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Love without a true knowledge in the object of that love is just infatuation, while idealism is the fuel that keeps that infatuation going.
This post continues to explore the theme of Ross Poldark's sham desire for Elizabeth as covered in the previous one called 'Ross's Fall Out Of Love With Elizabeth (Winston Graham's Notes Of Ross's Sham Desire). That previous post was particularly inspired by Winston Graham's archived handwritten story plan notes for his Poldark story. Specifically there was a relevant entry where he wrote that "Before Elizabeth marries George Ross has his way with her...Ross finds that his desire for Elizabeth is a sham." As the second of three in a series exploring Ross's 'sham desire' for Elizabeth, this post focuses on the root cause of the sham and has Elizabeth's true character at the heart of this (though not under intense examination in this post). Indeed, a fundamental and central issue which most definitely adds to the logic of why Ross's desire for Elizabeth was actually a sham was Ross's idealism of Elizabeth based on his teenage experience of her. Indeed there is a theme of their relationship being based on only a 'childish' love between them which Elizabeth seemed to be more conscious of and therefore any desire by either of them for the other being based on this. This was without the experience of an adult love to test the genuineness in reality and their present day. There is theme that Winston Graham inserts into the story which raises the question of how much adult Ross and Elizabeth really knew each other. Certainly in the first instance, the eventual realisation so many years later by Ross of his 'sham desire' of Elizabeth is hardly surprising if he was actually in love with the girl that Elizabeth once was, rather than the woman that Elizabeth had become. Hence, Ross's belief that he loved Elizabeth, also as the new man he became, was likely based on an identity he held for her that was mistaken because of change in her by then. 
