THE ART OF LOVE
HE took me by a button of my coat, and pulled me round till his serious eyes were upon the level of my own. It was pretty clear he was disposed to convert me from my waggery; and though I had little enough stomach to play the confessor, there was something in his gravity that reduced me to attention.
'You are a man of much knowledge,' he said very soberly. 'I am but a tyro. Yet I would consider passion to be a common faculty of the race, identical at all times and in all conditions, nothing bettered by your superior wisdom, nothing cheapened by my scanty years. It is not upon the passion I would consult you; I would have your advice upon its conduct, which is a matter of experience.
'Will you hear nothing against your scheme?' I asked.
'I have no scheme,' said he; 'I have only a desire. It is you that shall devise me a scheme. As to the desire let us be silent; you and your knowledge have no concern with it.'
He was so single-minded in this silly fancy of his, and fronted me with so courteous a dignity, that I could not refrain a smile; he might have been issuing the ultimatum of a nation, and not the trumpery protest of love at five-and-twenty.
'Why,' said I, 'you put a heavy responsibility upon me. You ask me to give the whip to a beggar's horse. The devil is an intolerable fortune for so promising a lad.'
The determination slackened on his face, and his. eyes, relenting, took on a cast of fear lest I should take part against him.
'But you have seen her,' he said quickly. 'You admit her beauty. I shall meet no devil, I vow. She has grace and charm and loveliness and fascination. What further excellence would you have in her?'
I was in no mood to discuss his lady, but was thus driven to make good my case by an objection.
'These things are all one,' I said. 'Listen to the voice of a lover! We have said she comes of an inferior class. She is pretty; but she inspects the world from a very different corner. I doubt if your views overlap in any particular.'
'It is nothing against her,' he cried; 'mine shall go nearer hers'—(I shrugged my shoulders)—'or hers shall touch mine. Give me a start,' he said, 'and tell me of your abundant experience how she may be won.'
'She will have none of you?' I asked.
'She is so indifferent that she will barely recognise my presence,' said he.
I laughed. 'Put on your spurs; put on your spurs,' I said. 'You shall gallop if you will, though you should blaspheme for it later.'
'You have always been my friend,' he said, and snapped eagerly: 'how shall I start? Fit me with the boots, and you shall hear of me no more.'
'What sort of girl is this?' I asked with a chuckle.
It was a ridiculous question, I own, and started him upon a glib panegyric, which I interrupted with a gesture.
'And there is more to follow,' he said, eyeing me with a certain shame and a little reproach.
'God forbid!' I answered. 'We have already here the raw matter for a dozen angels. We do not desire to people Paradise, but to fashion one ninny of a woman for sober contemplation. With all this appreciation has she never a look for you?'
'Never a thought,' he returned promptly, 'and but idle looks.'
'Your wealth?' I asked.
'She is innocence itself,' he said, 'and my money weighs with her nothing. Besides, she has a passion for the romantic, and would contemn it.'
'A convenient passion,' I said, musing: 'the cleanest weapon in the world against a maid. If you should rescue her?'
He threw up his hands. 'Where is the possibility?' he demanded. 'Fires or bulls, rivers or thieves, runaway horses or libertines—I have prayed for them daily; but life is flat and unadventurous; and London is a city of damnable good order.'
'Disorder may be contrived,' I suggested.
'The trick is stale. I have purchased a man in his cups for the office,' he declared bitterly; 'I gave him a crown and the weight of my fist. It was a vain adventure.'
'It did not move her?' I asked.
'She turned to me very prettily with her thanks,' he said. 'O yes, I have her gratitude. But her gratitude!' He elevated his brows. 'She thinks I have an admirable muscle; but so have a dozen in her acquaintance.'
'You would not balk at a lie?' I asked.
'I would take any fence on the road to her,' he replied with ardour. 'If you have hope' He gazed at me inquiringly.
'Why not,' said I, 'design a situation of the sentimental? Would she yield to low lights or the warm juxtaposition of a carriage. These are occasions potent against a woman's independence. Her affections are not obdurate, nor is her will; they need but the proper circumstance to melt. Women have no power of withdrawal. Take 'em to the brink, and they go over with giddy heads. The brain swims, and they topple to their fate. Man flows in a current, woman in eddies. Her heart is a jewel within the reach of any cutpurse apt enough with his sentences. My dear sir,' I said, 'this is the sexual distinction. For a man's head is approached through his heart; but a woman's heart is exposed by the swimming of her brain. If you will make a study of her tastes you shall contrive a surrender within the month.'
