Was he falling in
love? Had he been asked the question, he would honestly have answered
that he was about the last person in the world to form a romantic
attachment. There was no kind of sentimental wistfulness in his nature;
his imagination had no poetical trick of investing the face and form of
any passably good-looking girl with a halo of rainbow-hues; even as a
lad his dreams had concerned themselves more with the possibility of his
becoming a great musician than with his sharing his fame and glory with
a radiant bride. But, above all, the rhodomontade of simulated passion
that he heard in the theatre, and the extravagance of action necessary
for stage effect, would of themselves have tended to render him
sceptical and callous. He saw too much of how it was done. Did ever any
man in his senses swear by the eternal stars in talking to a woman; and
did ever any man in his senses kneel at a woman's feet? In former times
they may have done so, when fustian and attitudinizing were not fustian
and attitudinizing, but common habit and practice; but in our own day
did the love-making of the stage, with all its frantic gestures and
wild appeals, represent anything belonging to actual life? Of course, if
the question had been pushed home, he would have had to admit that love
as a violent passion does veritably exist, or otherwise there would not
be so many young men blowing out their brains, and young women drowning
themselves, out of disappointment; but probably he would have pointed
out that in these cases the coroner's jury invariably and charitably
certify that the victim is insane.
Pages:
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350