But it is a subject in which neither
intuition nor the behaviour of others will help the
philosopher to the truth. There is probably nothing
rightly thought or rightly written on this matter of love
that is not a piece of the person's experience.
*
It is the property of things seen for the first time, or
for the first time after long, like the flowers in spring,
to re-awaken in us the sharp edge of sense, and that
impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out
of life with the coming years; but the sight of a loved
face is what renews a man's character from the fountain
upwards.
*
Nothing is given for nothing in this world; there can be no
true love, even on your own side, without devotion;
devotion is the exercise of love, by which it grows; but if
you will give enough of that, if you will pay the price in
a sufficient 'amount of what you call life,' why then,
indeed, whether with wife or comrade, you may have months
and even years of such easy, natural, pleasurable, and yet
improving intercourse as shall make time a moment and
kindness a delight.
*
Love is not blind, nor yet forgiving. 'O yes, believe me,'
as the song says, 'Love has eyes!' The nearer the
intimacy, the more cuttingly do we feel the unworthiness of
those we love; and because you love one, and would die for
that love to-morrow, you have not forgiven, and you never
will forgive that friend's misconduct.
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