Love for Love

“ Leaving the marriage service, her thoughts brooded in a radiant stillness on the life of love which would begin for her on the day of her wedding. A strange light—the light that quivered like a golden wing over the autumn fields—shone, also, into the secret chambers of her soul, and illumined the things which had appeared merely dull and commonplace until to-day. Those innumerable little cares which fill the lives of most women were steeped in the magic glow of this miraculous charm. ”

“ To find our treasure of love greater than we had dared to dream—what rarer joy has earth? And when the poor derelict soul clung to his wife and found in her a help sufficient for his needs, his was a rapture not less profound than that of the poet-husband when he opened the sonnets in which a woman's soul had poured itself, counting the ways and measuring the depth and the height of her wifely love. ”

“ I want you to marry me because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because you’re the whole world, because I always have loved you. I’ve been dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering about you—wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you looked. ”

“ They "give her time"; for her soul must slip Where the world has set the grooving; She will lie to none with her fair red lip: But love seeks truer loving. She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, As her thoughts were beyond recalling; With a glance for one, and a glance for some, From her eyelids rising and falling; Speaks common words with a blushful air, Hears bold words, unreproving; But her silence says—what she never will swear— And love seeks better loving. ”

“ For we cannot conceive thee and therefore cannot love thee sufficiently, and we only love thee in each other, even as we know each other. But I know that the love for my beloved is love for thee and that in her I love thee. And I feel no regret and am happy and thankful, content to have followed thee and served thee, firmly believing that I shall grow in power till I shall recognize and attain fitness for eternal blessedness. ”

“ O peace, my songs, nor stir ye any wing!
For lo, the thunder hushing all the grove,
And did Love live, not even Love could sing.
And, Lady, thus I dare to say,
Not all with you is passed away!
For your love taught me this:—’tis Love’s true praise
To be, not staff, but writ of worthy days;
And that high worth in love unfortunate
Should still remain it learned in love elate.
Beyond your star, still, still the stars are bright;
Beyond your highness, still I follow height;
Sole I go forth, yet still to my sad view,
Beyond your trueness, Lady, Truth stands true. ”

“ He yearned for her sympathy, for her love, for that sense of peace which had come upon him as he sat by her side. The tide of love, which not once in a million years is at the full in two human hearts at once, rushed over him, sweeping away pride, reason, selfishness, ambition,--all, all routed and o'erset by that warm, delicious flood of emotion. ”

“ If it is possible to imagine some world where love in pure essence seeking its source immortal is one, it may be believed that the love of these two women, so strangely different in character and circumstances, may, at last united, heal his wounds and draw him forever to the heart of the Beautiful made manifest in each of them. For Love is eternal, and who shall judge his way in the deep waters? ”

“ Frankness and candour were among the virtues of my beloved: she listened to protestations of affection, and, rising above the little arts of her sex, avowed a reciprocal attachment. The measure of my bliss seemed now to be full: the purity of my passion was such, that the thoughts of the grosser animal desires never once occurred; and happy in loving, and in being beloved, we passed our time in all the innocent blandishments which truly virtuous Love inspires, without our imagination roaming even for an instant into the wilds of sensuality. ”

“ The aim and end of true love in her stories is always marriage, whether it be the simple attachment of Germain, the field-laborer, for the rustic maiden of his choice, the romantic predilection of the rich young widow in Pierre qui roule for the handsome actor Laurence, or the worship of Count Albert for the cantatrice Consuelo. Her ideal of marriage was, no doubt, a high one, "the indissoluble attachment of two hearts fired with a like love;" a love "great, noble, beautiful, voluntary, eternal." ”

“ This lover has strewn the roses of a month's gathering on his lady's path, only for the chance of her seeing them: as he has conquered the difficulties of the lute, only for the chance of her liking its sound; thrown his whole life into a love, which is hers to accept or reject. ”

“ The love for the man she had married, wondering how one so bright and handsome and universally admired and liked could stoop to her, who had nothing but love and worship to give in return—that love was now gone and was not missed, so much greater and more satisfying was the love for her boy. ”

“ I clutched the sofa with my hand and held myself there.
"Is love the only thing?" she asked, in low, sweet tones that seemed to bring a calm even to my wrung heart. "If love were the only thing I could follow you in rags, if need be to the world's end; for you hold my heart in the hollow of your hand! But is love the only thing?" ”

“ And the birds sing, 'Love, love, love.' Aye, all the world to-day is softly whispering, 'Love, love, love.' What else should the great world whisper but my love? For my love is greater than the world." And she suddenly [pg 280] hid her face in her hands; and he could kiss no more than her hands, though her eyes gleamed at him from between slim white fingers. ”

“ What I mean is the love of the poets and the dreamers, the "young love" which is thrill and ecstasy, a glorification and a transfiguration of the whole of life. I say that, far from giving up this love for marriage, it is the true purpose of marriage to preserve this love and perpetuate it.
To save repetition and waste of words, let us agree that from now on when I use the word love, I mean the passionate love of those who are "in love." I believe that it is the right of men and women to be "in love," and that there is no true marriage unless they are "in love," and stay "in love." ”

“ So to this pair of lovers, though their lot in life was but lowly, and the roof that sheltered them humble, came as pure and rich a joy as if they had dwelt in palace halls. Is it not a glorious provision of Providence that love is free for all? ”

“ This feeling, it may be hoped, will gradually win for itself the same freedom in life as it already possesses in poetry. The flowering, as well as the budding of love will then be a secret between the lovers, and only its fruit will be a matter between them and society. ”

