his affections, and kneeling at her feet to pour out burning protestations of love and devotion, that no mortal woman could ever resist. ”

“ The lover must be constant, not lewd, impure and faithless; when he is far from his beloved he must heave sigh upon sigh; his heart must be fixed on one from whom he endures wrath or sorrow if need be. I hate heartless love—embracing, kissing, noisy bussing. ”

“ Yet, now that there appeared to have arisen an even greater barrier, she began to realize that all hope had not been quite dead—that, in her heart, she had all the time been nursing a tender shoot of affection, and a faint belief that her lover would never relinquish his desire to win her. ”

“ With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: "Who are you, and what do you want?" He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore, The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever. ”

“ When the lover for the first time beholds the object of his love, longing clouds his eyes. Certainly, his sentiment is no less noble or less great, but it is of a very different nature! Other joys are mine, a thousand, new and glorious emotions, emotions of the heart and of the mind, the childish and girlish joys of dressing up, decorating and adorning, of creating form and colour, in a word, beauty, the stuff of which happiness is made!"
Rose interrupted me:
"Happiness? Do you think so?"
"Yes, because beauty calls for love. Does not our happiness as women lie above everything in love?" ”

“ What could be more fanciful and romantic than her shy reserve and coldness when she is longing to throw herself into the lover's arms? Is not her proud belief that her lover—probably as commonplace and foolish a fellow as ever lived—is a hero or a genius a romantic exaggeration? Is not the lover's purity of imagination, though real as a feeling, a romantic illusion, since he craves ultimate possession of her and would be the unhappiest of mortals if she went to a nunnery, though she promised to love him always? ”

“ What of this new and astonishing revelation—new and astonishing to him, at any rate—that love, to a woman, is not a mere decoction of bliss administered by a powerful and benevolent male, but a highly complicated universe of subjective illusions in which the lover is only dimly seen as a necessary but disturbing phantom of gross and agonizing ineptitudes? ”

“ How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover. ”

“ He may honour who dreads, who is struck dumb with fear and wonder. Not so the lover. Love aboundeth in itself, and derides and imprisons the other emotions. Wherefore she who loves, loves, and knows nothing else. And He who is to be honoured and marvelled at, still loves rather to be loved. Bridegroom and Bride they are. And what necessity or bond is there between spouses except to be loved and love?
“Think also, that the Bridegroom is not only loving but very love. Is He also honour? ”

“ What could be more fantastic than a lover's stubborn preference for a particular individual and his conviction that no one ever loved so frantically as he does? What more extravagant and unreasonable than his imperious desire to completely monopolize her affection, sometimes guarding her jealously even from her girl friends or her nearest relatives? What more romantic than the tortures and tragedies, the mixed emotions, that doubt or jealousy gives rise to? Does not a willing but coyly reserved maiden romance about her feelings? ”

“ No sooner has a fair face made its impress on the heart than hopes and fears spring up in alternation. Every action, every word, every look is noted and examined with a jealous scrutiny; and the heart of the lover, changing like the chameleon, takes its hues from the latest sentiment that may have dropped from the loved one’s lips. ”

“ If it has beauty, it is the beauty of a grimmer Realism. It possesses the quality of deep irony, that she should help her lover to Others! And that thereby Others should receive more! But the real romance lies in the return to the Beloved. Her errant Lover is a Retriever who brings rich gifts from the world to lay at the feet of his Mistress. ”

“ Yet their light is united in a single ray.
No lover ever seeks union with his beloved,
But his beloved is also seeking union with him.
But the lover's love makes his body lean,
While the beloved's love makes hers fair and lusty. ”

“ As soon as we truly see these things, we know the secret of real love, which is beauty's expression. The lover is no longer lover only, but love-master—all domination of the sexes then becomes a slavery of the past. The lover is parent, mate and child in one. Each is also the other's teacher.
At the beginning these lovers give each other complete freedom, knowing that nothing can be maintained that is held; that joyous freedom is its own wise bondage. The finding of the lover is never the end of the quest as in the world. ”

“ That which may be anticipated, at length comes to pass; the lover returns—he flies to his mistress—she receives him with blushing cheek and palpitating heart. I shall not attempt to describe the scene, but throughout the day and night that succeeds that interview the lover seems like one distracted. In the city, in the fields—alone, or in company—he hears nothing but the magic words, “I LOVE YOU!” ringing in his ears, and feels that ecstatic delight which it is permitted mortals to taste but once in their lives. ”

