It is well perhaps to look a little into the factors that make up Love.
Love does not seem to me to be a simple elemental thing. It is, as I have already said, one of the vicious tendencies of the human mind to think that whatever can be given a simple name can be abstracted as a single something in a state of quintessential purity. I have pointed1 out that this is not true of Harmony or Beauty, and that these are synthetic2 things. You bring together this which is not beautiful and that which is not beautiful, and behold3! Beauty! So also Love is, I think, a synthetic thing. One observes this and that, one is interested and stirred; suddenly the metal fuses, the dry bones live! One loves.
Almost every interest in one’s being may be a factor in the love synthesis. But apart from the overflowing5 of the parental6 instinct that makes all that is fine and delicate and young dear to us and to be cherished, there are two main factors that bring us into love with our fellows. There is first the emotional elements in our nature that arise out of the tribal7 necessity, out of a fellowship in battle and hunting, drinking and feasting, out of the needs and excitements and delights of those occupations; and there is next the intenser narrower desirings and gratitudes, satisfactions and expectations that come from sexual intercourse8. Now both these factors originate in physical needs and consummate9 in material acts, and it is well to remember that this great growth of love in life roots there, and, it may be, dies when its roots are altogether cut away.
At its lowest, love is the mere10 sharing of, or rather the desire to share, pleasure and excitement, the excitements of conflict or lust11 or what not. I think that the desire to partake, the desire to merge12 one’s individual identity with another’s, remains13 a necessary element in all personal loves. It is a way out of ourselves, a breaking down of our individual separation, just as hate is an intensification14 of that. Personal love is the narrow and intense form of that breaking down, just as what I call Salvation15 is its widest, most extensive form. We cast aside our reserves, our secrecies16, our defences; we open ourselves; touches that would be intolerable from common people become a mystery of delight, acts of self-abasement and self-sacrifice are charged with symbolical17 pleasure. We cannot tell which of us is me, which you. Our imprisoned18 egoism looks out through this window, forgets its walls, and is for those brief moments released and universal.
For most of us the strain of primordial19 sexual emotion in our loves is very strong. Many men can love only women, many women only men, and some can scarcely love at all without bodily desire. But the love of fellowship is a strong one also, and for many, love is most possible and easy when the thought of physical lovemaking has been banished20. Then the lovers will pursue interests together, will work together or journey together. So we have the warm fellowships of men for men and women for women. But even then it may happen that men friends together will talk of women, and women friends of men. Nevertheless we have also the strong and altogether sexless glow of those who have fought well together, or drunk or jested together or hunted a common quarry21.
Now it seems to me that the Believer must also be a Lover, that he will love as much as he can and as many people as he can, and in many moods and ways. As I have said already, many of those who have taught religion and morality in the past have been neglectful or unduly22 jealous of the intenser personal loves. They have been, to put it by a figure, urgent upon the road to the ocean. To that they would lead us, though we come to it shivering, fearful and unprepared, and they grudge23 it that we should strip and plunge24 into the wayside stream. But all streams, all rivers come from this ocean in the beginning, lead to it in the end.
It is the essential fact of love as I conceive it, that it breaks down the boundaries of self. That love is most perfect which does most completely merge its lovers. But no love is altogether perfect, and for most men and women love is no more than a partial and temporary lowering of the barriers that keep them apart. With many, the attraction of love seems always to fall short of what I hold to be its end, it draws people together in the most momentary25 of self-forgetfulnesses, and for the rest seems rather to enhance their egotisms and their difference. They are secret from one another even in their embraces. There is a sort of love that is egotistical lust almost regardless of its partner, a sort of love that is mere fleshless pride and vanity at a white heat. There is the love-making that springs from sheer boredom26, like a man reading a story-book to fill an hour. These inferior loves seek to accomplish an agreeable act, or they seek the pursuit or glory of a living possession, they aim at gratification or excitement or conquest. True love seeks to be mutual27 and easy-minded, free of doubts, but these egotistical mockeries of love have always resentment28 in them and hatred29 in them and a watchful30 distrust. Jealousy31 is the measure of self-love in love.
