Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-08-24
LUNATIC LOVERS.
VICTIMS OF THE TENDER PASSION
WHO BECOME INSANE.


selves Lamentably Weak When Exposed
to the wnes of the Fair Sex.
There are dare say, millions of lovers |
whose love is so commonplace that it does |
not affect their reason. Love in their eyes |
means business--a prologue, so to speak |
to marriage The lovers, however who |
yield themselves heart and soul to the ten |
der passion, who allow themselves to be |
bound in the tendcrest ties and are blind |
10 the existence of everybody save them !
selves must certainly have screw loosu
somewhere in their mental anatomy. The
stoics, who looked on all affection as
foolish waste of energy regarded love as
grave mental disease Shakespeare, that
unrivalcd analyst of the weaknesses. of
human nature, is authority for the state
ment that
The lunatic the lover and the poet
Are of Imagination all compact.
Rosalind, one Of the sancst characters,
exclaims: Love is merely a madness and,
| tell you. deserves a dark house and Il
whip as madmcn do And the reason
it is not so punished and cured is
that the lunacy is 50 ordinary that the
wippers arc in love too" Bacon calls
love species of madness, " while Byron
confessed toward the close Of his short but
chcclcrcd career that it was madness for
him to love so passionatcly 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 postcritv by yielding
to Ewes tempting offer of a slice of apple
Holoferncs lost bis head-in two senses
by accepting the carcsses of Judith. An
tony was a lunatic to have sacrificed every
thing to his love of the charming Cleo
patra Paris, son Of Priam, ought to have
been put in straitiacl5ct for having tam
pered with the matrimonial preserves Of
Mcnelaus, the result of which poaching on
his part caused the splitting Of oceans of
human blood as well as the destruction of
Troy.
Potrarch spent his crazy life in penning
sonncts to the eyebrows Of portly married
woman, the mother of n large family,
while he utterly neglected his Legitimate
wife and would not permit his daughter
to live under his roof. Dante in his maud
lin love for Beatrice says: so powerful
was the spell Of her presence that l had to
avoid her. From thinking Cf this most
gracious creature l became 20 weak and
lean that it was irksomc for my friends
to look at me" He was compelled to hide
his skeleton frame in shame and confusion
"A spectacle for rdicule and dcrisiOn. Is
not this proof evident that even the bright
est and strongest geniuscs 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 a Lonely place to battle
the ground with the bittercst tears.
Love found its readicst victims in the
knights and troubadOurs Of the middle
ages. Ulrich Won Lichtenstcin, Il medi;e-
val German cavalier, loved a married
woman with all the intensity of a lunatic
He used 10 drink with gusro the water in
which she had laved her dainty hands. He
had Il portion Of his under lip cut off be
cause his mistress told him it was so ir-
regular in construction that it did not in
vite her kisses" He used to roam over
hills and gallcys in quest Of other knights
whom he challenged to ducls if they dared
to doubt that his Dulcinca was the fairc,t
of the fair. On one occasion he amputat
ed one Of his fingers and presented it to
his patroness as "a proof of the torture he
could endure for her sweet sake At her
command he went among the lcpcrs and
drank from the same bowl, in order to at
test his devotion to his ladylovc. All this
time lrlch ; wife pinned alone In her cha
tcau in the forest, waiting anXiously for
her dear lord, who, when he arrived on
the scene looked so utterly tired and Ill
lapidated that she had to put nm to LED
ana nurse nm Tor several months, at the
expiration OF which time he would sally
forth once more to do doughty deeds Tor
another mans wife! Ulrich was very
good type Of TIA" lunatic lover
Hadluub tells us OF Teuton mime
singer or troubadour who fell 20 helplessly
in love with a little girl that when she
used to bite him he became blissfullY
ecstatlc, with All his senses like burning
Goals. Her bite, he naively coniesses,
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 twolf), that he had himself sewed
up in VOLTS hide and used to scamper
over the hills daily so disguised in order to
please his darling. One day, howevef, the
D