call benevolence and love.


LOVE.

Now, my most worthy Raphael, let me look round. The height has been
ascended, the mist is dissipated; I stand in the midst of immensity, as
in the middle of a glowing landscape. A purer ray of sunlight has
clarified all my thoughts. Love is the noblest phenomenon in the world
of souls, the all-powerful magnet in the spiritual sphere, the source of
devotion and of the sublimest virtue. Yet love is only the reflection of
this single original power, an attraction of the excellent, based upon an
instantaneous permutation of individuality, an interchange of being.

When I hate, I take something from myself; when I love, I become richer
by what I love. To pardon is to recover a property that has been lost.
Misanthropy is a protracted suicide: egotism is the supremest poverty of
a created being.

When Raphael tore himself from my embrace my soul was rent in twain, and
I weep over the loss of my nobler half. On that holy evening--you must
remember it--when our souls first communed together in ardent sympathy,
all your great emotions became my own, and I only entered into my
unvarying right of property over your excellence; I was prouder to love
you than to be loved by you, for my own affection had changed me into
Raphael.

Was it not this almighty instinct
That forced our hearts to meet
In the eternal bond of love?