[ 14 ] [July, 



the prose .\lbuim : maxims on mankind. 



I. 



No person who is in love can ever be entirely persuaded that the 

 passion is not reciprocal ; as no one who does not feel it ever believes 

 that it is sincere in others. 



II. 



Love is a fascination with some one striking excellence or indescribable 

 grace, that supplies all other deficiencies, and fills the whole soul with a 

 certain rapture. Hence the desire we have to find our passion unequivo- 

 cally returned ; for, as from its very nature, every thing connected with 

 the beloved object is steeped in a sense of delight, and her every 

 thought and feeling is supposed to be of the most exquisite kind, to be 

 well thought of by her is necessarily to occupy the highest place in 

 our own esteem : to be excluded from her favour and countenance, is 

 to be turned out of Paradise. 



III. 



Some have described love to be an exaggerated sense of excellence in 

 another, without the chance or hope of making itself understood — a 

 teazing pursuit of difficulty — a " hvmting the wind, and worshipping 

 a statue." This is, at most, a definition of unsuccessful love. It has 

 been made a question, whether any woman would be proof against the 

 real language of the heart, had it words to express itself ; or would not 

 be won, were she assured of all that her despairing lover undergoes for 

 her sake ? But the lover, from the strength of his own attachment, 

 almost always believes that there is a secret sympathy between them ; 

 that she knows what passes in his breast as well as in her own ; and 

 that she holds out only from caprice ; and that she must at length yield. 



IV. 



Love at first sight is only realizing an imagination that has always 

 haunted us ; or meeting with a face, or figure, or cast of expression in 

 perfection that we have seen and admired in a less degree or in less 

 favourable circumstances a hundred times before. Our dream is out at 

 last — Telemachus has discovered his Eucharis. 



V. 



Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The 

 way to be satisfied is never to look back. This is well expressed in his 

 allegory of the House of Pride, by Spenser, a poet to whom justice will 

 never be done till a painter of equal genius arises to embody the dazzling 

 and enchanting creations of his pen. 



VI. 



Some one absurdly expressed a wish to be young again, if he could 

 carry his experience back with him to the outset of life. But the worst old 

 age is that of tlie mind. 



VII. 



There is no absurdity or extravagance that we can frame into words, 

 or pictiu-e to the imagination, of which every day's experience would not 

 afford a confirmation. The real caricatures are to be found in nature : 

 no one dares describe them to the letter, for fear of being thought 



