French and Oriental Love in a Harem

Well, I suppose you will hardly expect me to account for the human

weakness which leads us to measure our own happiness by the degree of

envy which it excites in others? Besides, what is the good of sifting

my passion or testing my love in a crucible in order to estimate its

value?

In the midst of my pagan indulgences, you ask me if I really love, in

the usual sense of that word. This very reasonable question was at any

rate worth asking, however simple it may seem. It is concerned with the

great problem in psychology which I undertook to solve, namely, as to

which predominates in love, the heart or the senses, and whether true

love is possible when one loves four women at the same time?

It is clear that in the restricted limits of our ideas, and under the

yoke of our customs and prejudices, we can only conceive of passion as

concentrated upon a single object. Too far removed from our primitive

origin and from the patriarchal age, and moulded by the influences of

more refined customs, our minds have been stimulated to the

contemplation of a certain recognized ideal. Still, as moralists and

philosophers, we must admit that among Orientals there is, doubtless,

another conception and another ideal of love, the character of which we

cannot grasp. It is only by divesting ourselves of our moral clogs, or

the restraints of our social conventionalities, that we can attain to

the understanding of this lofty psychological problem. Indeed, no one

has ever been able to say what love consists in. "Attraction of two

hearts," say some, and "mutual exchange of fancies;" but these are

nothing but words depending upon the particular instance in which they

are employed.

The truth is that we are full of inconsistencies in all our

definitions. From a purely sentimental point of view, we start by laying

down, as an absolute axiom, that the human heart can only embrace one

object of love, and that man can only fall truly in love once in his

life. Yet if we abstract from love the distinct element which our senses

contribute to it, it is seen to consist of nothing but a form of

affection--an expansion of the soul analogous to friendship and to

paternal or filial love, sentiments equally powerful, but which we

recognize the duty of distributing between several objects.

Whence arises this strange contradiction?

Do not declare that it is a paradox, for our ideas on the subject

proceed entirely from our education and from the influence of custom

upon our minds. If we had been bred on the banks of the Ganges, of the

Nile, or of the Hellespont, our school of æsthetics would have been

different. The most romantic Turkish or Persian poet could not

understand the vain subtleties of our emotions. Since his laws permit

him several wives, it is his duty to love them all, and his heart rises

to the occasion. Do you mean to tell me that his is a different love to

ours? Upon what grounds? What do you know about it? Cannot you

understand the charms of the obligation he is under to protect them all,

in this equal distribution of his affections? It comes to this, in fact,

that our ideas on the point are simply and always a question of latitude

and of climate. We love like poor helpless creatures of circumstances.