In commenting on Romeo, who in his love for Rosaline indulges in
emotion for emotion's sake, and "stimulates his fancy with the
sought-out phrases, the curious antitheses of the amorous dialect of
the period," Dowden writes:
"Mrs. Jameson has noticed that in _All's Well that Ends
Well_ (I., 180-89), Helena mockingly reproduces this style
of amorous antithesis. Helena, who lives so effectively in
the world of fact, is contemptuous toward all unreality and
affectation."
Now, it is quite true that expressions like "cold fire" and "sick
health" sound unreal and affected to sober minds, and it is also true
that many poets have exercised their emulous ingenuity in inventing
such antitheses just for the fun of the thing and because it has been
the fashion to do so. Nevertheless, with all their artificiality, they
were hinting at an emotional phenomenon which actually exists.
Romantic love is in reality a state of mind in which cold and heat may
and do alternate so rapidly that "cold fire" seems the only proper
expression to apply to such a mixed feeling. It is literally true
that, as Bailey sang, "the sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love;"
literally true that "the sweets of love are washed with tears," as
Carew wrote, or, as H.K. White expressed it, "'Tis painful, though
'tis sweet to love.
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