'Give me the secret,' he said earnestly.
'You forget,' said I, 'I have no knowledge of her quality.'
'And I,' he sighed, 'am a dunce at such riddles. You shall make her acquaintance,' he said quickly.
'Rather,' said I, smiling, 'you shall explain her to me. She is a woman and therefore can admire. In what pose can you swagger at your best?'
'I have cut all my figures,' he said moodily.
'You are a man of letters,' I said: 'will this serve?'
He shook his head. 'I propped myself upon the lie and it broke. She has no regard for letters.'
'You paint?' I queried.
'The pretence were useless,' he returned dolefully. 'Her art is upon the hoardings.'
'It would seem, my young lover,' I said, 'that your affection is gross enough to sneer. But suppose yourself an orator upon a tub, or a budding politician.'
'The premier and my lord the duke—she has heard of them,' he replied bitterly.
'Come now, you fight—bluejacket or red,' said I. 'You can entertain her with fine tales of blood.'
He swore a little. 'She inquired upon the point on our earliest acquaintance, and I had the folly to be honest.'
'’Twas unfortunate,' I answered; 'but there are finer coats than upon a soldier. Come, the truth. You are the heir of a great family, awaiting your title.'
'’Twill serve me as little as my money,' said he. 'She is an excellent girl,' he cried, with an access of rapture. 'Egad, neither wealth nor position touches her.'
'We must take commoner weapons against her,' I said. 'It is idle to menace a savage with fire-arms. Letters and art, politics and culture—she meets them with a stare. Do you not see in what terms you are condemning the little jade?'
'I love her,' he vowed sullenly.
'Well, well,' said I; 'and so shall she love you. Take heart, young wiseacre, and give ear. For this, I make no doubt, is a maiden with the faculty of worship; and that she will not take virtue to her heart is plain enough. None of her sex has fallen in love with a virtue: which, moreover, will always prove too modest and reticent for advertisement. Nay, you must caper at something to catch her eye and humour; and if art and its fellows be too high for her, you must descend upon a lower stage. And there's the word,' said I: 'the stage! You must rant and roar it in the gay plumage of a melting melodrama. Ravish away her ear and her eye, and you'll have the heart bowling after to catch 'em up.'
'The playhouse,' said he sadly, 'is denied her by her parents, and I should stalk there till the crack of doom.'
'The stage,' I answered, 'is not the sole cynosure of the day. The senses of these women go down in homage to the spectacle in the streets. Clap your hands, yell, pull wry faces, gibber and jest, make the street ring with you; strike through eye or ear, through some sense, through a main avenue, to fame; be foremost in a public gaze; tickle with primary colours; bedazzle with flaming hues; rehearse heroic gestures and pose illustrious in a people's face—fill the moment or the hour, somehow, somewhere, sometime; and your goddess will kneel to you in tears. Go forth and grin about the city like a dog. That,' said I, 'is how she shall be conquered.'
He had heard me out with manifest impatience, and now addressed me with some heat.
'Your experience of the sex, sir,' said he, 'would seem to have been sufficiently damnable. I condole with you,' and, turning upon his heel, made off.
I saw nothing more of him for weeks, and it was not until the recent exhibition in the city that I witnessed the end of this farce. Some merry cousins from the country were bent upon the Show, and I was fain, out of good-nature, to accompany them. As the procession passed I espied with some surprise the girl of our discourse leaning from an opposite window, her pretty face flushed and smiling, her eyes betraying the liveliest enthusiasm. I could not but reflect upon the justice of my young friend's commendation, and, following her gaze, my own lighted upon the man himself in a most unexpected quarter. He was seated upon the foremost car in the procession, the topmost figure in a portentous group, swathed in rainbow colours and great whirling garments; and he was fitted with a crown. He was meant, I understand, for some representation of Victory, and his face beamed with the pride of conquest.
He had the grace to offer me his thanks upon his wedding-day.