is the case really. In our estimate of an affection, its intensity,
though doubtless of great importance, is yet of an importance that is
clearly secondary. Else things that the modern world regards as the most
abominable might be on a level with the things it regards as most pure
and holy; the lovers of Athens might even put to shame with their
passion the calm sacramental constancy of many a Christian pair; and the
whole fabric of modern morals would be undermined. For, according to
the modern conception of morals, love can not only give life its highest
quality, but its lowest also. If it can raise man to the angels, it can
also sink him below the beasts; and as to its intensity, it is a force
which will carry him in the one direction just as well as the other.
Kind and not degree is the first thing needful. It is the former, and
not the latter, that essentially separates David and Jonathan from
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, St. Elizabeth from Cleopatra, the beloved
disciple from Antinous. How shall we love? is the great question for us.
It comes long before, How much shall we love?

Let us imagine a bride and bridegroom of the type that would now be most
highly reverenced, and try to understand something of what their
affection is. It is, of course, impossible here to treat such a subject
adequately; for, as Mr. Carlyle says, '_except musically, and in the
language of poetry, it can hardly be so much as spoken about_.' But
enough for the present purpose can perhaps be said. In the first place,
then, the affection in question will be seen to rest mainly upon two
things--firstly, on the consciousness of their own respective characters
on the part of each; and, secondly, on the idea formed by each of the
character of the other. Each must have a faith, for instance, in his or
her own purity, and each must have a like faith, also in the purity of
the other. Thus, to begin with the first requisites, a man can only
love a woman in the highest sense when he does so with a perfectly clear