Hints for Lovers Part 9

Nothing stands still in this world, not even love: it must grow or it withers. And, perhaps,

That is the strongest love which surmounts the greatest number of obstacles.

Love to some is an intoxicant; to others an ailment. To all it is a necessity.

As is one's character, so is one's love. And

Perhaps the deepest love is the quietest.

Love is as implacable as it is un-appeasable. Nay more,

Love is merciless: as merciless to its votary as to its victim: For

Love would slay rather than surrender; would for-swear rather than forgo.

Some loves, like some fevers, render the patient immune--at all events to that particular kind of contagion.

Many lovers are vaccinated in early youth.

Only love can comprehend and reciprocate love. This is why,

If, of two sensitive human souls, the one loves pa.s.sionately and the other not at all, the other is unwittingly blind and deaf to love's clamors and claims: the one may ardently urge; the other but pa.s.sively yields:--

Only the famished understand the pangs of the hungered.

Of a great and reciprocated love there is one and only one sign: the expression of the eyes. Who that has seen it was ever deceived by its counterfeit?

Did ever the same love-light shine in the same eyes twice?

The light of love in the eyes may take on a thousand forms: exultant jubilation, a trustful happiness; infinite appeas.e.m.e.nt, or promises untold; an adoration supreme, or a complex oblation; tenderness ineffable, or heroic resolves; implicit faith; unquestioning confidence; abounding pity; unabashed desire...

He who shall count the stars of heaven, shall enumerate the radiances of love.

There is no Art of Loving (1); though, as Ovid says, love must be guided by art (2). Yet,

If love did not come by chance, it would never come at all.

(1) Ovid wrote not Art of Loving ("Ars Amandi"); he wrote on the Amatorial Art ("Ars Amatoria").

(2) "Arte regendus amor."--"Ars Amatoria", I, 4.

To each of us himself is the centre of the visible universe. But when love comes it alters this Ptolemaic theory. Yet,

It is a significant fact that love, which, more than any other thing in this world, is the great bringer-together of hearts, begins its mysterious work as a separator and puter-at-a-distance. For

When love first dawns in the breast of youth, it throws about its object a sacred aureole, which awes at the same time that it inspires the faithful worshipper.

Can only two walk abreast in the path of love? How many try to widen that strait and narrow way!

Love raises everything to a higher plane; but nothing higher than the man or woman who is loved.

Is there anything about which love does not shed a halo? Indeed,

Love is a sort of transfiguration. And when on the mount, we can very truly say, "It is good for us to be here".

If there is any sublunary thing equal in value to the true love of a faithful woman, it has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive.

True love makes all things loveable,--except perhaps the chaperon.

Was there ever man or woman yet who was not bettered by a true love?

True love is ever diffident and fearful of its own venturesomeness (3).

But this not every woman understands.

Too often the Phantasm of love and not the Verity wins the day (4).

Women who seek a real lover should beware the overbold one.

(3) Cf. "La volupte Nous rend hardis, l'amour nous rend timides."

--Voltaire, La Pucelle, Chant vi.

(4) See Leopardi, "Storia del Genere Humano", where the Verities of Truth and Love and Justice never leave the throne of Jove, but their Phantasms are sent down amongst men.

To merge the THEE and the ME into one--that is ever the attempt of love.

It is impossible. Yet, perhaps

They are happiest who can longest disbelieve in the impossibility of this amatorial fusion; for it may be that such