“If one of these girls meets a rich young man, she sets about ensnaring him, makes eyes at him, invites him with gestures, sings for him ... drinks the wine he left in his cup, throws kisses with her hands, till she has the poor fellow in her net and he is enamoured. ...  Then she sends messages to him and continues her crafty arts, lets him understand that she is losing sleep for love of him, is pining for him; maybe she sends him a ring, or a lock of her hair, a paring of her nails, a splinter from her lute, or part of her toothbrush, or a piece of fragrant gum (chewed by her) as a substitute for a kiss, or a note written and folded with her own hands and tied with a string from her lute, with a tearstain on it; and finally sealed with Ghalija, her ring, on which some appropriate words are carved.”

Having captured her victim, she makes him give her valuable presents till his purse is empty, whereupon she discards him.

Was Count Moltke, then, wrong?  Have we here, after all, the sentimental symptoms of romantic love?  Let us apply the tests provided by our analysis of love—­tests as reliable as those which chemists use to analyze fluids or gases.  Did the Baghdad music-girl prefer that man to all other individuals?  Did she want to monopolize him jealously?  Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided he had plenty of money.  Was she coy toward him?  Perhaps; but not from a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him more ardent and ready to pay.  Was she proud of his love?  She thought him a fool.  Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure?  As chaste and pure as his.  Did she sympathize with his pleasures and pains?  She dismissed him as soon as his purse was empty, and looked about for another victim.  Were his presents the result of gallant impulses to please her, or merely advance payment for favors expected?  Would he have sacrificed his life to save her any more than she would hers to save him?  Did he respect her as an immaculate superior being, adore her as an angel from above—­or look on her as an inferior, a slave in rank, a slave to passion?

The obvious moral of this immoral episode is that it is not permissible to infer the existence of anything higher than sensual love from the mere fact that certain romantic tricks are associated with the amorous dalliance of Orientals, or Greeks and Romans.  Drinking from the same cup, throwing kisses, sending locks of hair or tear-stained letters, adjusting a foot-stool, or fanning a heated brow, are no doubt romantic incidents, but they are no proof of romantic feeling for the reason that they are frequently associated with the most heartless and mercenary sensuality.  The coquetry of the Baghdad girl is romantic, but there is no sentiment in it.  Yet—­and here we reach the most important aspect of that episode—­there is an affectation of sentiment in that sending of locks, notes, and splinters from her lute; and this affectation of sentiment is designated by the word sentimentality.  In the history of love sentimentality precedes sentiment; and for a proper understanding of the history and psychology of love it is as important to distinguish sentimentality from sentiment as it is to differentiate love from lust.