physical rather than a spiritual passion, cutting across life rather
than flowing in its channels.

And then, too, the further consideration intervenes: Can any one, in
reflecting upon the instances of great and loving relationships that
have come within the range of his experience, name a single case in
which a deep passion has ever been conceived and consummated, without
the existence of physical charm of some kind in the woman who has been
the object of the passion? I do not, of course, limit charm to regular
and conventional beauty. But I cannot myself recall a single instance
of such a passion being evoked by a woman destitute of physical
attractiveness. The charm may be that of voice, of glance, of bearing,
of gesture, but the desirable element is always there in some form or
other.

I have known women of wit, of intellect, of sympathy, of delicate
perception, of loyalty, of passionate affectionateness, who yet have
missed the joy of wedded love from the absence of physical charm.
Indeed, to make love beautiful, one has to conceive of it as exhibited
in creatures of youth and grace like Romeo and Juliet; and to connect
the pretty endearments of love with awkward, ugly, ungainly persons has
something grotesque and even profane about it. But if love were the
transcendental thing that it is supposed to be, if it were within reach
of every hand, physical characteristics would hardly affect the
question. I wish that some of the passionate interpreters of love would
make a work of imagination that should render with verisimilitude the
love-affair of two absolutely grotesque and misshapen persons, without
any sense of incongruity or absurdity. I should be loth to say that
love depends upon physical characteristics; but I think it must be
confessed that impassioned love does so depend. A woman without