Lectures of Lola Montez/Chapter 6
My subject to-night is the comic aspect of love. No doubt most of you have had some little experience, at least in the sentimental and sighing side of the tender passion; and what I propose to do is to give you the humorous or comic side. Perhaps I ought to begin by begging pardon of the ladies for treating so sacred a thing as love in a comic way, ог for turning the Judicrous side of so charming a thing as they find love to be, to the gaze of men—but I wish to premise that I shall not so treat sensible or rational love.
Of that beautiful feeling, less warm than passion, yet more tender than friendship, I shall not for a moment speak irreverently; of that pure disinterested affection—as charming as it is reasonable, which one sex feels for the other, I cannot speak lightly. But there is a certain romantic senseless kind of love, such as poets sometimes celebrate, and men and women feign, which is a legitimate target for ridicule. This kind of love is fanciful and foolish; it is not the offspring of the heart, but of the imagination. I know that generous deeds and contempt of death have sometimes covered this folly with a veil. The arts have twined for it a fantastic wreath, and the Muses have decked it with the sweetest flowers; but this makes it none the less ridiculous nor dangerous. Love of this romantic sort is an abstraction much too light and subtle to sustain a tangible existence in the midst of the jostling relations of this busy world. It is a mere bubble thrown to the surface by the passions and fancies of men, and soon breaks by contact with the hard facts of daily life. It is a thing which bears but little handling.
The German Wieland, who was a great disciple of Love, was of opinion that "its metaphysical effects began with the first sigh, and ended with the first kiss!" Plato was not far out of the way when he called it "a great devil;" and the man or woman who is really possessed of it, will find it a very hard one to cast out.
There is a curious story extant in the old chronicles, that when the charms of a fair damsel had made Alexander pause in his career of ambition, his tutor and guardian, Aristotle, endeavored to arouse the spirit of the hero, by ridiculing the weakness of love; and this was so far effectual as to cause the great monarch to absent himself from his fair enchantress. She bewailed her fate for some time in solitude, and when she could endure the suspense no longer, forced her way into the presence of her lord. Her beauty again smiled away the dreams of glory from his mind, and he accused Aristotle of having been the cause of his absence. The fair lady was enraged that the philosopher should thus interfere with her happiness, and she assured Alexander that she would give him proof that Aristotle had no right to give such advice, as he himself was equally susceptible to the charms of beauty. Accordingly the next morning she repaired to the lawn before Aristotle's chamber, and as she approached the casement, she broke the stillness of the air by chanting a love-ditty, the wild notes of which charmed the philosopher from his studies. He stole to the window, and saw a form fairer than any image which even his own genius had invented. Her face was unveiled, and her tresses strayed down her neck, while her dress, like the drapery of an ancient statue, displayed the elegance of her form. She loitered about the place under pretence of plucking a branch of myrtle to wreathe round her brow.
When she at length perceived that Aristotle eagerly watched her, she stole underneath the casement, and in a voice full of emotion, sang that she was riveted to the spot by love. Aristotle drank in the delicious sounds, and her beauty appeared to him more resplendent than ever. Reason faintly whispered that he was not born to be beloved, for his hair was now white with age, and his forehead wrinkled with care; but the lady carelessly passed close to his window, and in his admiration he caught the floating folds of her robe. She affected anger, and he then avowed his love. She listened to his confession with an artful surprise of manner, which fanned still more the flame of his heart, and then answered him with reproaches for having sought to withdraw from her the love of Alexander. The philosopher swore that he would again bring his pupil to her feet, if she would confer some sign of favor upon himself. She feigned an intention of complying, but declared that he must first indulge her in a foolish whim which long had distracted her fancy, and this was an almost insane wish to ride upon the back of a wise man. He was by this time so intoxicated with her beauty, that he could deny her nothing, and he immediately threw himself on his hands and knees, and she at once sat upon his back and urged him forward. In a minute they reached the terrace under the royal windows, and the King had a fair view of the singular spectacle. A peal of laughter from the windows awoke the philosopher to a sense of his position, and when he saw his pupil, he owned that youth might well yield to love, when it had power to break even the frost of age.
