Now poets are proverbially melancholy; and madmen, as Professor Krafft-Ebing tells us, are also more commonly tortured by depressing delusions than elated by pleasant ones. Hence, if the poet’s maxim, just quoted, be true, we should expect the lover’s prevailing cast of mind to be melancholy too; and so it is. Though he enjoys moments of delirious rapture, to which sober mortals are utter strangers, yet his misgivings are incessant, even when he is almost certain of success: and it takes but little to poison his cup; for, as Professor Volkmann remarks, “one drop of anguish suffices to gall a whole ocean of joy.” So the lover becomes “pale and interesting,” loses weight and appetite, and sighs away his soul. Were this emotional fermenting process allowed to last too long, his health would suffer seriously: but fortunately it ordinarily ceases in a year or so, yielding a wine which, though less sparkling and ebullient, is more mellow and less intoxicating. Romantic Love, in other words, is metamorphosed into conjugal affection which, among other attributes of Love, strips off its characteristic trait of melancholy, whereby it is easily distinguished from all other forms of affection. Before, however, we can pass on to consider in detail the differences between Romantic and Conjugal Love, the two remaining ingredients of Romantic Love—Individual Preference and Personal Beauty—must be briefly considered. INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE It happens occasionally, in the Western regions of the United States, that an Indian brave casts his eyes on a buxom pale-face girl and desires her in marriage. He offers her parents two ponies for her; he offers three, five, and even seven ponies; and when still refused he is the most mystified man in the world: cannot understand how any man can be so egregiously stupid or avaricious as to refuse his daughter for _seven_ ponies! Ugh!! It is needless to recapitulate the numerous instances cited in preceding pages, showing that throughout the world, until within a few centuries, Romantic Love could not exist because the girl’s choice, on the one hand, was utterly ignored, while the man, on the other, was equally prevented, by the lack of opportunities for courtship, from basing his choice on a real knowledge of the selected bride. The parents who did the selecting, always for the bride, and sometimes even for the bridegroom, were guided in their choice by money and rank and not by Health and Beauty, which inspire Love and follow as its fruits. The history of Love, till within three or four centuries ago, might, in short, be summed up in six words: No Choice, no Love, no Beauty—except in those rare cases where special hygienic advantages prevailed, or where lucky chance brought together a youth and a maiden who in the ordinary course of events would have fallen in Love with one another.