Platonic love

“ Platonic love is the marriage of souls for the production of spiritual offspring, ideas, feelings, and volitions. The first looks ultimately to the perpetuation of life by providing new receptacles for it; the last looks ultimately to the enhancement of life by a sympathetic reflection of it. The children of actual love are organic reproductions of the being of the parents; the children of Platonic love are spiritual reflections of the being of the parents. The perfected offspring of love are boys and girls; the perfected offspring of friendship are states of consciousness. ”

“ Handsome, intellectual young men of at least twenty years, who must be of my own social station, seem to me to be suited rather for platonic love; but with them I satisfy myself completely with a straightforward, though ideal, friendship, which seldom goes beyond a few kisses. ”

“ Unpleasant, almost offensive, in any case unnatural, is the manner in which, in this love-story too, our attention is perpetually drawn to the fact that the lovers keep their vow, that their love remains platonic. ”

“ I have no sympathy with free love, if it means that people should take up with each other although they presume they will tire of one another. It seems to me that even to break an ordinary platonic engagement is a slight stain on the one who breaks it. ”

“ This is in too many cases, the seamy side of a platonic love affair, when one or both of the mates is not naturally unsexed but unsexes himself thru what he or she calls will-power and which analysis reveals to be conscious or unconscious fear. ”

“ The latter lovers always remind me of advertisers offering a superior article to anything in the trade. Nowhere could I meet the man I longed for—the man who had lived and loved. Once I felt stirrings towards a handsome young widower, but he went out of his way to assure me he had never cared for his first wife. After that, of course, he had no chance.
Platonic Love.
"Unable to discover any but good young men, I resigned myself perforce to spinsterhood. I resolved to cultivate only Platonic relations. I told young men to come to me and tell me their troubles. ”

“ Provided only she be tolerable, I should be willing to swear platonic everlasting affection, make the necessary declarations of love, and, in short, substitute myself in the most disinterested manner, or escort her arm-in-arm through the ups and downs of the land of love, until on the border I could make her over to the prospective bridegroom in proper condition to be married. Instead of marriage by proxy we should thus have love by proxy. ”

“ To women, at least, all unhappiness comes from the superstition that love—any sort—is all. Of course there would be marriage, but of deliberate choice, and after a long and purely platonic friendship, in which all the horrid little failings that do most to dissever could be recognized and weighed. ”

“ For as people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship—which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct—are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a ‘Platonic’ friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) ”

“ The brute world, in cases of love, exacts marriage as the hallmark of respectability. It can see nothing but harm in the love of two young pure souls, however platonic—I mean innocent. They look upon it as556 dangerous, to say the least, and the only way to satisfy them and avoid scandal is to marry."
"I never thought about marrying," said Helen. "Cannot two persons love each other just the same without either thinking of marriage?" ”

“ And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. ”

“ A Platonic friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person. ”

“ Yet their light is united in a single ray.
No lover ever seeks union with his beloved,
But his beloved is also seeking union with him.
But the lover's love makes his body lean,
While the beloved's love makes hers fair and lusty. ”

“ I suppose that equality of years inclines them to the same pleasures, and similarity begets friendship; yet you may have more than enough even of this; and verily constraint is always said to be grievous. Now the lover is not only unlike his beloved, but he forces himself upon him. For he is old and his love is young, and neither day nor night will he leave him if he can help; necessity and the sting of desire drive him on, and allure him with the pleasure which he receives from seeing, hearing, touching, perceiving him in every way. ”

“ We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other, without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you, by our mutual happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love another? ”

“ But if you listen to me, in the first place, I, in my intercourse with you, shall not merely regard present enjoyment, but also future advantage, being not mastered by love, but my own master; nor for small causes taking violent dislikes, but even when the cause is great, slowly laying up little wrath—unintentional offences I shall forgive, and intentional ones I shall try to prevent; and these are the marks of a friendship which will last. Do you think that a lover only can be a firm friend? ”

“ However much he may conceal it under assumed cynicism, worldliness, or self-seeking, the heart of every young man yearns with a great longing for the fulfilment of the beautiful dream of a life-long union with a mate. Each heart knows instinctively that it is only one's mate who can give full comprehension of all the potential greatness in one's soul, and have tender laughter for all the child-like wonder that lingers so enchantingly even in the white-haired. ”

“ The spirit that cemented our hearts was friendship, not love; but the holiness of marriage has consecrated that friendship into affection, which the sweet intercourse of domestic life has softened into something still more agreeable and tender. My girl's marriage, my dear Lucy, is the only painful thought that throws its shadow across our happiness. ”

“ But always, over and over, I realized that, in the kernel, at the very root and fibre of myself, there was the throb and glow, the ebb and the surge, the seeking as in a vain dream to realize again that passion of friendship which could so far transcend the cold modern idea of the tie; the Over-Friendship, the Love-Friendship of Hellas—which meant that between man and man could exist—the sexual-psychic love. ”