But there is another and more authentic piece of history in which a gentle maiden was the horse who bore her lover upon her back. Eginhart, who was chaplain and secretary to the Emperor Charlemagne, secretly won the love of Emma, the beautiful daughter of his majesty. Once these lovers sat up the whole night, not taking due note of time, until the grey light of morning peeped in upon them. His young reverence, the chaplain, then perceived to his horror, that during the night there had been a great fall of snow. Now what was to be done? The traces of his footsteps would discover the mystery and make it certain that a man had left the apartments of the princess. But did you ever hear of a woman's wits forsaking her at such a critical moment? The fair Emma's did not forsake her, for she took her lover upon her shoulders, and carried him through the court-yard, which left in the tell-tale snow only the harmless print of a woman's foot. But, alas! as the course of true love never did run smooth, the Emperor Charlemagne being up at a very early hour, discovered his daughter wading through the snow, with that unique burden on her back. He said nothing to the young lovers, but the next day summoned his council, and made the affair known to them, asking what should be done. All the ministers agreed that summary punishment should be visited upon the guilty chaplain. "No," said the Emperor; "it is easier for me to raise Eginhart to a situation in which he will be worthy of my daughter, than to publish her imprudence." He then summoned the culprit before the council, and said to him, "To reward your long services, I will give you my daughter, who carried you upon her back." This story I believe to be as well authenticated as any piece of history of its age, and it derives an extra charm from the lady who thus turned porter for her love being the young and beautiful daughter of so great an emperor. Indeed it is into what are called the higher and more refined circles that you have to look for the best specimens of sentimental love.
Of the refinements of love, the great mass of men can know nothing. The truth is, that sentimental love is so much a matter of the imagination, that the uncultivated have no natural field for its display. In America, you can hardly realize the full force of this truth, because the distinctions of class are happily nearly obliterated. Here intellectual culture seems to be about equally divided among all classes. I suppose it is not singular in this country to find the poorest cobbler, whose little shanty is next to the proud mansion of some millionaire, a man of really more mental attainments than his rich and haughty neighbor; in which case the millionaire will do well to look to it, that the cobbler does not make love to his wife; and if he does, nobody need care much, for the millionaire will be quite sure to reciprocate.
The great statute, "tit-for-tat," is, I believe, equally the law of all nations; besides, love is a great leveller of distinctions, and it is in this levelling mission that it performs some of its most ridiculous antics. When a rich man's daughter runs off with her father's coachman, as occasionally happens, the whole country is in a roar of laughter about it. There is an innate, popular perception of the ridiculousness of such a thing; not that the love in itself is ridiculous, but everybody sees and feels that in such cases it is misplaced and grotesque.
Every one perceives that the woman's heart has taken the bit in its mouth, and run away with her brains. But, as comedy is often nearly allied to tragedy, so sorrow is sure to come as soon as the little honeymoon is over. This romantic love cannot flourish in the soil of poverty and want. Indeed, all the stimulants which pride and luxury can administer to it, can hardly keep it alive. The rich miss who runs away with a man far beneath her in education and refinement, must inevitably awake, after a brief dream, to a state of things which have made her unfortunate for life; and he, poor man, will not be less wretched, unless she has brought him sufficient money to give him leisure and opportunity to indulge his fancies with that society which is on a level with his own tastes and education.
So do you not perceive, now, that the eagerness of the sentimental lover, and the number of hours consumed in courtship, become indeed ridiculous when measured with the duration of his love? How earnest and incessant is the sportsman's pursuit of game—but soon evening comes on, the field is won, and all the enthusiasm ends in an apoplectic snore in the big arm-chair! Even so it is with many a lover; we imagined at first that it was impossible his affection should ever cloy—alas! the heart that seemed to be all on fire, reveals now only the cinders of a dying passion!
