Then it would make little difference whether their
conjunction had been eternally prescribed in the book of fate or
not. It would be evidently a fit match, made on earth and
illustrative of heaven.
But even in the making of such a match as this, the various stages
of attraction, infatuation, and appropriation should not be
displayed too prominently before the world, nor treated as events of
overwhelming importance and enduring moment. I would not counsel
Tom and Ellinor, in the midsummer of their engagement, to have their
photographs taken together in affectionate attitudes.
The pictures of an imaginary kind which deal with the subject of
romantic love are, almost without exception, fatuous and futile.
The inanely amatory, with their languishing eyes, weary us. The
endlessly osculatory, with their protracted salutations, are
sickening. Even when an air of sentimental propriety is thrown
about them by some such title as "Wedded" or "The Honeymoon," they
fatigue us. For the most part, they remind me of the remark which
the Commodore made upon a certain painting of Jupiter and lo which
hangs in the writing-room of the Contrary Club.
"Sir," said that gently piercing critic, "that picture is equally
unsatisfactory to the artist, to the moralist, and to the
voluptuary.
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