crinolines, bustles, high heels, stuffed birds on their hats, and other “ornaments” fatal to Personal Beauty. From the facts thus hastily sketched we may safely infer that, as we saw in the case of Sympathy with another’s joys, so again with Gallantry, what was born as a trait of Romantic Love was subsequently transferred to the social and domestic relations of men and women in general. Had Romantic Love done nothing more than this, it would deserve to rank among the most refining influences in modern civilisation. Perhaps the most remarkable existing illustration of the way in which Lovers’ Gallantry may assume a general form, is to be found in Mr. Ruskin’s recent confession regarding girls: “My primary thought is how to serve _them_ and make them happy; or if they could use me for a plank-bridge over a stream, or set me up for a post to tie a swing to, or anything of the sort not requiring me to talk, I should be always quite happy in such a promotion.” This reads precisely like Heine’s poem in which the lover wishes he were his mistress’s footstool, or again her needle-cushion, that he might experience the delights of pain inflicted by her foot or hand. Such excess of amorous Gallantry is a favourite theme for poetic hyperbole, and it hardly can be exaggerated; for the lover really _does_ entertain such wishes. With him, _romance is realism_. No slave could be so meek and humble, no well-trained dog so obedient as the amorous swain. Again and again will he, without a moment’s hesitation, plunge into a wintry stream and triumphantly snap up and bring back to her the chip she has thrown in to amuse herself. _Active and Passive Desire to Please._—"Love, studious how to please" (Dryden), has two ways of accomplishing its purpose—one passive, one active. Women, owing to their prescribed Coyness, are not allowed to indulge in actions that would imply a desire to please a suitor, except in the later stages of Courtship, when all is settled or understood. Hence their desire to please can only show itself passively in their efforts to make their personal appearance attractive to the lover. Nor are men indifferent to this passive phase of Gallantry. As nothing so fills a man with Pride as the thought that She, a paragon of beauty, adorns herself so carefully all for his delight; so in turn he feels it incumbent on him to follow her example. Even the habitually slovenly become dandies for the moment, brush their hair, buy a new hat and clothes; the lazy become industrious, the cowards assume heroic airs and strut about like tragedians— “I was the laziest creature, The most unprofitable sign of nothing, The veriest drone, and slept away my life Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love! And now I can outwake the nightingale, Outwatch an usurer, and out-walk him too, Stalk like a ghost that haunted ’bout a treasure, And all that fancied treasure, it is love.”—BEN JONSON.