hat "no one would be so foolish as
to deny the existence of pure, strong love in the Greek life of this
period;" and ten lines farther on he backs down again, admitting that
though there may be indications of supersensual, sentimental love in
the literature of this period these traits _had not yet taken hold of
the life of these men_, though there were _longings_ for them. And at
the end of the paragraph he emphasizes his back-down by declaring that
"the very essence of sentimental poetry is the _longing for what does
not exist_." (_Ist doch das rechte Element gerade der sentimentalen
Poesie die Sehnsucht nach dem nicht Vorhandenen_.) What makes this
admission the more significant is that Professor Rohde, in speaking of
"sentimental" elements, does not even use that word as the adjective
of sentiment but of sentimentality. He defines this _Sentimentalitaet_
to which he refers as a "_ Sehnen, Sinnen und Hoffen_," a
"_Selbstgenuss der Leidenschaft_"--a "longing, dreaming, and hoping,"
a "revelling in (literally, self-enjoying of) passion." In other
words, an enjoyment of emotion for emotion's sake, a gloating over
one's selfish joys and sorrows. Now in this respect I actually go
beyond Rohde as a champion of Greek love! Such _Sentimentalitaet_
existed, I am convinced, in Alexandrian life as well as in Alexandrian
literature; but of the existence of true supersensual altruistic
_sentiment_ I can find no evidence. The trouble with Rohde, as with so
many who have written on this subject, is that he has no clear idea of
the distinction between sensual love, which is selfish
(_Selbstgenuss_) and romantic love, which is altruistic; hence he
flounders in hopeless contradictions.

[315] See Anthon, 258, and the authors there referred to.

[316] See Theocritus, Idyll XVII. Regarding the silly and degrading
adulation which the Alexandrian court-poets were called upon to bestow
on the kings and queens, and its demoralizing effect on literature,
see also Christ's _Griechische Litteraturgeschichte_, 493-494 and 507.

[317] I have given Professor Rohde's testimony on this point not only
because he is a famous specialist in the literature of this period,
but because his peculiar bias makes his negative attitude in regard to
the question of Alexandrian gallantry the more convincing. A reader of
his book would naturally expect him to take the opposite view, since
he himself fancied he had discovered traces of gallantry in an author
who