Perfect love

“ They are a medley of crude equivocalities, of the grossness of the fabliaux, of Rabelais, and of the delicate preciosity of the seventeenth century. Love is the principal theme discussed—youth, nobility, wealth, power, beauty, glory, love for love, the delicate sensation of feeling one's self loved, elegant love, obsequious love; perfect love is found in those lovers who seek perfection in what they love, either of goodness, beauty, or grace—always tending to virtue. ”

“ Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings; ”

“ Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well. ”

“ Love was like nature, ever changing, ever renewing; no feeling died and no emotion withered without giving life to the seed of something still more perfect which was imbedded in it. Quietly, sanely, with full, deep breaths—it was good to love so and love with all his soul. ”

“ Love must be blind, for he thinks I am beautiful and perfect. I'm glad I look like that to him. We should be happy when we are married, for we are so congenial, both loving music and things of beauty. ”

“ Think, when he meets at last his fountain-bride,
What perfect love must thrill the blended tide!
Each lost in each, till, mingling into one,
Their lot the same for shadow or for sun,
A type of true love, to the deep they run.
'Twas thus—
But, Theon, 'tis an endless theme,
And thou growest weary of my half-told dream.
Oh would, my love, we were together now.
And I would woo sweet patience to thy brow,
And make thee smile at all the magic tales
Of starlight bowers and planetary vales,
Which my fond soul, inspired by thee and love,
In slumber's loom hath fancifully wove. ”

“ Therefore, when the soul says that the Beloved will give it all that is mentioned in this stanza, and that they will be its possession in love absolute and perfect, all of them and itself with them in perfect love, and that without pain, its purpose is to show forth the utter perfection of love. Love, to be perfect, must have these two properties: it must consume and transform the soul in God; the burning and transformation wrought in the soul by the flame must give no pain. ”

“ IT is the nature of perfect love to seek or accept nothing for itself, to attribute nothing to itself, but to refer all to the Beloved. If this is true of earthly love, how much more so of the love of God, the reason of which is so constraining. In the two foregoing stanzas the bride seemed to attribute something to herself ”

“ Those only can thoroughly feel the meaning of death who know what is perfect love. ”

“ He added:
Love, courtship, marriage. What is more beautiful than the true unblemished love of one person for another? What is sweeter, better, or more to be desired than perfect harmony and happiness? ”

“ It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us - else what use is love at all? ”

“ That solemn 'as' lifts itself up before us, shines far ahead of us, ought to draw us to itself in hope, and not to repel us from itself in despair. 'As I have loved'—what a tremendous thing for a man to stand up before his fellows, and say, 'Take Me as the perfect example of perfect love ”

“ but the heart that loveth is willing Perfect was before God, and perfect is Love, and Love only. ”

“ In this eagerness of Love to see only superlative excellence, and 165its disposition to imagine a thing perfect if it is not, we get a deep insight into the mission and raison d’être of this passion. If women and men would only try to live up to Love’s exalted ideal of personal perfection—and most persons could be 50 per cent more beautiful, if they attended to the laws of hygiene and cultivated their minds—what a lovely planet this would be!
Why have so many of the greatest men of genius been unhappy in their Love and Marriage? ”

“ Thirdly, the appreciation of inward beauty, that is to say the contemplation of any attractive quality or qualities of the beloved causes a stronger and more durable love than the passionate love of the flesh. However such a beloved will still be found lacking in beauty from the standpoint of perfection because the three genders are creatures and therefore cannot be called perfect. God alone is perfect beauty—holy, independent, omnipotent, all-majesty, all-beneficent, all-merciful. ”

“ It would seem probable that the attachment of such an one is of a tender and profound character; indeed, it is possible that in this class of men we have the love sentiment in one of its most perfect forms—a form in which from the necessities of the situation the sensuous element, though present, is exquisitely subordinated to the spiritual. ”

“ For deep love unsatisfied is the hell of noble hearts and a portion of the accursed, but love that is mirrored back more perfect from the soul of our desired doth fashion wings to lift us above ourselves, and makes us what we might be. ”

“ Go to, sir, true love seeks to secure the entire happiness of the object of affection, it sacrifices its own wishes and aspirations, rather than a cloud should hang upon the loved one’s brow, a tear dim her eye, or the smile fade from her cheek. ”

“ She saw how love and beauty and freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself in words. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I knew not then, it is true, how much of enjoyment I derived from forgetful ness; how many of my springs of happiness flowed from that preoccupation which prevented my dwelling on the only passion that ever stirred my heart,—my love for one whose love was hopeless.
How thoroughly will the character of an early love tinge the whole of a life! Our affections are like flowers,—they derive their sweetness and their bloom from the soil in which they grow: some, budding in joy and gladness, amid the tinkling plash of a glittering fountain, live on ever bright and beautiful ”

“ They were all alone these two in the mad and beautiful world, which man has created for himself—the world of romance—that world more wonderful than any heaven, where only those may enter who have learned the sweet lesson of love. ”

“ With me it is absolutely a matter of the heart. I am marrying him because, as nearly as I can see, he is the one human being who has ever loved me in this world, and because I cannot live life without love. ”

