The love affairs of many literary men make us almost conclude that they were more concerned about their loves than their art. Recall Stendhal's famous cry about his perishing for want of love or Balzac's eternal ambition to be famous and to be loved. Goethe once exclaimed that the only person who was happy was he who was fortunate in his domestic affairs. He made every one of his love affairs the basis of some poem, novel or play; and not to know anything about his love for Charlotte Buff, or Frederica or Lili, or Frau von Stein, is to limit oneself in being able to appreciate Goethe, in being able to understand _Werther_, _Faust_, _Wilhelm Meister_ and other works by him. And we love these poets and writers who naïvely confessed that they did not care for aught in life but love, and who sang of their troubles frankly. Who does not find Catullus and Tibullus sweet? Who that has read them does not cherish the lyrical cries of the Troubadours or the poems of the Chinese poets of the T'ang period? Can any one help thinking of Burns or De Musset without affection and sympathy? And there are many who would not surrender the great body of sonnets and lyrics of England's poets for her colonies. And why is this? Because these poets are ourselves speaking for us and saying what we feel but are unable to express. The cry of the mediæval Persian or Japanese poet is our own cry. His joy is ours and he is we and we are he. Once a poem has left its author's pen it is no longer a mere personal record, but becomes an enduring monument of art in which millions of men discern a grief or gladness that they too have known. In a measure, literature is more real and eternal than life itself. It makes the past live and it holds a soul that can sway millions of people for ever and ever. As Cicero said in his speech for Archias the poet: "If the _Iliad_ had not existed, the same tomb which covered Achilles' body would also have buried his renown." III A comprehension of the erotic in ourselves will help us discern many false ideals connected with the treatment of love in literature. I refer especially to the ideal of a first and only love (regarded by the lover usually as Platonic) which has been spread by deceptive authors and which has produced much affectation and insincerity in literature. In real life people do not generally marry their first loves; they often cherish contempt for persons once loved; they do not as a rule go through life always claiming that they loved once and that they would never love again. On the contrary, they usually marry and settle down and forget about their early affairs, although in most cases these have lasting influence.