True love is a synthetic thing, an outcome of life, it is not a universal thing. It is the individualized correlative of Salvation; like that it is a synthetic consequence of conflicts and confusions. Many people do not desire or need Salvation, they cannot understand it, much less achieve it; for them chaotic32 life suffices. So too, many never, save for some rare moment of illumination, desire or feel love. Its happy abandonment, its careless self-giving, these things are mere foolishness to them. But much has been said and sung of faith and love alike, and in their confused greed these things also they desire and parody33. So they act worship and make a fine fuss of their devotions. And also they must have a few half-furtive, half-flaunting fallen love-triumphs prowling the secret backstreets of their lives, they know not why.
(In setting this down be it remembered I am doing my best to tell what is in me because I am trying to put my whole view of life before the reader without any vital omissions34. These are difficult matters to explain because they have no clear outlines; one lets in a hard light suddenly upon things that have lurked35 in warm intimate shadows, dim inner things engendering36 motives37. I am not only telling quasi-secret things but exploring them for myself. They are none the less real and important because they are elusive38.)
True love I think is not simply felt but known. Just as Salvation as I conceive it demands a fine intelligence and mental activity, so love calls to brain and body alike and all one’s powers. There is always elaborate thinking and dreaming in love. Love will stir imaginations that have never stirred before.
Love may be, and is for the most part, one-sided. It is the going out from oneself that is love, and not the accident of its return. It is the expedition whether it fail or succeed.
But an expedition starves that comes to no port. Love always seeks mutuality39 and grows by the sense of responses, or we should love beautiful inanimate things more passionately41 than we do. Failing a full return, it makes the most of an inadequate42 return. Failing a sustained return it welcomes a temporary coincidence. Failing a return it finds support in accepted sacrifices. But it seeks a full return, and the fulness of life has come only to those who, loving, have met the lover.
I am trying to be as explicit43 as possible in thus writing about Love. But the substance in which one works here is emotion that evades definition, poetic44 flashes and figures of speech are truer than prosaic45 statements. Body and the most sublimated46 ecstasy47 pass into one another, exchange themselves and elude48 every net of words we cast.
I have put out two ideas of unification and self-devotion, extremes upon a scale one from another; one of these ideas is that devotion to the Purpose in things I have called Salvation; the other that devotion to some other most fitting and satisfying individual which is passionate40 love, the former extensive as the universe, the latter the intensest thing in life. These, it seems to me, are the boundary and the living capital of the empire of life we rule.
All empires need a comprehending boundary, but many have not one capital but many chief cities, and all have cities and towns and villages beyond the capital. It is an impoverished49 capital that has no dependent towns, and it is a poor love that will not overflow4 in affection and eager kindly50 curiosity and sympathy and the search for fresh mutuality. To love is to go living radiantly through the world. To love and be loved is to be fearless of experience and rich in the power to give.
收听单词发音 |
1
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
synthetic
|
|
| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
behold
|
|
| v.看，注视，看到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
overflow
|
|
| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
overflowing
|
|
| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
parental
|
|
| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
tribal
|
|
| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
consummate
|
|
| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
lust
|
|
| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
merge
|
|
| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
intensification
|
|
| n.激烈化，增强明暗度；加厚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
secrecies
|
|
| 保密（secrecy的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
17
symbolical
|
|
| a.象征性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
imprisoned
|
|
| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
primordial
|
|
| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
banished
|
|
| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
quarry
|
|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
unduly
|
|
| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
grudge
|
|
| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
plunge
|
|
| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
watchful
|
|
| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
chaotic
|
|
| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
parody
|
|
| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
omissions
|
|
| n.省略( omission的名词复数 )；删节；遗漏；略去或漏掉的事（或人） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
lurked
|
|
| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
engendering
|
|
| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
motives
|
|
| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
elusive
|
|
| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
mutuality
|
|
| n.相互关系，相互依存 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
inadequate
|
|
| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
explicit
|
|
| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
prosaic
|
|
| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
sublimated
|
|
| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
elude
|
|
| v.躲避，困惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
impoverished
|
|
| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |