And in the city all was love. A pervading sense of love, increasing, wholesome, purifying, became the perfume and the sacred flame of daily life. Love, general and universal, had its birth in youth; then it passed on and became mother love, father love, filial love; it spread to relations, to neighbors, to fellow-citizens, to all men upon earth, and as its waves swept on and became stronger, it seemed to become a great sea of love, bathing the shores of the whole earth. Charity—that is, love of one’s neighbors—was like the fresh air which fills the lungs of all who breathe it; everywhere there was this feeling of brotherly love; love alone had proved able to realize the unity men had so long dreamed of, bringing all into divine harmony. The human race, at last as well balanced as the planets in their orbits by the law of attraction, the laws of justice, solidarity, and love, would go joyfully on its round through the ages of eternity. Such was the harvest ever renewed and renewing, the great harvest of tenderness and loving kindness, that Luc every morning saw growing up around him in spots where he had sown his seed so bountifully in his early days. In his whole city, in his school-rooms, in his work-shops, in each house, and almost in each heart, for many years he had been sowing the good seed with lavish hands.
The City of the Sun
By Campanella
(A picture of an ideal community written about A.D. 1600 by an Italian student who was imprisoned for twenty-seven years, and nine times tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. See page [438])
Love is foremost in attending to the charge of the race. He sees that men and women are joined together, that they bring forth the best offspring. Indeed, they laugh at us who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings. Thus the education of children is under his rule. So also is the medicine that is sold, the sowing and collecting of fruits of the earth and of trees, agriculture, pasturage, the preparations for the months, the cooking arrangements, and whatever has any reference to food, clothing, and the intercourse of the sexes. Love himself is ruler, but there are many male and female magistrates dedicated to these arts.
Love in Utopia
(From “News from Nowhere”)
By William Morris