Limerence at first sight
This is an excerpt from Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness , by Frank Tallis. Also see incurable romantics . In literature, examples of love at first sight abound. When Romeo sees Juliet for the first time, he cries: "O! She doth teach the torches to burn bright ... Did my heart love till now?" When Werther sees Lotte, he declares: "My entire soul was transfixed by her figure, her tone, her manner ... I delighted in her dark eyes ... how my entire soul was drawn to her young lips and fresh, bright cheeks ..." Nearly a hundred years later, the very same impressions are repeated by Turgenev, when the young protagonist of First Love , Vladimir, stumbles across the coquette, Zinaida: "I forgot everything; my eyes devoured the graceful figure, the lovely neck, the beautiful arms, the slightly disheveled fair hair under the white kerchief - and the half closed, perceptive eye, the lashes, the soft cheek beneath them ..." Love at fir...