Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park Lover The English Park Lover, loving his love on a green bench in Kensington Gardens or Regent's Park, or indeed in any spot where there is a green bench, so long as it is within full view of the passer-by, — this English public Lover, male or female, is a most interesting study, for we have not his exact counterpart in America. He is thoroughly respectable, I should think, my urban Colin. He does not have the air of a gay deceiver roving from flower to flower, stealing honey as he goes; he looks, on the contrary, as if it were hisintention to lead Phoebe to the altar on the next bank holiday ; there is a dead calm in his actions which bespeaks no other course. If Colin were a Don Juan, surely he would be a trifle more ardent, for there is no tropical fervor in his matter-of-fact caresses. He does not embrace Phoebe in the park, apparently, because he adores her to madness; because her smile is like fire in his veins, melting down all his defenses; because the intoxication of her nearness is irresistible; because, in fine, he cannot wait until he finds a more secluded spot: nay, verily, he embraces her because — tell me, infatuated fruiterers, poulterers, soldiers, haberdashers (limited), what is your reason ? for it does not appear to the casual eye. Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park Lover, for "the rains of Marly do not wet" when one is in love. By a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine mackintosh is well known to be ill adapted to the purpose, and a continuous drizzle would dampen almost any other lover in the universe. The park embrace, as nearly as I can analyze it, seems to be one part instinct, one par...