“ How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover. The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature’s most winning pictures. ”

“ Then, too, the delicate attentions of the devoted lover, his happiness even in the shadow of a smile from her, the lofty pedestal upon which to his imagination she stands, a queen and peerless; or the confiding love of the heroine of the story; blushingly confessing to herself that there is one heart on earth which is all her own, and in which none but herself can ever rule or reign. ”

“ If for a moment she looked back her life appeared to her as a fruitless quest for something—who knows what?—for beauty, for happiness, for an absolute and harmonious intimacy, for everlasting fulfilment in a love that is the answer to all questions. ”

“ I asked, looking at her with a smile.
“He being yourself. There, I have made enough unladylike confessions for one afternoon; but ‘tis all a proof of my trust and confidence in you.”
“As God shall help me it is not misplaced,” and I lifted her hand tenderly to my lips. “Never was man as proud of as beautiful and pure a love as I am of yours, and never was a love guarded and cherished as I will yours, and I will seek no higher happiness on earth than to keep that dear brow as bright and beautiful as now. Darling, look into my eyes and read the truth of love.” ”

“ My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the tidbit I have reserved for you. The love which we pictured must be extremely well hidden; I have seen not a trace of it. True, I have caught in drawing-rooms now and again a quick exchange of glances, but how colorless it all is! Love, as we imagined it, a world of wonders, of glorious dreams, of charming realities, of sorrows that waken sympathy, and smiles that make sunshine, does not exist. The bewitching words, the constant interchange of happiness, the misery of absence, the flood of joy at the presence of the beloved one—where are they? ”

“ You cannot speak, breathe, act, or think, without adding to the admiration I feel for your charm both of body and mind. There is in you a rare combination of the ideal, the practical, and the bewitching which satisfies alike judgment, a husband's pride, desire, and hope, and which extends the boundaries of love beyond those of life itself. Oh! my loved one, may the genius of love remain faithful to me, and the future be full of those delights by means of which you have glorified all that surrounds me! ”

“ And at Love's feet I cast the useless pall.
LOVE IS ENOUGH It is enough that in this burdened time
The soul sees all its purposes aright.
The rest—what does it matter? Soon the night
Will come to whelm us, then the morning chime.
What does it matter, if but in the way
One hand clasps ours, one heart believes us true;
One understands the work we try to do,
And strives through Love to teach us what to say?
Between me and the chilly outer air
Which blows in from the world, there standeth one
Who draws Love's curtains closely everywhere,
As God folds down the banners of the sun. ”

“ It seems that my heart is opening in love, to the whole world. I could even take Mrs. Dudley with the kindest affection to it, if she would allow me; but why or wherefore she dislikes me, and will manifest that feeling for me. Even my perceptions of the beautiful have grown so much the more lively; and the meanest thing of earth—the mossy trunk—the cloudlet—the sky—the stream—the wild-flower—are all floating in an atmosphere of light and beauty. And why is all this? Oh! my proud heart, you are now satisfied; and you can answer, why this ecstatic feeling. I love and I am loved! ”

“ It is beautiful—but it is a dream, and the time calls for a deed. We love each other. We can take our happiness now. Will you do it? Will you come away with me?
SHE. No.
HE. Then I if you cannot take your happiness, give me mine. If you cannot be a woman, be an angel, and lean down from your dream heaven to slake my earthly thirst.
SHE. No.
HE. No angel? Then a goddess! You want to be worshipped. You want to be adored. I will worship you, but not from afar, I will adore you in my own fashion. ”

“ Her face so pure and fair Sheds light in the shady places, And the spell of her girlish graces Holds charmed the happy air. A breath of purity For ever before her flies, And ill things cease to be In the glance of her honest eyes. Around her pathway flutter, Where her dear feet wander free In youth's pure majesty, The wings of the vague desires; But the thought that love would utter In reverence expires. ”

“ Let me remind you, too, that steadfastness of habitual love all round our hearts, as it were, is the source and germ of all perfectness of life and conduct. 'Love and do as Thou wilt,' is a bold saying, but not too bold. For the very essence of love is the smelting of the will of the lover into the will of the beloved. ”

“ They flow from a pure heart, that knows no other wish than your happiness. When time shall have gone by, and you can look back in peace and quiet on the broken tie between us, you will then acknowledge that never was a truer heart than mine. Thanks, my dearest life, my never-to-be-forgotten love, for the many sweet flowers you have woven into the garland of my life, for all your love, for all your care. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Could anything be beautiful to us after we’d sacrificed much of life, and all of love in its attainment? Is not everything that is opposed to love also opposed to the ideal? Is not an ideal, when all is told, nothing but a great love––the great personal love of each individual? ”

“ And why is it that affection, as exhibited in general life, is so rarely seen unstained by the tint of some darker passion? Love on, fair girl—love on in thy purity and innocence! The beauty that thou seest in nature, and the music it sends forth, exist only in thy own heart, and the light which plays around thee like a glory, is only the reflection of that image whose lustre has taken away the shadows from thy spirit! ”