Liking

“ Still, these excesses excepted, the knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very beginning of acquaintance; ”

“ Attachment, preference, liking, fondness, affection, are expressions of somewhat the same meaning, but they do not present the idea of vigor, warmth, depth or intensity which seems to attach to the term love. ”

“ How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? ”

“ Love, in the sense in which you use the word, isn't what's wanted. A strong liking, an affection, is more to the point. I was struck the other day, when looking in the dictionary, to find, among its other definitions, love defined as a 'thin silk stuff.' Well, affection is a stout woolen fabric. ”

“ A vague and momentary liking, which might be effaced, as easily as mists vanish in the sun, is the result. The lady, from the delicacy of her organization, and the quickness of her perceptions, is the first aware of the new state of mutual feeling ”

“ We are far from liking London well enough till we like its defects: the dense darkness of much of its winter, the soot on the chimney-pots and everywhere else, the early lamplight, the brown blur of the houses, the splashing of hansoms in Oxford Street or the Strand on December afternoons.
There is still something that recalls to me the enchantment of children—the anticipation of Christmas, the delight of a holiday walk—in the way the shop-fronts shine into the fog. ”

“ The passion I experience is too powerful, too vast, to descend even to the falsehoods to which we should both be reduced, if we sought the pleasures of a vulgar love. No, no, to belong to him in the open gaze of day, in the face of the world, to bear his name nobly and proudly—or bury my unhappy love in the depths of my heart. ”

“ Have you not seen those whose charms at first-sight found no place in your thoughts, but as you were drawn nearer and nearer to them, so also did your esteem quicken, and that esteem, almost unconsciously, you found ripening into affection, until in turn you were seized with an ardent passion? ”

“ The answer was a kiss that sent a thrill of pleasure through every vein.
"Oh, my dear, this is nothing to what you would enjoy were you to link your fortune to mine and fly with me to France. Then we would live a life of love and pleasure such as you have just tasted. Our whole lives would be nothing but love and pleasure, morn, noon and night it would be love, all love. There should be nothing around us but love - nothing but pleasure!" ”

“ They say, I know, that to be in love is not pure happiness; that in the mood of the unconfessed, unaccepted lover there is an element of poignant doubt and pain. Should I at once confess myself and taste of the perfection of bliss? ”

“ Mind you, I don't mean that easy romantic passion which seems everything and means nothing. But real love, true love, staunch love, the sort which will hold to its object in the face of all detraction. ”

“ It is strange: this evening I live with the whole of my body for the first time. I exist wherever it is. Even as I stand here fixed and tense in front of the glass, I follow a line which may arch, swell and melt away and which already bears the shape of love.
I can imagine everything ... for there's no need of having loved in order to be a lover. ”

“ I like to picture to myself the affection of which such a man is capable, for no doubt he loves this girl of whom he speaks; not, of course, as you—as you ought to love me, but with a rude, wild sincerity, a sort of rugged grandeur. ”

“ Oh, my dear pupil, be warned in time; know love for what it really is, in the dark and complicated history of actual life,—a brief enchantment, not to be disdained, but not to be considered the all-in all. Look round the world; contemplate all those who have married from passion: ten years afterwards, whither has the passion flown? ”

“ The lovers delight in endearments, in avowals of love, in comparisons of their regards. When alone, they solace themselves with the remembered image of the other. Does that other see the same star, the same melting cloud, read the same book, feel the same emotion, that now delight me? ”

“ It is now taught, not only that physical passion stands for, or rather is, the Love of which it forms only a part; but that the fire of sudden desire is the only true, or natural, expression of love itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I will not attempt to describe my sensations when I first distinctly saw the lineaments of my lover. Creation contained nothing so lovely to my sight. To see the soul, the thinking, feeling, immortal soul, flashing with enthusiasm, or darkening with tenderness, looking forth from his eyes, and feel my own mingling with his! No one but those who have once been blind, and now see, can imagine the intensity of my emotions. ”

“ If you begin making in fancy a lover to your mind, I am lost at once—but the one quality of affection for you, which would sooner or later have to be placed on his list of component graces; that I will dare start supply—the entire love you could dream of is here. ”

“ This is the natural history of undisciplined passion; it cheapens love, it robs it quickly of its exquisiteness and charm. The faithful lover, on the other hand, by checking premature intimacies, and keeping true to the one woman who calls or will some day call out all his love, knows a steady joy that bulks in the end far greater than the flaring and fitful and quickly disillusioned passions of unearned love. ”

“ No; you must listen—for the veil of romance is rent and we are face to face in the living world! Do you think a real man cares what title you wear, if you but wear his name? Countess that you are not—if you say you are not—but woman that you are, is there anything in Heaven or earth that can make love more than love? Veil your beautiful true eyes with romance, and answer me; look with clear, untroubled eyes upon throbbing, pulsating life ”

“ A Likeness, skilfully contrived in the indirect directness of its acknowledgment of love, its jealous privacy of passion, and its irresistible delight in the homage rendered by one who is not a lover, is no exception. Not one of these poems tells of the full assurance and abiding happiness of lovers. But the warmth and sweetness of early passion are alive under the most disastrous circumstances in Confessions. ”

