“But then—what is it you are interested in? Yourself?”
“People tell me that’s the case. And there’s a sense in which it’s true—I’m wrapped up in the thought of myself as an art-work. I’ve a certain vision of the possibilities of my own being, and I’m trying to realize it. And if I do, then I can write books and communicate it to other people, so that they can judge it, and see if it’s any better than the vision they have. It is a higher kind of unselfishness, I think.”
“I see,” said Corydon. “It’s not easy to understand.”
“No one understands it,” he replied. “People are taught that they must sacrifice themselves for others; and they do it, blindly and stupidly, and never ask if the other person is worthy of the sacrifice—and still less if they themselves have anything worth sacrificing.”
Corydon had clenched her hands suddenly. “How I hate the religion of self-sacrifice!” she cried.
“Mine is a religion of self-development,” said Thyrsis. “I am sacrificing myself for what other people ought to be.”
Section 4. They came back after a time, to the subject of love; and to the ideal of it which Thyrsis meant to set forth in the book. It was the duty of every soul to seek the highest potentiality of which it had vision; and as one did that for himself, so he did it for the person he loved. There could be no higher love than this—to treat the thing beloved as one’s self, to be perpetually dissatisfied with it, to scourge it to new endeavor, to hold it in immortal discontent.
This was a point about which they argued with eager excitement. To Thyrsis, love itself was a prize to be held before the loved one; whereas Corydon argued that love must exist before such a union could be thought of. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone as she maintained the thesis that the princess could not go with the minstrel unless his love was given to her irrevocably.
“If you mean by love a sense of oneness in the pursuit of an ideal, then I agree with you,” said Thyrsis. “But if you mean what love generally means—a mutual admiration, the worshipping of another personality—then I don’t.”
“And are lovers not even to be interesting to each other?” cried Corydon.