The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-17
LOVERS as LuNAr1os.
The "Lord of Creation" Has Always
Been LamentabIy Weak.
From Kate FIELDS WASHINGTON

From Kata Fields Washington
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 prologue, so to
speak, to marriage. The lovers, however.
who yield themselves heart and soul to
the tender passion. who allow themselves
10 be bound in the tenderest ties and are
blind 10 the existence of everybody save
thems elves, must certainly have screw
loose somewhere in their mental anatomy
The stoics, who looked on all affection as
a foolish waste of energy, regarded love
As grave mental disease. Shakespeare
that unrivaled analyst of the weak
nesses of human nature-is authority for
the statement that
The lunatic the lover, and the poet
Are Of Imagination all compact.
Rosalind, one of the sanest characters,
exclaims: Love is merely a madness,
and, l tell you, deserves a dark house.
and a whip as madmeu do; and the
reason it is not so punished and cured is
that the lunacy is so ordinary that the
whippers are in love tool" Bacon calls
love "Species of Madness while Byron
confessed toward the close of his short
but checkered career that it vas madness
for him to love so passionately as he did
A large numb Der of the world S most emf
nent men have made fools of themselves
for love of woman. Father Adam lost
paradise on earth for himself and
for posterity by yielding to Ewes
tempting offer of slice of apple Holo-
fernes lost his head-in two senses-by
accepting the caresses of Judith Antony
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 a straight-jacket for
having tempered with the matrimonial
preserves of Menelaus-the result of
which poaching on his part caused the
splitting of oceans of human blood, as well
as the destruction of Troy.
PETRARCH AND DANTE ON THE LIST.
Petrarch spent his crazy life in penning
sonnets to the eyebrows Of a portly mar
ried woman, the mother of a large family,
while he utterly neglected his legitimate
wife, and would not permit his daughter
TO live under his roof! Dante in his
maudlin love for Beatrice says: $50
powerful was the spell of her presence
that had to avoid her. From thinking
of this most gracious creature, l became
so weak and lean that it was irksome for
my friends to look at mel" He was COM
PEELED to hide his skeleton frame in
shame and confusion-a spectacle for
ridicule and derision. Is not this proof
evident that even the brightest and
strongest geniuses degenerate into silly
addle-headed monomaniacs under the
Beatrice for the first time denied him her
smile he says that he became possessed
with so much grief that, parting himself
from others, he went into a lonely place
to battle the ground with the bitterest
tears
Love found its readiest victims in the
knights and troubadours of the middle
ages Ulrich Won Lichtenstein, medae-
val German cavalier, loved a married
woman with all the intensity of lunatic.
He used to drink witha gusto the water
In which she had laved her dainty hands
He had q portion of his under lip cut off
because his mistress told him it was 80
irregular i'll construction that il did not
invite her kisses" He used to
roam over hills and valleys in quest of
other knights whom he challenged to
duels If they dared to doubt that his Dull
cinea was the fairest of the fair. On one
occasion ne amputated 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 lepers and drank from
the same bowl, in order to attest his de-
votion to his lady love- All this time
Ulrich's wife pinned alone in her chateau
in the forest, waiting anxiouslY for her
dear lord, who, when he arrived on the
scene, looked so utterly tired and dilap-
dated that she had to put him to bed and
nurse him for several months, at the eX-
piration of which time he would sally
forth once more to do doughty deeds for
another mans wife Ulrich was very
good type ofthe lunatic lover.
OTHER CASES OF IEFATUATION.
Hadlaub tells us of a Teuton mime
singer or troubadour who fell so help
lessly in love with little girl that, when
she used to bite him, he became bliss
fully ecstatic" with "all his senses like
burning Goals. Her bite" he naively con-
fesses, was so tenderly and womanly
that ] used to be sorry the feeling of it
passed away so soon -, Pierre Vidal, an
other troubadour, was so infatuated with
his lady love, whose name was "Loba -
wOlf-that he had himself sewed up in a
Nwolf's hide, and used TO scamper over the
hills daily so disguised in order to please
his darling. One day, however, the shep-
herds dogs chased the unfortunate poet,
and Selling various portions Of the hide
in their jaws, they tore off a slice of his
flesh to boot, whereupon the troubadour
abandoned his wolfish mask, to the great
disgust of his mistress, who renounced
him for his arrogant eowardice. Even
the sacrifice of a pound of her lovers
flesh in her service would not satisfy this
cruel and willful lady.
The lover, like the lunatic, loves soil
tude. One of the medical attendants at
Boston lunatic asylum assures me that
when his patients are let out in the gar
den for recreation 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 him?
Does she notl He recalls to mind every
word she uttered, every attitude she as
sumed in their last conversation He
twists and distorts her most significant
remarks to such an extent that he fears
she may prefer another to him. His dis
eased mind becomes madly morbid at the
idea Of her being caressed by other than
himself. Jealousy takes possession of his
soul, and he swears that if she play him
false he will repeat the tragic Incidents of
Othello without conjunction.