resence
of the two lovers is so enchanting to each other that it seems as if it
must be the best thing possible for everybody else. They are half
inclined to fancy it is because of them and their love that the sky is
blue and the sun shines. And certainly the weather is usually fine while
people are courting.... In point of fact, although the happy man feels
very kindly towards others of his own sex, there is apt to be something
too much of the magnifico in his demeanour. If people grow presuming and
self-important over such matters as a dukedom or the Holy See, they will
scarcely support the dizziest elevation in life without some suspicion
of a strut; and the dizziest elevation is to love and be loved in
return. Consequently, accepted lovers are a trifle condescending in
their address to other men. An overweening sense of the passion and
importance of life hardly conduces to simplicity of manner. To women
they feel very nobly, very purely, and very generously, as if they were
so many Joan-of-Arcs; but this does not come out in their behaviour; and
they treat them to Grandisonian airs marked with a suspicion of fatuity.
I am not quite certain that women do not like this sort of thing; but
really, after having bemused myself over "Daniel Deronda," I have given
up trying to understand what they like.

If it did nothing else, this sublime and ridiculous superstition, that
the pleasure of the pair is somehow blessed to others, and everybody is
made happier in their happiness, would serve at least to keep love
generous and greathearted. Nor is it quite a baseless superstition after
all. Other lovers are hugely interested. They strike the nicest balance
between pity and approval, when they see people aping the greatness of
their own sentiments. It is an understood thing in the play, that while
the young gentlefolk are courting on the terrace, a rough flirtation is
being carried on, and a light, trivial sort of love is growing up,
between the footman and the singing chambermaid. As people are generally
cast for the leading parts in their own imaginations, the reader can
apply the parallel to real life without much chance of going wrong. In
short, they are quite sure this other love-affair is not so deep-seated
as their own, but they like dearly to see it going forward. And love,
considered as a spectacle, must have attractions for many who are not of
the confraternity. The sentimental old maid is a commonplace of the
novelist