There is never the least doubt in the mind of an Italian or an Oriental when he is in love; but an Englishman will associate with a woman for ten years, and one day will wake up to the fact that he loves her, and has loved her probably for some time past.

And then his whole manner changes immediately, and he is apt to make himself very disagreeable unless indeed the lady loves him--and women are rarely in doubt in their inmost hearts as to whether they love or not.
The heart of the cold northern-born man is a strange puzzle.

It can only be compared in its first awakening to a very backward spring.

In the first place, the previous absence of anything like love has bred a rough and somewhat coarse scepticism about the existence of passion at all.
Young Boreas scoffs at the mere mention of a serious affection, and turns up his nose at a love-match.

He thinks young women no end of fun; his vanity makes him fancy himself the heartless hero of many an adventure, and if, as frequently happens, he is but an imperfect gentleman, he will not scruple to devise, imagine, and recount (to his bosom friend, of course, in strictest secrecy) some hairbreadth escape from an irate husband or an avenging father, where he has nearly lost his life, he says, in the pursuit of some woman, generally a lady of spotless reputation whom he barely knows.