fact may seem, Marriage appears to put an end to it altogether.
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife
He would have written sonnets to her all his life?
inquires Byron. He certainly would not. The "imaginary" love of Petrarch was the source of his poetic inspiration; if he had ever dragged it down to the level of the commonplace Actual, he would have killed his Muse. In a similar way the love of Dante for Beatrice was of the "imaginary" quality. Those who read the "Vita Nuova" will scarcely fail to see how the great poet hugs his love-fancies and feeds himself with delicious extravagances in the way of idealized and sublimated soul-passion. He dissects every fine hair of a stray emotion, and writes a sonnet on every passing heart-beat. Dante's wife never became so transfigured in her husband's love. Why? Alas, who can say! No reason can be given save that perchance "familiarity breeds contempt," and that the Unattainable seems always more beautiful than the Attained. The delight of possession would appear to be as brief as the flowering of a rose. Lovers are in haste to wed,—but when the knot is once irrevocably tied, in nine cases out of ten they wish it could be untied again. They no longer imagine "imaginary" love! The glamour is gone. Illusions are all over. The woman is no longer the removed, the fair, the chaste, the unreachable,—the man ceases to be the proud, the strong hero endowed with the attributes of the gods. "Imaginary" love then resolves itself into one of two things,—a firm, every-day, close
