When Lowell wrote, “Let us be thankful that in every man’s life there is a holiday of romance, an illumination of the senses by the soul, that makes him a poet while it lasts,” he made a sad error in assuming that there is such a holiday of romance in every man’s life; millions never enjoy it; but the words I have italicized—­“an illumination of the senses by the soul”—­are one of those flashes of inspiration which sometimes enable a poet to give a better description of a psychic process than professional philosophers have put forth.

From one point of view the love sentiment may be called an illumination of the senses by the soul.  Elsewhere Lowell has given another admirable definition:  “Sentiment is intellectualized emotion, emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals of thought.”  Excellent, too, is J.F.  Clarke’s definition:  “Sentiment is nothing but thought blended with feeling; thought made affectionate, sympathetic, moral.”  The Century Dictionary throws further light on this word: 

“Sentiment has a peculiar place between thought and feeling, in which it also approaches the meaning of principle.  It is more than that feeling which is sensation or emotion, by containing more of thought and by being more lofty, while it contains too much feeling to be merely thought, and it has large influence over the will; for example, the sentiment of patriotism; the sentiment of honor; the world is ruled by sentiment.  The thought in a sentiment is often that of duty, and is penetrated and exalted by feeling.”

Herbert Spencer sums up the matter concisely (Psych., II., 578) when he speaks of “that remoteness from sensations and appetites and from ideas of such sensations and appetites which is the common trait of the feelings we call sentiments.”

It is hardly necessary to point out that in our Baghdad girl’s love-affairs there is no “remoteness from sensations and appetites,” no “illumination of the senses by the soul,” no “intellectualized emotion,” no “thought made affectionate, sympathetic, moral.”  But there is in it, as I have said, a touch of sentimentality.  If sentiment is properly defined as “higher feeling,” sentimentality is “affectation of fine or tender feeling or exquisite sensibility.”  Heartless coquetry, prudery, mock modesty, are bosom friends of sentimentality.  While sentiment is the noblest thing in the world, sentimentality is its counterfeit, its caricature; there is something theatrical, operatic, painted-and-powdered about it; it differs from sentiment as astrology differs from astronomy, alchemy from chemistry, the sham from the real, hypocrisy from sincerity, artificial posing from natural grace, genuine affection from selfish attachment.

RARITY OF TRUE LOVE