“An ill-looking but brave warrior of the cannibal tribe of Ruanae, named Vete, fell violently in love with a pretty girl named Tanuau, who repelled his advances and foolishly reviled him for his ugliness.  His only thought now was how to be revenged for this unpardonable insult.  He could not kill her, as she wisely kept to the encampment of Mantara.  After some months Tanuau sickened and died.  The corpse was conveyed across the island to be let down the chasm of Raupa, the usual burial-place of her tribe.”

Vete chose this as the time for revenge.  Arrangements were made to intercept the corpse secretly, and he had it carried away.  It was too decomposed to be eaten, so they cut it in pieces and burned it—­burning anything belonging to a person being the greatest injury one can inflict on a native.

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON

But what have all these disgusting stories to do with affection, the subject of this chapter?  Nothing whatever—­and that is why I have put them here—­to show in a glaring light that what Goethe and Schure, and doubtless thousands of their readers accepted as love is not love, since there is no affection in it.  A true patriot, a man who feels an affection for his country, lays down his life for it without a thought of personal advantage; and if his country treats him ungratefully he does not turn traitor and assassin—­like the German and Polynesian “lovers” we have just read about.  A real lover is indeed overjoyed to have his affection returned; but if it is not reciprocated he is none the less affectionate, none the less ready to lay down his life for the other, and, above all, he is utterly incapable of taking hers.  What creates this difference between lust and love is affection, and, so far at least as maternal love is concerned, the nature of affection was known thousands of years ago.  When two mothers came before King Solomon, each claiming the same child as her own, the king sent for a sword and said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”  To this the false claimant agreed, but the real mother exclaimed, “O my lord, give her the living child and in no wise slay it.”  Then the king knew that she was the child’s mother and gave him to her.  “And all Israel saw that the wisdom of God was in Solomon, to do judgment.”

If we ask why this infallible test of love was not applied to the sexual passion, the answer is that it would have failed, because ancient love between the sexes was, as all the testimony collected in this book shows, too sensual and selfish to stand such a test.  Yet it is obvious that if we to-day are to apply the word love to the sexual relations, we must use the same test of disinterested affection that we use in the case of maternal love or love of country; and that love is not love before affection is added to all the other ingredients heretofore considered.  In that servant’s “love” which so excited the wonder of Goethe, only three of the fourteen ingredients of love were present—­individual preference, monopoly, and jealousy—­and those three, as we have seen, occur also in plain lust.  Of the tender, altruistic, loving traits of love—­sympathy, adoration, gallantry, self-sacrifice, affection—­there is not a trace.