Courtly love

“ With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: "Who are you, and what do you want?" He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore, The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever. ”

“ And yet might not even passion be beautiful if love hallowed it? His arms stretched out in hopeless longing, her name burst from his lips in a cry of desperate loneliness, and he fell on his knees beside the bed, burying his face in the thick soft quilt, his strong brown hands outflung, gripping and twisting its silken cover in his agony. ”

“ But is there such a thing as a perfect love? Is yours a perfect love, my dear Martin, with its insatiable jealousy, its ruthless criticism? Has the world ever seen a perfect lover yet? Isn’t it our imperfection that brings us together in a common need? Is Miss Grammont, after all, likely to get a more perfect love in all her life than this poor love of mine? ”

“ He took a swift look up and down the empty, lifeless street, laid out straight and stiff in the cold, faint glimmer of the dawn, and then his lips sought hers in deep, deep acknowledgment of the joy, and of the sorrow, to which all love is born—one of those moments stolen in its beautifulness from the life to come.
But his voice was tense again, as he set her down within her own doorway, and he looked at her with stern eyes of jealous care, from which she hid the woman’s smile of love at dear love’s unreason. ”

“ And she dreamed that she was a fair young bride
In a pure white dress by her husband's side.
A blush crept over her pale young face,
And her thin lips smiled with a girlish grace;
But the old storm-king made his boast aloud
That his work that night was weaving a shroud.
Love's Return.
Love has come back—ah me, the joy!—
Greater than when Love began
To wound my heart. The jocund boy!
Love has come back a gray-haired man. ”

“ For the rest, Miss Williams was a little woman, or gave the impression of being so, from her slight figure and delicate hands and feet. I doubt if any one would have called her pretty, until he or she had learned to love her. For there are two distinct kinds of love, one in which the eye instructs the heart, and the other in which the heart informs and guides the eye. There have been men who, seeing an unknown beautiful face, have felt sure it implied the most beautiful soul in the world, pursued it, worshiped it, wooed and won it, found the fancy true, and loved the woman forever. ”

“ You know that's true, Basil. You're not honest with yourself—or with me."
He was silent, was watching her with sullen, suspicious eyes.
"It seems to me," she went on, "that love—real love—ought to make you careful. If we were a boy and a girl, without experience or intelligence or anything but hazy, rosy emotions——"
"You and I never will agree about love," he interrupted, impatiently. "But that's a small matter. The only point is that we love each other. Love's like a rose, Courtney. ”

“ Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life? O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven!
With Surrey, to decide was to act. The second letter, full of sweetest yet intensest love,—his heart laid bare to her,—was written; was sent, enclosed in one to his aunt. ”

“ That I love, you is but a faint expression of my feelings, and should I be so happy as to have that feeling reciprocated by you, I pledge you the best efforts of my life to promote your happiness. Nature, I fear, has wrought me in her rougher mould, and unfitted me to appear to advantage in an undertaking like this, in which so much delicacy of sentiment seems to be required in these, our days of refinement. Such as I am-and I have endeavored to appear without any false coloring—I offer myself a candidate for your affections, for your love. ”

“ The thought of this woman, whose beauty and love breathed the sweet purity of a flower and whose faith to her king and master was still unbroken even in her hour of repudiation fell upon him heavily. For there was no choice, no shadow of alternative. There was but one way for him to break the bondage of the girl he loved. ”

“ You have pointed the way, and in gratitude I kiss your dear, gentle, diligent hand.
"Good-bye, my love! If you want to punish me, never come near me again. But, if you can put up with the love of a woman who loves you as you never can be loved again on earth, do not let me perish. I have nothing but what I am to give you, but that is yours till death.
"Lilly."
She read and reread what she had written, and worked herself up into a state of rapture over it.
Now the truth appeared in quite another light. And then all at once the question rose within her: But is this the truth? ”

“ Isn't that love, too?"
"No, a thousand times, no! Call it friendship, comradeship, esteem, if you like. Call it glorified toleration. But don't call it love. Love doesn't come like that. It comes like the swift lightning that embraces a cloud."
"How I should love to love like that!" she exclaimed, with a mischievous imitation of rhapsody.
"Then you don't love me?" he demanded.
She refused to admit that she did. He pressed her for an answer.
"Don't, Claude," she said at last, disturbed. "I must keep my wits about me today, or I shall be as putty in my mother's hands." ”

“ Where is love so full, so generous, so confiding? What affection comes so pure and unalloyed, not chilled by jealous doubts or fears, but warm and gushing—the incense of a happy heart, the outpourings of a guileless nature. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture of maternal fondness, the gracefulness of woman thrown like a garment around her children. Her look of love etherealised by the holiest sentiment of tenderness ”

“ 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. ”

“ So methinks in this way our Courtier can in great part manifest his love for his Lady.
233“True it is that if the eyes are not governed with skill, they often most disclose a man’s amourous desires to whom he least would do so; for through them there shines forth almost visibly that ardent passion which (while wishing to reveal it only to his beloved) the lover often reveals also to those from whom he most would hide it. ”

“ I have no right to startle or intimidate your sweet soul into any relation that might hereafter curb or dissatisfy you; if you can love me freely, with no back-lookings to any younger lover left behind, know that naught you could bestow, can ever equal the world of love and feeling which I long to lavish upon you from my heart of hearts. ”

