The appropriateness of the word romantic is still further emphasized by the consideration that, just as romantic art, romantic literature, and romantic music are a revolt against artificial rules and barriers to the free expression of feeling, so romantic love is a revolt against the obstacles to free matrimonial choice imposed by parental and social tyranny.

Indeed, I can see only one objection to the use of the word—­its frequent application to any strange or exciting incidents, whence some confusion may ensue.  But the trouble is obviated by simply bearing in mind the distinction between romantic incidents and romantic feelings which I have summed up in the maxim that a romantic love-story is not necessarily a story of romantic love.  Nearly all the tales brought together in this volume are romantic love-stories, but not one of them is a story of romantic love.  In the end the antithesis will aid us in remembering the distinction.

In place of “romantic” I might have used the word “sentimental”; but in the first place that word fails to indicate the essentially romantic nature of love, on which I have just dwelt; and secondly, it also is liable to be misunderstood, because of its unfortunate association with the word sentimentality, which is a very different thing from sentiment.  The differences between sentiment, sentimentality, and sensuality are indeed important enough to merit a brief chapter of elucidation.

SENSUALITY, SENTIMENTALITY, AND SENTIMENT

From beginnings not yet understood—­though Haeckel and others have speculated plausibly on the subject—­there has been developed in animals and human beings an appetite which insures the perpetuation of the species as the appetite for food does that of the individual.  Both these appetites pass through various degrees of development, from the utmost grossness to a high degree of refinement, from which, however, relapses occur in many individuals.  We read of Indians tearing out the liver from living animals and devouring it raw and bloody; of Eskimos eating the contents of a reindeer’s stomach as a vegetable dish; and the books of explorers describe many scenes like the following from Baker’s Ismailia (275) relating to the antics of negroes after killing a buffalo: 

“There was now an extraordinary scene over the carcass; four hundred men scrambling over a mass of blood and entrails, fighting and tearing with each other and cutting off pieces of flesh with their lance-heads, with which they escaped as dogs may retreat with a bone.”

APPETITE AND LONGING