Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1881 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

64 "Virgiuibtts Pnerisqne.'"
character of man ; formed no part of that very-
modest kit of sentiments with which he is sup-
posed to have begun the world ; but waited to
make its appearance in better days and among
richer natures. And this is equally true of love,
and friendship, and love of country, and delight
in what they call the beauties of nature, and
most other things worth having. Love, in par-
ticular, will not endure any historical scrutiny :
to all who have fallen across it, it is one of the
most incontestable facts in the world ; but if
you begin to ask what it was in other periods and
countries, in Greece for instance, the strangest
doubts begin to spring up, and everything seems
so vague and changing that a dream is logical
in comparison. Jealousy, at any rate, is one of
the consequences of love ; you may like it or
not, at pleasure ; but there it is.
It is not exactly jealousy, however, that we
feel when we reflect on the past of those Ave
love. A bundle of letters found after years of