Embrace

“ Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate. ”

“ There is a mysterious feeling awakened in our hearts,—a feeling of peculiar melancholy, which, combines two opposite emotions,—that of pleasure and that of pain. These seem to embrace each other, and their union in our hearts affords us a strange enjoyment. We enjoy the pain; the agony awakened by the remembrance of those who lie beneath the sod is pleasing to us. It is a bitter cup we love to drink ”

“ Why, having won her, do I woo?
Because her spirit’s vestal grace
Provokes me always to pursue,
But, spirit-like, eludes embrace; ”

“ It is not necessary that this be deliberate, hardly even conscious; but, in the close contact of affection, there is danger that we may stain and pollute one another; for we cannot embrace but with an entire embrace. ”

“ The above two kinds of embrace take place only between persons who do not, as yet, speak freely with each other.
When two lovers are walking slowly together, either in the dark, or in a place of public resort, or in a lonely place, and rub their bodies against each other, it is called a 'rubbing embrace'. ”

“ To dream of embracing your husband or wife, as the case may be, in a sorrowing or indifferent way, denotes that you will have dissensions and accusations in your family, also that sickness is threatened.
To embrace relatives, signifies their sickness and unhappiness.
For lovers to dream of embracing, foretells quarrels and disagreements arising from infidelity. If these dreams take place under auspicious conditions, the reverse may be expected.
If you embrace a stranger, it signifies that you will have an unwelcome guest. ”

“ No act can be quite so intimate as the sexual embrace. ”

“ From our modern standpoint we may say, with James Hinton, that the sexual embrace, worthily understood, can only be compared with music and with prayer. ”

“ Lights flare out in the darkness. Instead of tears and sobs there is joy unrestrained, congratulations, embraces, and soon frantic ecstasy, leaping, shouting, wine, song, revelry, bells, fireworks, and sometimes in degenerate days, drunkenness and gluttony with the sacramental elements and, in token of the triumphs of the higher love, perhaps carnal debauch and revelry and always ecstasy and inebriation with euphoria. ”

“ it had caressed him, and—lo!—he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. ”

“ For there are sweet scents which neither make the head heavy nor provoke love, and are not redolent of embraces and licentious companionship, but, along with moderation, are salutary, nourishing the brain when labouring under indisposition, and strengthening the stomach. ”

“ The dominant emotion of love, for instance, generated by a fundamental determinant such as a maiden, inflamed by an excitant determinant such as a pleasant garden, made cognizable by consequents such as sidelong glances and embraces, and strengthened by transitory feelings such as desire, becomes the erotic sentiment first of all in the hero of the drama, e.g. ”

“ If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, and kiss her cold lips, and press her hand! It falls back dead on the cold breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a smile. ”

“ It is so wonderful to give the first lessons of voluptuousness to a pure and innocent heart, to feel under one’s hand the first palpitations of the virginal breasts which arouses unknown delights, to dry the first tears of tenderness, to inspire that first mixture of fear and hope, of vague desires and expectant inquietude; whoever has never had that satisfaction has missed the most pleasurable of all the delights of love. ”

“ One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal it; and there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the affection of a human heart! ”

“ Has any one—with any heart—ever received such a package? To such a one there is no need to tell the glow of pleasure, the rush of affection and joy, which filled Faith's heart and her face; to anybody else it's no use. ”

“ Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
⁠Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
⁠Love has no habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
⁠Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
⁠The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover. ”

“ Are we face to face with something primitive, or something conventional and derivative? Is it as natural to kiss when we are transported with love as it is to smile when we are mirthful, or weep when we are sad? ”

“ Whenever any one sighs towards me with love in meditating on my Passion, it is as though he gently touched my Wounds with a fresh-budding rose, and I wound his heart in return with the arrow of my love. ”

“ Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pretty ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands. ”

“ I kissed her dainty finger-tips,
I kissed her on the lily brow,
I kissed her on the false, false lips—
That burning kiss, I feel it now!
"True love gives true love of the best:
Then take," I cried, "my heart to thee!" ”

“ When I go raving at night, weeping by day, with a knife in my heart, tears that scald my eyes! When with these pains to endure, these perils to skirt, heights to fly, you will speak, touch me, breathe upon me, tempt me to greet you with kissing of the lips—ah, heaven and hell! it is over-much. ”

“ Passion flickered, waned, and, on a pause of doubt and misgiving, tenderness dawned—tenderness, pity, remorse, regret, a growing horror and anguish, a growing knowledge of Heaven forfeited, of Hell made sure, a crescent terror, and dismay unspeakable, and under it all tenderness deepening, deepening, deepening, like a flood pressing against a barrier that it must at last break down. ”

“ I ask, "Holds earth or sin, or woe?"
My heart replies, "I do not know."
Nay! all we know, or feel, my heart,
Today is joy undimmed, complete;
In tears or pain we have no part;
The act of breathing is so sweet,
We care no higher joy to name. ”

“ The gentle pressure of the hand, one kiss—
A kiss not given yet not resisted—tells
A tale of love that words are poor to tell.
And when she goes how lonely seems her way
Through groves, through fields, through busy haunts of men ”

“ Without hesitation, the outcast bent her face, purified and celestial with love and sacrifice; bent it over the dreadful Thing, loathsome and decaying, beyond the semblance of human form or feature, on the bed,—bent and kissed, as a mother would have kissed. ”