Novelty is a great gloss of love, but it is a varnish that soon wears off in the contact of constant associations.
Dean Swift humorously says that "married people, for being so closely united, are but the apter to cease loving, as knots, the harder they are pulled, break the sooner." I am afraid that the experience of too many will confirm this philosophy. I have often wondered why some ingenious Yankee has not discovered some famous salt, to keep the sweets of matrimony from cloying. If you could only salt down love, and thus preserve it, what a blessing it would be to thousands; but I fear it would be a difficult task.
There are, however, many homes where connubial discord never finds entrance; though but few where monotony cannot insinuate itself. Discord is an incendiary who sets fire to the house of love, over one's very head; but monotony is an underminer, who saps the foundations, and when there is a fall, love is for ever buried in the ruins. How silly then is the old touch-word of love—"let us never part." In direct opposition to this, my advice to you is to part as often at least as is necessary to give a little tinge of freshness to your reunion.
A young married lady once said to me, "Oh how I wish my husband and myself were as happy as when we were courting!" "Well," I replied, "why then did you not keep on courting?" When husband and wife cease to court each other, the romantic passion will soon fly the house.
It is a great deal easier work to win a lover, than to keep him. It is certainly a laughable sight to see what pains men and women take to catch each other, and how little pains they take to hold on to each other. The ancients did well to represent Cupid as a blind god, for he not only makes men and women run blind after each other, but he leaves them equally blind as to the means of keeping each other.
But the ancients not only represented Cupid as blind, but he was also described as the mightiest of the gods, sometimes even above Jupiter himself; and if we had time to go over the history of the world, we should find that many of the greatest events are the blind deeds of this blind divinity.
One of the most comical combats in the history of love, took place in the reign of the Emperor Maximilian II. Two noblemen, one a German, the other a Spaniard, who had each rendered great service to the Emperor, asked the hand of Helena his daughter in marriage. Maximilian replied, "that as ho esteemed them both alike, it was impossible for him to choose between them, and that, therefore, their own prowess must decide it; but not being willing to risk the loss of either by engaging them in deadly combat, he ordered a large sack to be brought, and declared that he who should put his rival into it, should have his fair Helena."
And this whimsical combat was actually performed in the presence of the Imperial Court, and lasted an hour. The unhappy Spanish nobleman was first overcome, and the German baron succeeded in enveloping him in the sack, took him upon his back, and laid him at the feet of the Emperor. I suppose this is the origin of the phrase, "gave him the sack," so common in the literature of courting, and which is, I believe, a doomsday word in the ears of discarded or rejected lovers. But love has not confined its comicalities and its extravagant freaks to the region of the state and diplomacy, but it has climbed up even to the gravity of the church, and played its pranks with the dignity and sanctity of religion and holy orders.
The Ancient History of the Church affords many of the most comic illustrations of our subject; but they are such melancholy examples of human weakness and folly, that we must feel a sense of pain even in the laughter they excite.
In the 13th century in France, there was a most extraordinary sect of fanatics, which went by the name of the "The Lovers' League." Their zeal was to prove the excess of their love by their invincible obstinacy in withstanding the seasons.
The married and single men and women who were initiated into that order, were bound by solemn oath to cover themselves with the thinnest apparel in the most frosty weather, and also to bundle themselves up in the warmest clothing in the hottest days of summer. In the warmest seasons they lighted great fires, and in the coldest there was not a coal allowed upon the hearth. Their chimneys in mid-winter were trimmed with fresh foliage, and all the evergreens of summer. If one of the members of this sect entered the house of a brother, the husband instantly left, put the visitor's horse into the stable, and never returned to his own house until the visiting brother was gone: and so, in turn, he was treated in the same hospitable way, when he went to visit.
This religious sect won to its faith many men and women of intellect and position. But the habit of freezing themselves in winter and roasting in summer, and other excesses, seems to have made such fearful inroads upon their health, that the ridiculous sect died gradually out in ten or fifteen years.
