“La Chevalerie faisait une tentative qui n’a jamais réussi, quoique souvent essayée; la tentative de se servir des passions humaines, et particulièrement de l’amour pour conduire l’homme à la vertu. Dans cette route l’homme s’arrête toujours en chemin. L’amour inspire beaucoup de bons sentiments—le courage, le dévouement, le sacrifice des biens et de la vie; mais il ne se sacrifie pas lui-même, et c’est là que la faiblesse humaine reprend ses droits.”—St. Marc-Girardin.
I am not sure that this well-sounding remark is true—or, if true, it is true of the mere passion, not of love in its highest phase, which is self-sacrificing, which has its essence in the capability of self-sacrifice.
| “Love was given, Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for this end; For this the passion to excess was driven, That self might be annull’d.” |
In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear, there is a strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell next door to hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such intense haters.
Our present social opinion says to the man, “You may be a vulgar brutal sensualist, and use the basest means to attain the basest ends; but so long as you do not offend against conventional good manners you shall be held blameless.” And to the woman it says, “You shall be guilty of nothing but of yielding to the softest impulses of tenderness, of relenting pity; but if you cannot add hypocrisy you shall be punished as the most desperate criminal.”