Excerpt from Illustrations of the Passion of Love, Vol. 1 of 2: Being a Collection of Historical and Miscellaneous Anecdotes, Brief Memoirs, and Curious Traditions, Illustrative of the Attachment Between the Sexes in All Ages and Countries The object of this compilation is to illustrate, by authentic facts, anecdotes, and biographical sketches, collected from respectable authors of every class, the strength and effects of that passion, in its various shapes and disguises, which may be deemed universal, under the general name of Love. It would be easy to expatiate on the extensive field supplied by the wild and wayward operations of this great instinctive agent; to be eloquent on the extraordinary revolutions which it has produced in families, and even empires; and to allude with prefatory animation to the scenes - tragic, comic, and ludicrous - which it ever has been, is, and doubtless ever will be, getting up amidst the devious and capacious mazes of society. Dispensing with all unnecessary flourish of this nature, it will suffice to observe, that the purposed task could be accomplished in several ways, and that some out of the several might be sufficiently mischievous. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.