“ Lovers in those days were expected to show the most definite symptoms of their malady; for, according to law, "Every lover is accustomed to grow pale at the sight of his lady-love;" "At the sudden and unexpected prospect of his lady-love, the heart of the true lover invariably palpitates;" and "A real lover is always the prey of anxiety and malaise." Also, "A person who is the prey of love eats little and sleeps little." ”

“ No lover, longing for his loves, complaineth of desire, But with a doubled stress of woe my heart is overborne.
Of passion I complain to one who hath no ruth on me. How soul and body by desire are, one from other, torn!”
Then her eyes brimmed over with tears, and she wrote these verses also:
“Love-longing, the day of our parting, my body with mourning smote, And severance from my eyelids hath made sleep far remote. ”

“ One of the knowing ones, a girl who had had several love affairs, answered that that was one of the best signs of love.
“She is always thinking of her lover, and pays no attention to anything else; that is all,” she declared.
“Young ladies, please attend to your work!” put in the forewoman, a little sharply, and the merry girls who had been discussing love and marriage so gayly became mute as their fingers took up their tasks again. ”

“ So he shed copious tears and repeated the following verses:
The lover is drunken with love of his fair; In longing and heat he redoubles fore’er.
Love-maddened, confounded, distracted, perplexed, No dwelling is pleasant to him and no fare.
For how, to a lover cut off from his love, Can life be delightsome? ’Twere strange an it were.
I melt with the fire of my passion for her And the tears down my cheek roll and never forbear. ”

“ That refined degree of Platonic affection which is absolutely detached from the flesh, and is indeed entirely and purely spiritual, is a gift confined to the female part of the creation; many of whom I have heard declare (and doubtless with great truth) that they would, with the utmost readiness, resign a lover to a rival, when such resignation was proved to be necessary for the temporal interest of such lover. ”

“ Fair hid her sweet face against her lover’s shoulder, that he might not see and wonder at the mingled joy and sorrow in her expressive eyes—joy that he had loved her, sorrow that through her haste in wedding a miserable impostor she had missed the opportunity of her life. ”

“ In the dim light she could see his face bent over her—the face of her man, the man she loved, and all that was woman and lover within her leaped to answer the call of her mate—the infinite, imperious demand of human love that has waited and hungered through empty days and nights till at last it shall be answered by the loved one. ”

“ The lover fails to understand and sickness creeps upon him, as men sicken of hidden poison. Tell me," he added brutally, leaning toward her, "for who should know better than you? does not the sweetest hour of love hold a drop of bitter? Why do you not restore your lovers to their reason, to the service of the state, to a knowledge of nature?" ”

“ This naïve self-confidence of the lover in the unprecedented ardour and uniqueness of his passion is one of the most sublime and ridiculous aspects of Love.
And here it may be said, for the benefit of timid souls who may possibly fear that harm may result to the cause of Love from exposing its perishableness, that the only persons who could be injured by the destruction of this illusion—those who happen to be in Love—will positively and absolutely refuse to believe that their particular passion is fugitive. ”

“ We have jogged on so far very well without sentiment: let us not take a dose of it now.
I solemnly protest that I had left Grove End with Theresa, en route for the church, with no more intention of telling [196] my love than of playing at leap-frog with the haystacks on the road. This has happened to others. Have I not seen? No rules govern the heart. At the most unexpected moment love is blurted out, proposals of marriage stammered through; emotion triumphs over fear, and even imbecility grows eloquent. Let the ladies be grateful for these little bursts of passion. ”

“ Professor Bain remarks, “is by its nature diffused: even the maternal feeling admits of plurality of objects; revenge does not desire to have but one victim; the love of domination needs many subjects; but the greatest intensity of love limits the regards to one.”3177 The beloved person acquires, in the imagination of the lover, an immeasurable superiority over all others. “The beginnings of a special affection,” the same psychologist says, “turn upon a small difference of liking ”

“ In the first place, it takes many generations to wipe out entirely the ugliness inherited from our unæsthetic ancestors; secondly, Romantic Love, based on æsthetic admiration, is still very commonly ignored in the marriage market in favour of considerations of rank and wealth; and thirdly, a lover, infatuated by his sweetheart’s fascinating eyes, is apt to overlook her large nose or mouth—till after the honeymoon. ”