“ The truth is that the attraction which draws a man and a woman together in what they call platonic friendship always has something of the physical in it—on one side or the other. Or on both sides. Women will not admit this, but it is true. They talk about the intellectual bond that joins them to a man—what a precious interchange of thoughts! Or the spiritual bond—such a soulful and inspiring companionship—nothing else, my dear! I used to talk that way myself about Jimsy Brooks before my husband died. ”

“ How the true heart beat with growing passion during the remainder of the merry festivity, and as the final announcement of separation was whispered from ear to ear, the gradual wane of Love’s lofty right would fain have dwindled into pompous nothing as the thought kept tickling his warm enthusiasm with the nimble fingers of jealousy. That she whom he had ardently hoped should share his future with sheer and loving caresses of constant companionship 31 and wife-like wisdom should be trapped in probably vowing to another her great devotion for him! ”

“ With these, the first friendship, which was insinuated during the time of courtship, and afterwards during the period immediately succeeding marriage, recedes more and more from the interiors of the mind, and thence successively at length retires to the cuticles; and with those who think of separation it entirely departs; but with those who do not think of separation, love remains in the externals, yet it is cold in the internals. ”

“ Above all, make trial of your own love, for this is even more important. It is so easy to be misled by the deceptive glamour of novelty and passion, and by the vision of happiness.
Alone of the two friends, you remain in your maiden independence; and I beseech you, dearest, do not risk the irrevocable step of marriage without some guarantee. It happens sometimes, when two are talking together, apart from the world, their souls stripped of social disguise, that a gesture, a word, a look lights up, as by a flash, some dark abyss. ”

“ I knew from the very first that we should be pals but that you'd never dream of anything more romantic. I've never had any one in love with me—I'm not the kind of woman who draws the romance out of men. ”

“ Look at a young couple in the glowing morning of their union, how warm love is then; how it penetrates and beautifies everything; how it glows and speaks in glance and word, and agreeable action; how its glory changes the whole of life into poetry! 'Thou, thou!' is the one thought of the young people then. But observe the same couple a few years later—'I, I!' and 'my pleasure,' is the phrase now. The adoring all-resigning lover is then become the exacting married man, who will be waited on and obeyed. ”

“ If love exists between couples, it ought to show itself in something better than mere empty words. If it does not, whole troops of discontentments come crowding at our fireside; for neglected duties, broken promises, lip affection, magnetic, or passional attraction, will not fill the bill of an anxious heart! ”

“ This wealth in the elements of mutual dependence is what keeps fidelity in love both inwardly and outwardly. This soft current of the soul's depths keeps the sensuous charm fresh; while mere relation, both legal marriage and free union, very soon exhausts happiness and leaves behind ennui, if love has contained only sensuous attraction, and not that mutual feeling of dependence, which involves the union of the soul and the sense, and which unites the spirit and the sympathies. ”

“ A strong attachment sprung up between them, and long before they reached the age of manhood, they were united to each other by a bond as strong as that of fraternal love; there was no feeling of superiority on the one hand, no shade of envy on the other, but hand in hand with each other, life seemed one long dream of happiness. ”

“ There is, in the daily married companionship of two people who love each other, an overtone that comes from the harmony of that love, independent of and diviner than the conscious efforts of either. It is the thing that cannot be reckoned on, cannot be formulated, cannot be explained, cannot be compelled. ”

“ Glancing across the room I intercepted the tender looks of two lovers, looks of mutual love that brought me back to my own misery, and made my heart bleed afresh at the thought that love like this might have been mine! What is more touchingly beautiful than the sight of a betrothed couple who exist in a little world of their own, and, ignoring the indifferent crowd around them, gaze at each other with such a wealth of love and trust in the future! ”

“ I saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. He shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. But when the hour for love's duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed out, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor. ”

“ Never yet have I seen two young beings so happy in their mutual love; and as we have broken through some cold forms, in consideration of the many services which the lover has rendered to his future bride, they are always together, and clinging to each other, as if they fancied that something would yet separate them. ”

“ Now you and I must not be guilty of this fundamental error which we condemn in others; but as our question is whether the lover or non-lover is to be preferred, let us first of all agree in defining the nature and power of love, and then, keeping our eyes upon the definition and to this appealing, let us further enquire whether love brings advantage or disadvantage.
'Every one sees that love is a desire, and we know also that non-lovers desire the beautiful and good. Now in what way is the lover to be distinguished from the non-lover? ”

“ I believe now that that is really the only true love or the only true basis for any marriage, and that when that mutual bond is once accepted, nothing can alter, not even an ocean rolling between—not even ten oceans. ”