“ It is the love I have for you, my own—a love 'beyond all words or sense'—as one of your English poets says. Do you know, with the strange irony of things, when a woman's love for a man rises to the highest point there is in it always an element of the wife? ”

“ Her confidence that honour for a woman can signify only a means of winning love; her complaint that life denies to the woman of genius the fulfilment of her most beautiful dream, love in marriage, were the prologue to innumerable tragedies during woman’s century. ”

“ I feel the blindness which has crept upon them—those poor women [Pg 217] —as you have sown the air with the dust of the passion which you call love. Oh, you never knew what love meant, my lord. I doubt if when you lay in your mother’s arms you turned to her with love. You never did one kindly act for love; no generous thought was ever born in you by love. ”

“ He is in dead earnest, with a desire for growth and truth in life, and with such a sincere admiration for his wife’s sweetness and beauty of character that the most prejudiced and hardest heart could not fail to fall in love with him. ”

“ But the day comes sooner or later to the married pair, when the prose pages must be turned, and poetry relegated to the background, days on which the reality of life, in all its grim nakedness, seems to banish romance, and when love needs all its strength and staying power for the fight. ”

“ The feeling I have for you is love. God is love, and all his creation is ruled by the laws of love.”
“Cousin Edward, what is your definition of love?”
“Love,” said Edward, looking into the depths of her laughing blue eyes, “love is love.”
“Good!—that will do for you. So now, Frank, it is your turn Francis—brother.”
“What, Clara?”
“Where are you wandering?”
“To the vine-covered cottage you were telling me of.”
“Well, come back from there, and tell me what love is.”
“Love? Love is the devil! An angel of light—madness—gladness! ”

“ I think of myself, of you, of the woman who loves you, of everything that you love and everything that I love. I should like my love to be good and full of joy for everyone."
"Love is a duel. If you look to the right or the left you are lost. ”

“ Any one who had observed these two from a distance,—a young and handsome man and a blooming young girl,—conversing alone in the shady meadow, would have taken them, to a certainty, for a pair of lovers, and would never have imagined that they were speaking of suffering and death, but of love, which is life itself. ”

“ Love for the first time penetrated through every nerve of her body, and possessed her whole mind. Taught a theory of virtue by her husband, she was startled at wishes which militated against his honor, but no principles being grounded in her mind, they soon disappeared before the furious charge of his passions, and after a short struggle she surrendered herself to the lawless power of a guilty and ambitious love. ”

“ you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart’s-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. ”

“ I would have made the lover insignificant and the husband good-looking. Nevertheless she loved the lover better. I know of nothing more noble than for a man to marry the woman he loves, and to raise her by the force of his love ”

“ Go to the good heart that is my husband
Who broods upon what he calls our guilty love:—
Tell him that my love for you, no less than my love for him
Wrought out my destiny—that through the flesh
I won spirit, and through spirit, peace.
There is no marriage in heaven
But there is love. ”

“ Pride did her. The pride of love. No mistaking it. The headstrong pride of love. Faith removes mountains, but love climbs over 'em, at all costs. Depend upon it, she 'd given her heart to some man against the General's will, and run away and married him. Marriage was the first step in her descent."
"Or do you think..." hazarded the Spawer, with all humility for intruding his little key into so magnificent a lock of hypothesis, "that marriage was a missing step altogether, and she tripped for want of it?" ”

“ Lay it aside with thine unfastened zone,
And love him with the love that knows not fear,
[95]
Because it fears not change; enter thou in,
Flower of all sweet and stainless womanhood!
For ever to grow bright, for ever new;
Enter beneath the flowers, O flower-fair!
Beneath these tendrils, Loveliest! that entwine
And clasp, and wreathe and cling, with kissing stems;
Enter, with tender-blowing airs of heaven,
Soft as love's breath and gentle as the tones
Of lover's whispers, when the lips come close:
Enter the house of Love, O loveliest! ”

“ Of thy loving, for I love thee! ”

“ You believed you loved me, but I doubted my love, and I know now that no true love for you exists. We must part, and part forever. Whatever wrong may have been done, marriage to avoid disgrace would be a wrong to both of us infinitely greater. ”

“ HE: Mi amor, SHE: I think he said "amor." Un favor I've heard that word before. Yo te pido. Mi amor, I'm almost sure that love Un favor Is what he's thinking of. Un besito de contestación. (Alt.: Yo te pido solamente que me envíes tu un beso del balcón.) There he goes again! Te amo, The moon is high above, vida And I'm in the mood for love, de mi vida. ”

“ You have found your victim, and you see a way of salvation for yourself, and a prosperous future for Valentine. She won't grieve long—oh, no, not long for the husband she never loved—but look here, you have to guard her against the possibility in the future of falling in love with another—of being won by another man, who will ask her to be his wife and the mother of his children. ”

“ Ah cherished little one, with what bright hopes of love and happiness dids't thou leave a sunny home, and are they gone for ever, oh what depth of love in thy crushed and bleeding heart, striving ever to hide beneath a sunny face thy aching heart, lest it should grieve or vex the husband thou lovest so fondly, while he heedlessly repelling the loving one whose happiness depends upon his kindness, or impatiently receiving the fond caress, discerns not the breaking heart nor the secret anguish this same indifference causes ”

“ But when we have arrived at that epoch of life,—when, if the light fail us, if the last rose wither, we feel that the loss cannot be retrieved, and that the frost and the darkness are at hand, Love becomes to us a treasure that we watch over and hoard with a miser's care. Our youngest-born affection is our darling and our idol, the fondest pledge of the Past, the most cherished of our hopes for the Future. A certain melancholy that mingles with our joy at the possession only enhances its charm. We feel ourselves so dependent on it for all that is yet to come. ”