“ The kiss of love is the exultant message of the longing of love, love eternally young, the burning prayer of hot desire, which is born on the lovers’ lips, and “rises,” as Charles Fuster has said, “up to the blue sky from the green plains,” like a tender, trembling thank-offering. ”

“ If with love thy heart has burned; If thy love is unreturned; Hide thy grief within thy breast, Though it tear thee unexpressed; For when love has once departed From the eyes of the false-hearted, And one by one has torn off quite The bandages of purple light; Though thou wert the loveliest Form the soul had ever dressed, Thou shalt seem, in each reply, A vixen to his altered eye ”

“ If any pleasure, any even which resulted from affection for others, had drawn her for an instant from what she believed to be the path—and it was always the thorniest path—of self-sacrifice, she would remorselessly denounce that pleasure, and even tear out that affection from her heart. ”

“ Temptation takes the form of Mystical Sensuality, at first beaten back and then surging forwards victorious; then, as the fire of passion grows more intense, the lamp of the tabernacle dies gradually out; and Humanity, with the unchaining of instinct, breaks forth, cries and howls like a mad gorilla from his cage. ”

“ Sterne says, that is equal to a kiss—yet I would rather give you the kiss into the bargain, glowing with gratitude to Heaven, and affection to you. I like the word affection, because it signifies something habitual; and we are soon to meet, to try whether we have mind enough to keep our hearts warm. ”

“ The ecstasy of the soul with which their body and being are filled renders it impossible for even any thought of gross fleshly pleasures to enter their mind. The very drawing of breath is to them a pure delight which any fleshly or objective pleasure of our day cannot dream of approaching. ”

“ From exchanging glances, they advance to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then to fiery passion, to plighting troth, and marriage. Passion beholds its object as a perfect unit. The soul is wholly embodied, and the body is wholly ensouled. ”

“ The ache at the heart of the intensest love is the impotence of words to make it perfectly understood to its object. But my passion was without this pang, for my heart was absolutely open to her I loved. Lovers may imagine, but I cannot describe, the ecstatic thrill of communion into which this consciousness transformed every tender emotion. ”

“ By and by the good-by kiss is forgotten when he leaves her, the salute of greeting omitted when he returns, and each heart grows harder and harder, bitterer and bitterer, until at last he thinks of her but to censure and condemn, she of him but to dislike and fear. ”

“ When soul met soul in rapture sweet—
Oh, pure love's burning kiss!
The third was laid away with him,
A kiss for heaven's day,
(O heart abide God's way) —
When in the life beyond earth's change,
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Beyond these mysteries sad and strange,
New life will spring from out the old,
New thoughts will larger truth unfold,
And love have endless sway. ”

“ I shall not attempt to give vent to the different emotions which agitate my heart—You may term a feeling, which appears to me to be a degree of delicacy that naturally arises from sensibility, pride—Still I cannot indulge the very affectionate tenderness which glows in my bosom, without trembling, till I see, by your eyes, that it is mutual. ”

“ These are the distractions of the imagination, light and rapid in their flight from one subject to another. When the will is tranquilly enjoying the sweet conversation of the Beloved, these distractions produce weariness, and in their swift flight quench its joy. The Bridegroom adjures them by the soft lyres. That is, now that the sweetness of the soul is so abundant and so continuous that they cannot interfere with it, as they did before when it had not reached this state, He adjures them, and bids them cease from their disquieting violence. ”

“ Have you no warm blood that flows round your heart, that gives your frame a thrilling soft sensation, and makes your bosom glow with affections ornamental to man as a social creature? For shame, my Lord! ”

“ God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob early! Condemn it as sentiment, if you will; talk as you will of the fearlessness, and strength of the boy’s heart—yet there belong to many, tenderly strung chords of affection which give forth low and gentle music that consoles and ripens the ear for all the harmonies of life. ”

“ A heart throbbing steadily and strong, veins full of rich, pure blood, a warm touch, an eager wish to be affectionate, and self lost in the desire to love—this is the expression of the folds. Full of the energy of exceptional vitality, she gladly gives that energy for the delight of the little one. ”

“ From the propelling power in affection, or from its collected and concentrated activity, the heart beats. Affection, or love, flows into the will, where, by the human organism, its endeavor is turned into the power of heart-throbs by Correspondence, just as the endeavor of affection is turned into the light of the understanding, and thence into the act of the hand. ”

“ Pleasures of the heart cause anxiety, bitterness, rendings, and fears.
Pleasures of the mind produce a void, vanity, jealousy, coldness, and humiliations! Teach me that all must pass away ... that nothing is true, nothing is good, nothing is eternal, but Thou, Thou only, O my God! ”

“ Thirst may be quenched at any kindly river,
Rest may be found ’neath any arching tree.
No sleep allures, no draughts of love deliver
My spirit from its aching need of thee.
Thy sweet assentiveness to my demands,
All the caressive touches of thy hands,—
These soft cool hands, with fingers tipped with fire,—
They can do nothing to assuage desire. ”

“ All these passions and faculties are comprehended under the expressions employed in the first stanza, the operations of which, full of trouble, the Bridegroom subdues by that great sweetness, joy, and courage which the bride enjoys in the spiritual surrender of Himself to her which God makes at this time; under the influence of which, because God transforms the soul effectually in Himself, all the faculties, desires, and movements of the soul lose their natural imperfection and become divine. ”