“ From "Tyrannic Love" Ah, how sweet it is to love! Ah, how gay is young Desire! And what pleasing pains we prove When we first approach Love's fire! Pains of Love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are. ”

“ They are so well known, and rightly so admired, that it would be pedantry to analyze their composition; but you will note that the first is the pathos of passion, the second that of affection; and yet even in the first, you seem to perceive that the lovers have sacrificed their passion to the cherishing of a deep and rememberable impression. ”

“ No doubt the illusions of love would be little known, and passion would see a diminution of its transports. But is it passion that in general ennobles human affairs? We need honest attachments and delicate delights, and all these we may obtain while still preserving our common-sense.... ”

“ This is the second half of the activity of upper or self-less or spiritual love. There is a tremendous great joy in exploring and discovering the beloved. For what is the beloved? She is that which I myself am not. ”

“ I had laughed at men who gravely discussed the possibility of love at first sight, but now I began to realise, half shamefacedly, that it was not a thing to be convinced of through argument, but by thrilling, magical experience. ”

“ You continually see her, you continually hear her voice, you sup with her, you drink with her; and yet, fortunate that you are, you are complaining! You are guilty of base ingratitude towards love, and without the slightest cause. Do you not know that seeing the object whom you love gives far deeper pleasure than enjoying her? ”

“ My affection is fascinated, or, I would rather say, won, by the most remarkable combination of beauty, grace, talent, gentleness, and utter unconsciousness of it all, that it has ever been my hap to meet with. And, instead of being hoodwinked, my judgment, my power of judging, seem newly roused and awakened by having so very fine a subject on which to exercise themselves. ”

“ However, after all the several sources of the love of God have coalesced together, this affection becomes as disinterested as any other; as the pleasure we take in any natural or artificial beauty, in the esteem of others, or even in sensual gratifications. ”

“ As we see in nature, when the heart is engaged by one object of affection, any demonstration of affection from another, which involves the relinquishment of it, not only does not give pleasure, but positive pain, though you know its reality, purity, and intensity; the fact is, the affections are occupied, and there is no place. ”

“ Thus fair and blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the mysteries of true love, if he be captured by the lover and their purpose is effected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh, those burning moments in love, when romance has just mellowed into passion, and without losing anything of its luxurious vagueness mingles the enthusiasm of its dreams with the ardent desires of reality and earth! ”

“ I don’t want to pose as a lover. Why should I fall in love with you in real life, because I like you to read my poem about lovers? Can’t you see the absurdity of the argument? Life and books are two different spheres. ”

“ But, reader, be you male or female, have you ever known this sore trial of affection and pride, that from some cause or other, to you mysterious, the dear intercourse to which you had accustomed the secret life of your life, abruptly ceases; you know that a something has come between you and the beloved which you cannot distinguish, cannot measure, cannot guess, and therefore cannot surmount ”

“ Let these questions be answered by common sense and observation, and I ask no more. Let these questions be honestly answered, and the knot before us is untied. How does affection show itself among ourselves? ”

“ Imagine the effect of these arts upon a sensitive and romantic girl, a lonely and orphaned creature who was yearning for the voice of affection, and weaving many a beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal affection, and you will anticipate the result. ”

“ Such fancies as these are a part of love's gentle madness, and luckier than she knows is the girl who awakens in a lover this eager idealization. If he can turn a verse for her in which she is added to the sacred Nine, personifying all sweet, gentle and gracious things, so much the better. ”

“ Whenever he indulged the idea of her affection, he felt like one uplifted above the world—its base sorrows and still baser joys;—earth had for him but one sound of comfort—it was the name of her he loved! ”

“ The passions and the affections, by their influence over the soul, produce pleasure or pain; but shall we not love and approve those who take pleasure in cultivating virtuous affections, and rejecting vicious ones? ”

“ Take yourself, for instance; you've never been in love, you've everything that you can desire, you're clad in purple and fine linen, you fare sumptuously every day, you flirt six days in the week, and rest not on the seventh—but love! ”

“ You hear of silent love, of lovers staring on one another with glowing eyes, their lips incapable of the emotions and sensations which crowd their quick hearts and fill their throats with sighs. This may be very well too; but, for my part, I have generally observed that lovers have a very great deal to talk about. ”

“ Yes; if the world be right in calling a passion romantic just in proportion as it is not merely hopeless, but pure and unselfish, drawing its delicious power from no hope or faintest desire of enjoyment, but merely from simple delight in its object—then my passion was most romantic. ”

“ What if she had been wrong, if not only love were coming to her, to fill her life with delight, and turn its weariness with purpose and meaning, but love at first sight? A ridiculous notion, entertained by schoolgirls, housemaids, novelists, and poets, but scouted by all reasonable people of the world, and "in society." ”

“ Then you confess that true pleasures proceed from the mind as from a fountain. Sp. It is plain they do. He. So great is the force of the mind that it often takes away the sense of outward pain, and sometimes makes what of itself is bitter to be sweet. Sp. We see that daily in those who are in love, who take a pleasure in watching and waiting all a cold winter's night at their mistress's door. ”