he is unhorsed, like St.
Paul, from his infidel affectation. His heart, which has been ticking
accurate seconds for the last year, gives a bound and begins to beat
high and irregularly in his breast. It seems as if he had never heard or
felt or seen until that moment; and by the report of his memory, he must
have lived his past life between sleep and waking, or with the
pre-occupied attention of a brown study. He is practically incommoded by
the generosity of his feelings, smiles much when he is alone, and
develops a habit of looking rather blankly upon the moon and stars. But
it is not at all within the province of a prose essayist to give a
picture of this hyperbolical frame of mind; and the thing has been done
already, and that to admiration. In "Adelaide," in Tennyson's "Maud,"
and in some of Heine's songs, you get the absolute expression of this
midsummer spirit. Romeo and Juliet were very much in love; although they
tell me some German critics are of a different opinion, probably the
same who would have us think Mercutio a dull fellow. Poor Antony was in
love, and no mistake. That lay figure, Marius, in "Les Miserables," is
also a genuine case in his own way, and worth observation. A good many
of George Sand's people are thoroughly in love; and so are a good many
of George Meredith's. Altogether, there is plenty to read on the
subject. If the root of the matter be in him, and if he has the
requisite chords to set in vibration, a young man may occasionally
enter, with the key of art, into that land of Beulah which is upon the
borders of Heaven, and within sight of the City of Love. There let him
sit awhile to hatch delightful hopes and perilous illusions.

One thing that accompanies the passion in its first blush is certainly
difficult to explain. It comes (I do not quite see how) that from having
a very supreme sense of pleasure in all parts of life--in lying down to
sleep, in waking, in motion, in breathing, in continuing to be--the
lover begins to regard his happiness as beneficial for the rest of the
world and highly meritorious in himself. Our race has never been able
contentedly to suppose that the noise of its wars, conducted by a few
young gentlemen in a corner of an inconsiderable star, does not re-echo
among the courts of Heaven with quite a formidable effect. In much the
same taste, when people find a great to-do in their own breasts, they
imagine it must have some influence in their neighbourhood. The p