“ Thus, in proof: how often it happens that a loving couple continually grow more youthful in soul, fruitful in happiness, and joyous in habitude, instead of servile, decrepit, warped and prematurely wrinkled, as in the cases of those to whom the wondrous realities of love are as thrice-sealed books! Why? Because they who thus truly love, in their sacred, spiritual passion, strike out this divine spark; partake of that celestial fire; replenish themselves with the quintessence of life itself ”

“ But when you offer to restore such dowry as I first brought, too well do I bear in mind that it was my wretched clothes—Oh! good God! how gentle and kind you seemed by your speech and your countenance on the day of our marriage! True it is, and I find it so, for in myself I have proved the effect, that love when old is not the same as love when it is young. Yet, be sure, my Lord, that for no adversity, even were it to die upon this occasion, shall it ever be, that either in word or deed, I repent of having given you my whole heart, freely, and without reserve. ”

“ But, hold! thou wouldst seem to have a fair companion there. Tell me, I pray thee, hast thou brought a French wife [273] with thee? Alas, rash youth, thou knowest not what perils are to be found within the silken meshes of the toils of matrimony! Hath not thine own past experience of the fickle nature of woman cured thee of love?”
“Nay, nay, my good and honoured father,” replied Charley, “so far as I am concerned, I have learned, to my great joy, though to my sad remorse and contrition, that woman’s love, when pure and virtuous, is inextinguishable by all the storms and tides of adverse fate. ”

“ Because if the beauty, behaviour, cleverness, goodness, knowledge, modesty, and the many other worthy qualities that we have given the 227Lady, are the cause of the Courtier’s love for her, the end of his love will necessarily be worthy too: and if nobility, excellence in arms and letters and music, if gentleness and the possession of so many graces in speech and conversation, be the means whereby the Courtier is to win the lady’s love, the end of that love must needs be of like quality with the means whereby it is attained. ”

“ But to be really loved by a courtesan: that is a victory of infinitely greater difficulty. With them the body has worn out the soul, the senses have burned up the heart, dissipation has blunted the feelings. They have long known the words that we say to them, the means we use; they have sold the love that they inspire. ”

“ I cried, kissing her upon the brow and drawing her closely to me in an effort to comfort her. “Who has been putting such ideas into your mind, darling? Who has told you that love can be curbed, trained, and controlled? Love does not stop to question right or wrong; it is spontaneous, irresponsible, and born of itself in one’s heart. ”

“ You never can love any one like that—any one but me. Me! I am the only man who has ever tasted that sweetness—who ever shall taste it. He—oh, the poor fool and beggar! He may be married to you a thousand years. He will never taste that—which I have tasted—never get even the perfume of it. Never—never!.... And yet.... and yet, she is going to marry him. Oh, Christine, tell me—for mercy's sake, tell me—why do you marry him? Why does she want to marry him? Oh, there may be a hundred reasons. But not for love. I am sure, not for love. Is marriage a proof of love? Did I marry for love? ”

“ And you, on your side, you wished to keep your virtue for your lover (who does not abuse it) : you cherish only the pains of love and not its pleasures! Nothing could be better, and you will figure marvellous well in a romance. ”

“ Will he marry her? Will his love be powerful enough to overlook the loss of woman's best ornament on his sweetheart's head? Will he be able to behold her with the wig off, and say to her: 'I love you just the same?' In a melodrama he would, but will he? I dare not answer the question. We do not live in heroic times nowadays, and you must not ask too much of man. ”

“ He kissed her hand, watching anxiously the mounting excitement in her face.
"And if you do marry, Christopher," she went on, harping fitfully on her favourite string, "remember that keeping in love is as much the profession for a man as it is the art for a woman, and that love feeds on little delicacies rather than on meat and drink. Don't forget the little things, dear, and the big ones will take care of themselves. I have seen much of men and manners in my life, and they have taught me that it is the small failings, not the big faults, which are deadliest to love. ”

“ Even the hand that rested on the woodwork of the window became tense. Lambent fire in her eyes—the light that he used to call non-Aryan—took the place of the fugitive glance of the woodland animal; but she kept her composure.
"Well, what then?"
"Then you'd be committing a sacrilege against yourself—if you married any one else but me."
If her heart bounded at the words, she did nothing to betray it.
"You say that, because it seems so to you. I take another view of it. Love to me does not necessarily mean marriage, any more than marriage necessarily implies love. ”

“ And she gazed with silent admiration at her noble husband, who loved her so devotedly, and who had not been too proud to marry a simple working girl and lift her to his own station in life. Although she did not love him in a romantic fashion, she admired his noble, manly nature more and more daily. ”

“ Love would have me, and I would fain be wise without pride, gracious and courteous towards all, but the true love of one only. Shall I love them all for the sake of one? A fair mien should I show to each; but Love does not bid me to be a true love to every man. Love teaches nought but good. It is not for nothing that I have this name, and that I am called Soredamors. I ought to love, and I ought to be loved, and I wish to prove it by my name, if I can find fitting arguments. It is not without meaning that the first part of my name is the colour of gold; for the most beautiful are the blondest. ”

“ And now it was getting intolerably hard, just because she knew for the first time what love really meant, with its ardour for self-revelation, for an absolute union with the beloved. By marrying him without confession, she would not only be wronging him, she would be laying up probable misery for herself—and him—through the mere action of her own temperament. ”