I have consulted Stevenson's chapters on love in his delightful 'Virginibus Puerisque,' and one of them says, 'Certainly, if I could help it, I would never marry a wife who wrote.' Then I noticed a book published after that one, and entitled 'The New Arabian Nights, by Mr.and Mrs.
Robert Louis Stevenson.' I shut 'Virginibus Puerisque' with a sigh, and put it away.
[Illustration] "But this inquiry need not, I feel confident, lead to nothing.
Negatively I know love; for I do not require to be told what it is not, and I have my ideal.

Putting my knowledge together and surveying it dispassionately in the mass, I am inclined to think that this is really love.
[Illustration] "I may lay down as Proposition I.that surging, tempestuous passion comes involuntarily.

You are heart-whole, when, as it were, the gates of your bosom open, in she sweeps, and the gates close.

So far this is a faithful description of my case.

Whatever it is, it came without any desire or volition on my part, and it looks as if it meant to stay.