another. For the intense yearning which each of them has toward the other
does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something
else, which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of
which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.

However this may be, there is such instinctive insight in the human heart
that we often form our opinion almost instantaneously, and such
impressions seldom change, I might even say, they are seldom wrong. Love
at first sight sounds like an imprudence, and yet is almost a revelation.
It seems as if we were but renewing the relations of a previous existence.

"But to see her were to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever." [8]

Yet though experience seldom falsifies such a feeling, happily the reverse
does not hold good. The deepest affection is often of slow growth. Many a
warm love has been won by faithful devotion.

Montaigne indeed declares that "Few have married for love without
repenting it." Dr. Johnson also maintained that marriages would generally
be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor; but I do not
think either Montaigne or Johnson were good judges. As Lancelot said to
the unfortunate Maid of Astolat, "I love not to be constrained to love,
for love must arise of the heart and not by constraint." [9]

Love defies distance and the elements; Sestos and Abydos are divided by
the sea, "but Love joined them by an arrow from his bow." [10]

Love can be happy anywhere. Byron wished