the praise bestowed upon all forms of it would be equal, or graduated only with reference to intensity.  But the very reverse of this is the case really.  In our estimate of an affection, its intensity, though doubtless of great importance, is yet of an importance that is clearly secondary.  Else things that the modern world regards as the most abominable might be on a level with the things it regards as most pure and holy; the lovers of Athens might even put to shame with their passion the calm sacramental constancy of many a Christian pair; and the whole fabric of modern morals would be undermined.  For, according to the modern conception of morals, love can not only give life its highest quality, but its lowest also.  If it can raise man to the angels, it can also sink him below the beasts; and as to its intensity, it is a force which will carry him in the one direction just as well as the other.  Kind and not degree is the first thing needful.  It is the former, and not the latter, that essentially separates David and Jonathan from Harmodius and Aristogeiton, St. Elizabeth from Cleopatra, the beloved disciple from Antinous.  How shall we love? is the great question for us.  It comes long before, How much shall we love?

Let us imagine a bride and bridegroom of the type that would now be most highly reverenced, and try to understand something of what their affection is.  It is, of course, impossible here to treat such a subject adequately; for, as Mr. Carlyle says, ’except musically, and in the language of poetry, it can hardly be so much as spoken about.’  But enough for the present purpose can perhaps be said.  In the first place, then, the affection in question will be seen to rest mainly upon two things—­firstly, on the consciousness of their own respective characters on the part of each; and, secondly, on the idea formed by each of the character of the other.  Each must have a faith, for instance, in his or her own purity, and each must have a like faith, also in the purity of the other.  Thus, to begin with the first requisites, a man can only love a woman in the highest sense when he does so with a perfectly clear conscience.  There must be no obstacle between them which shocks his sense of right, or which, if known by the woman, would shock hers.  Were the affection indulged in, in spite of such an obstacle, its fine quality would be injured, no matter how great its intensity; and, instead of a moral blessing, it would become a moral curse.  An exquisite expression of the necessity of this personal sense of rightness may be read into the well-known lines,

    I could not love thee, dear, so well,
    Loved I not honour more.

Nor shall we look on honour here as having reference only to external acts and conditions.  It has reference equally, if not more, to the inward state of the heart.  The man must be conscious not only that he is loving the right woman, but that he is loving her in the right way. ’If I loved not purity more than you,’ he would say to her, ’I were not worthy of you.’