It soon becomes a very small part of
that profound and complicated sentiment, which we call love,
which is rather the universal thirst for a communion not
merely of the senses, but of our whole nature, intellectual,
imaginative, and sensitive."
Here Shelley contradicts himself flatly by saying, in two consecutive
sentences, that Greek women were "certainly devoid of the moral and
intellectual loveliness" which inspires sentimental love, but that the
men nevertheless could feel such love. His mind was evidently hazy on
the subject, and that is probably the reason why his essay remained a
fragment.
MACAULAY, BULWER-LYTTON, GAUTIER
Macaulay, with deeper insight than Shelley showed, realized that the
passion of love may undergo changes. In his essay on Petrarch he notes
that in the days of that poet love had become a new passion, and he
clearly realizes the obstacles to love presented by Greek
institutions. Of the two classes of women in Greece, the respectable
and the hetairai, he says:
"The matrons and their daughters, confined in the
harem--insipid, uneducated, ignorant of all but the
mechanical arts, scarcely seen till they were married--could
rarely excite interest; while their brilliant rivals, half
graces, half harpies, elegant and refined, but fickle and
rapacious, could never inspire respect.
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