If you want a
person's faults, go to those who love him. They will
not tell you, but they know. And herein lies the
magnanimous courage of love, that it endures this
knowledge without change.
*
Certainly, whatever it may be with regard to the world at
large, this idea of beneficent pleasure is true as between
the sweethearts. To do good and communicate is the lover's
grand intention. It is the happiness of the other that
makes his own most intense gratification. It is not
possible to disentangle the different emotions, the pride,
humility, pity, and passion, which are excited by a look of
happy love or an unexpected caress. To make one's self
beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, to do
anything and all things that puff out the character and
attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others,
is not only to magnify one's self, but to offer the most
delicate homage at the same time. And it is in this latter
intention that they are done by lovers, for the essence of
love is kindness; and, indeed, it may be best defined as
passionate kindness; kindness, so to speak, run mad and
become importunate and violent.
*
What sound is so full of music as one's own name uttered
for the first time in the voice of her we love!
*
We make love, and thereby ourselves fall the deeper in it.
It is with the heart only that one captures a heart.
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