At a little earlier date there was a sect in Italy called the Fratricelli, which was a sort of free love church. They had for their chiefs those who professed great religious sanctity, and who under the pretence of morality led the most dissolute lives. The sect spread rapidly, until it was forcibly suppressed by the thirteenth general council at Vienna, under the Pontificate of Pope Clement V.
The Mormons, and numerous other modern religionists, give a similar proof of the ridiculous results which spring from a combination of fanaticism and love. When religious fanaticism works by love, good-bye to all the wholesome restraints of chastity and law.
When we see these things as far off as the 13th century, we can laugh at them; even no further than Salt Lake City they are very funny; but it would no longer be a subject of amusement if such practices were brought to our own doors, and into our own families. For instance, suppose that borne along from one degree to another on the tide of religious enthusiasm, the wife's affections should gradually relax their tender and beautiful hold upon the circle of home, and should so far wander abroad as to find the excitement of the evening meeting indispensable to her happiness! Her imagination once unduly aroused by a new and novel enthusiasm, would bear her on very rapidly into new attachments, and into outside circles of enjoyment and affection. And then suppose that the husband's house should at all times be as open to the minister as was the house of a member of the lovers' league to a visiting brother, how long do you think it would be before the ministering brother would have a greater influence over the wife for good or evil, than the husband?
I have no means of judging except from general principles of human nature. Whatever invades the sanctity and unity of home; whatever strikes even at the exclusiveness of home; whatever admits outside authority or outside enthusiasm of any kind, to share a fraction of the affection and the interest of the home, opens the door to the insidious spirit of temptation and intrigue; and if all the absurd and demoralizing vagaries of the free love fanaticism follow in their train, you may thank the hand, whosesoever it was, which first drew the wife's or the husband's enthusiasm into other circles than those of home.
Mahomet several times altered the spirit and the letter of his spiritual revelations at the dictation of love. It was love that induced him to insert into the Koran the article which permits husbands to fall in love with their handsome female servants.
Mahomet had two wives when he became enamored of one of his slaves, named Moutia, of singular beauty. His wives publicly reproached him with this, and to make it all right, he was obliged to make Allah speak, which he did in the fifty-sixth chapter of the Koran, where he declares that it had been revealed to him that all good Mussulmans might make love to their slaves in spite of their wives. This pretty Moutia, whose charms brought down such a singular revelation from Allah, was an Egyptian by birth, and by education a Christian, and it was said that the government of Egypt had presented her to Mahomet. But no sooner had heaven been made to sanction concubinage, than it also fully authorized adultery, for the prophet becoming enamored of the wife of one of his freedmen named Gaib, he carried her off and married her. This occasioned a great scandal at first, but Mahomet put a stop to all murmurs, by making an addition to the thirty-third chapter of the Koran, where he makes Allah declare that he had married Zanib to his prophet! And as this new article might justly awaken the apprehensions of all husbands who had pretty wives, Mahomet made Heaven declare also that if he should ever in future become enamored of married women, they should be sacred; and this was perfectly satisfactory to the husbands.
There is indeed no end to the vagaries of love when once it is connected with the religious element, or even with philosophical enthusiasm. The religious Mormons, and the philosophical Free-lovers, are sufficient evidences of that.
The vagaries of this free-love philosophy are as old in the world as sin. But they have never accomplished anything, yet, with all their fine-spun theories, but to tempt and destroy women. Upon man they have only had the effect to degrade his own soul, while they have not much injured his public position, because he has the making of public opinion in his own hands. Give woman an equal share in the manufacture of public opinion, and she might then more safely compete with man in practising this demoralizing philosophy with impunity.
But as it is, man has a complete monopoly of this whole business, and all that woman can safely do is to touch not, and taste not, the fruits of such ridiculous vagaries. She must make the principle contained in the following lines from Goethe's Faustus the rule of her being:—