Meaning of “Love is like the measles; we all have…”

The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love”; the narrator contrasts youthful shyness with the polished declarations of older men.

A Woman of No Importance, Act III; Lord Illingworth answers Gerald’s question about love with the romance/self-deception epigram. The exact catalog wording is supported by this play, not by The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2; Juliet speaks as the lovers part for the night.

An Essay on Criticism, Part III; Pope joins good nature and good sense before contrasting ordinary human error with the higher moral act of forgiveness.

Indian Summer of a Forsyte, represented in Project Gutenberg #2594. Irene says the line to old Jolyon while speaking about her dead lover; it is emotionally charged fictional dialogue, and the surrounding conversation immediately gives old Jolyon a more ironic response.

Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet XXXV, Project Gutenberg #2002. “For grief indeed is love and grief beside” occurs as the lyric speaker asks whether a new beloved can fill a place still occupied by family memory and bereavement. It remains intimate Victorian love poetry, not a clinical model or universal definition of grief.