The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-08-20
LUNATIC LOVERS.
VICTIMS OF THE TENDER PASSION
WHO BECOME INSANE.
Prom Father Adam Down to tho Present
che Lords of Creation Have shown Them
y selves Lamentably Weak When Exposed
20 ths wiiss of the Fair Sex.

selves Lamentabiy Weak When Exposst
20 the wnss Of the Fair Sex.
There are, dare say, millions OF lovers
whose love Is SO commonplace that IL does
not Affect their reason. Love In their eyes
5noAns business--a prologue, so 20 speak,
90 marriage. The lovers, however, who
yield themselves heart and soul TO the ten
der passion, who allow themselves to be
bound In tine tenderest ties and are blind
20 the existence of everybody save them
selves, must certainly have a screw loose
somewhere in their mental anatomy. The
Stoics, who looked on all affection as a
foolish waste Of energy, regarded love as a
grave mental disease. Shakespeare, that
nnrivaled analyst OF the weaknesses OF
human nature Is authority for the state-
onent thet
| The lunafic. the lover and the poet
Are of lima gination all compact
Rosalind, one of the sanest characters,
exclaims: ''Iove is merely madness, and,
tell you, deserves "a dark house and a
whip, as madmen do. And the reason
It is not so punished and cured Is
that the lunacy is SO ordinary that the
wippers are in love too" Bacon calls
love 'species of madness, while Byron
confessed toward the close of his short but
checkered career that it was madness for
him to love SO passionately as he did. A
large number Of the worlds eminent men
have made fools of themselves for love OF
woman. Father Adam lost paradise on
earth for himself and posterity by yielding
TO Ewes tempting offer Of slice Of apple.
Holofernes lost his head---in two senses--
by accepting the caresses Of Judith. An
tony was lunatic 10 have sacrificed every
thing TO his love Of the charming Cleo
patra Paris, son OF Priam, ought to have
been put in a straitjacket for having tam
pered with the matrimonial preserves OF
Menelaus, the result of which poaching on
his part caused the spilling of oceans of
human blood as we'll as the destruction of
Troy.
Petrarch spent his crazy life in penning
sonnets to the eyebrows of portly married
woman, tho mother of large family,
while he utterly neglected his legitimate
wife and would not permit his daughter
to live under his roof. Dante i'm his maud
lin love for Beatrice says: $50 powerful
was the spell of her presence that had TO
avoid her. From thinking of this most
gracious creature became SO weak and
lean that il was irksome for my friends
TO look at me. - He was compelled TO hide
his skeleton franc in shame and confusion
Ia spectacle for ridicule aud derision. Is
not this proof evident that even the bright
est and strongest geniuses degenerate into
silly addle headed monomaniacs under
the influence of this fatal passion? When
Beatrice for the first time denied him her
smile, he says he became possessed with SO
much grief that, parting himself from
Others, he went into lonely place to bathe
the ground with the bitterest tears.
Love found its readiest victims I'm the
knights and trouhadours of the middle
ages. Ulrich Won Lichtenstein, media
val German cavalier, loved married
woman with all the intensity OF lunatic.
He used to drink with gusto the water in
which she had laved her dainty hands. He
had portion of his under lip cut off be-
cause his mistress told him il was $50 ir-
regular In construction that it did not in
vite her kisses He used TO roam over
mills and galieys in quest of other knights
whom he challenged to duels II they dared
10 doubt that his Dulcinea was the fairest
of the fair On one occasion he amputat-
cd one of his fingers and presented it to
his patroness as proof of the torture he
could endure for her sweet sake. At her
command he went among the lepers and
drank frSm the same bowl, I'm order to at
time Ulrichs wife pined alone In her cha
Beau in the forest, waiting anxiously for
her dear lord, who, when he arrived on
the scene, looked so utterly tired and di-
1apidated that she had TO put him to bed
and nurse him for several months, at the
expiration OF which time he would sally
forth once more to do doughty deeds for
another mans wifel Ulrich was very
good type of the lunatic lover.
Hadlaub tells us of Teuton mime
singer or troubadour who fell so helplessly
In love with little girl that when she
used to bite him he became ''blssfully
yecstatic, - with 'all his senses like burning
GOALS Her bite" he naively confesses,
s'was SO tender and womanly that used to
be sorry the feeling passed away so soon"
Pierre Vidal, another troubadour, was SO
Infatuated with his ladylove, whose name
was Loba (wolf), that he had himself sewed |
0p In VOLTS hide and used to scamper
over the hills daily SO disguised in order to
please his darling One day, however, the
shepherds dogs chased the unfortunate
poet, and selling various portions of the
hide In their jaws they tore off a slice OF 1
his flesh to boot, whereupon the trouba-
dour abandoned his wolfsh mask, TO the !
great disgust OF his mistress, who re-
olounf,tu MA ioF DlS arFant cOWafulCe. /
Even the sacrifice of pound of her lovers |
ziesh in her service would not satisfy this |
cruel and w.llful lady.
Tho lover like the lunatic, likes solitude.
One Of the medical attendants at a Boston |
1unatic asylum assures me that when his 1
patients are let out in the garden for rec
reaiion they never form into groups. Each |
walks alone. moping and brooding over
one particular idea. The particular idea
of the lover is the only and everlasting |
she. Does she love himY Does she noti |
He calls to mind every word she uttered,
every attitude she assumed in their last
conversation. He twists and distorts her
most insignificant remarks 60 such an ex-
tent that no fears she may prefer another
70 him. His diseased mind becomes madly
morbid at the idea OF her being carcssed by
other than himself Jealousy takes pos
session of his soul, and he swears that IL
she play him false he will repeat the tragic |
incidents OF "Othello" without compunc-
bon.- Fields Washington.