English literature, particularly, has been saturated with this
sentiment for several centuries. Love is "all purity," according to
Shakspere's Silvius. Schlegel remarked that by the manner in which
Shakspere handled the story of _Romeo and Juliet_, it has become
"a glorious song of praise on that inexpressible feeling
which _ennobles the soul_ and gives to it its highest
sublimity, and which _elevates even the senses_ themselves
into soul;"
--which reminds one of Emerson's expression that the body is
"ensouled" through love. Steele declared that "Love is a passion of
the mind (_perhaps the noblest_), which was planted in it by the same
hand that created it;" and of Lady Elizabeth Hastings he wrote that
"to love her was a liberal education." In Steel's _Lover_ (No. 5) we
read:
"During this emotion I am highly elated in my Being, and my
every sentiment improved by the effects of that Passion....
I am more and more convinced that this Passion is in lowest
minds the strongest Incentive that can move the Soul of Man
to laudable Accomplishments."
And in No. 29: "Nothing can _mend the Heart_ better than an honorable
Love, except Religion." Thomas Otway sang:
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
There's in you all that we believe of heaven,
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
"Love taught him shame," said Dryden, and Spenser wrote a Hymn in
Honor of Love, in which he declared that
Such is the power of that sweet passion
That it _all sordid baseness doth expel_,
And the refined mind doth newly fashion
Unto a fairer form, which now doth dwell
In his high thought, that would itself excel.
Leigh Hunt wrote: "My love has made me better and more desirous of
improvement than I have been."
Love, indeed, is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire,
With angels shared, by Allah given,
To _lift from earth our low desire_.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love.
--_Byron_.
Why should we kill the _best of passions_, love?
It aids the hero, bids ambition rise
To nobler heights, inspires immortal deeds,
Ev'n _softens brutes_, and adds a grace to virtue.
--_Thomson_.
Dr. Beddoe, author of the _Browning Cyclopaedia_, declares that "the
passion of love, throughout Mr. Browning's works, is treated as the
most _sacred_ thing in the human soul." How Browning himself loved we
know from one of his wife's letters, in which she relates how she
tried to discourage his advances:
"I showed him how he was throwing away into the ashes
his best affections--how the common gifts of youth and
cheerfulness were behind me--how I had not strength,
even of heart, for the ordinary duties of
life--everything I told him and showed him. 'Look at
this--and this--and this,' throwing down all my
disadvantages. To which he did not answer by a single
compliment, but simply that he had not then to choose,
and that I might be right or he might be right, he was
not there to decide; but that he loved me and should to
his last hour. He said that the freshness of youth had
passed with him also, and that he had studied the world
out of books and seen many women, yet had never loved
one until he had seen me. That he knew himself, and
knew that, if ever so repulsed, he should love me to
his last hour--it should be first and last."
No poet understood better than Tennyson that purity is an ingredient
of love:
For indeed I know
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only _to keep down the base in man_,
But teach high thoughts and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.