Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
In my beginning is my end
Civilization is in the family, love is in the home, life is in the genes, freedom is in duty. And yet merely to remain at home, to follow your genes, to be obedient to your duty, is merely to dwell, to feel, to reproduce, and to hope. Which of you is satisfied with that? A man finds what he is looking for only after he abandons it. Only he who loses his life will find it, yea, there is not even time to bury your father. In a timeless universe, still, and complete, where nature and end are the same thing, there is no possibility, there is no need of a journey. But bloody Chaos and Old Night have severed phusis from telos. The higher things lie at the end of time, after a sacrifice, after a death. We go to bring back from beyond the grave, from the clutches of Pluto, the beauty that was torn from us, and restore the beauty to the broken form. Yet at the end of journey the beauty turns ghostly, our hands clutch empty air, and we go back to the beginning, an old heart heavy with sadness. But step over the threshold, what do you see? A mother in blue, and a mewling baby. Another hand, stronger than death, has brought back civilization, love, life, freedom, because greater than any of these things, and worthier of desire.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Transmutation of Desire, Or, Loue's True Alchymie
The boy is fraught, fraught with a vesselled cargo,
Rhine-laden, with choice meats and grape-crushed wine,
Pleasing to the eye and good for food,
Promising a rare conjuction of the breast
And the best of man, eros unblinded,
Wisdom beyond belief. Shall he take, and eat?
------
Superior:
The night is young, the heart impure
His motive clung to base allure.
Let him pant for salty waters
Let him chant for Memory's daughters
Master:
Kneel, raise thine eyes
To the starry rose
Lingering in the skies.
Hold the foremost thought
In the folded throes
Of thy heaving sighs.
Craft a cradle wrought
Of musical repose
For the queens thou caught.
Novice:
O Loveliness, terrible tamer,
Who draws me!
O Urania, wonderful secrecy,
Who bore me!
O Sin-Bearer, bloody comfort,
Who mends me!
O Clio, old friend,
Who feeds me!
O Symphonia, countless magnificence,
Who calls me!
O Sacred Virgin, pensive, harmonious,
Who hears me!
O Thalia, laughing lover,
Who mocks me!
O Leaping-Poise, studied and supple,
Who charms me!
O Calliope, oldest and wisest,
Who arms me!
My own Demeter, wandering mother,
Who decimates me!
O bright-eyed goddesses, my captors,
Free me!
God! shall the weave of passions be unknit?
The lion with the lamb lie in discourse,
The lioness forgot? Why do I sit
Down with dotards, these drunkards, weary source
Of drab serenity? Oh! Why this game
Of wit-play with these toffs, these dandies, all
Unbosomed of their first, their manful aim,
Museum-butchers! only fit to crawl
At the feet of her I'd love, and wed.
Lady, to Parnassus, fly with me!
We'll crown each-other in a laurel bed,
Souls coenflesh 'til maid made mother be.
Superior:
His ecstasy has tuned the pitch,
Summon we th'alchemic witch:
That he seek far through murky fire
The Morning Star of man's desire.
Master:
Hierophant of light
Guide us to the east,
A Saviour in the night.
Graces teach this flock,
Starving for the feast,
The highway of delight.
By your voice unlock
The captive unreleased
For
Novice:
Mirth who moors me,
Mock me!
Love who moves me,
Make me!
Plenty who plays me,
Prive me!
Love who plauges me,
Prove me!
Beauty who blinds me,
Bless me!
Love who binds me,
Blisse me!
These mordant flames that shrivel up my gaze,
And wrap my soul in heaven-bound billowing smoke,
Have robbed the coal that taught my lips to praise,
And suffocate the self-same breast they stoke.
Lines parallel converge before my eyes,
Three circles spin into a cubic city,
The feminine is myst'ry in disguise,
These stars foretell we'll dance an epic ditty.
Ah! Transmutate this all-too-human love,
And make a saint or statesman of this mote,
That nor I'll faint when on the block I prove,
Nor myth not names my leap down the sea's throat.
Transcendent zeal consummates in Now,
For all is weal, though weeds uproot the plough.
------
A model of the cosmos, miniature and simple as the cosmos,
A magus of the Nile brought to Kent, beautiful, to puzzle the prognosticators
Who sought its power but missed its meaning:
Through the golden haze entrapping, midst the golden figures dancing,
Quick now, here, now, always, flies the Fool.
For all is well. Therefore take; eat; drink.
Monday, September 7, 2009
The Heroic and the Mundane
Jailor: You understand my position, sir, there's nothing I can do; I'm a plain, simple man and just want to keep out of trouble.
from Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons.
μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν γε παραύδα , φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ .
βουλοίμην κ’ ἐπάρουρος ἐὼν θητευέμεν ἄλλῳ ,
ἀνδρὶ παρ’ ἀκλήρῳ , ᾧ μὴ βίοτος πολὺς εἴη ,
ἢ πᾶσιν νεκύεσσι καταφθιμένοισιν ἀνάσσειν .
Homer, Odyssey, 11.488-491.
Let me hear no smooth talk
Of death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, on iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.
Homer, Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald, 11.577-581.
'For little price,' he said, 'do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir....
Then Beren and Lúthien went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stairs; and together wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men. For they came to the seat of Morgoth in his nethermost hall that was upheld by horror, lit by fire, and filled with weapons of death and torment.
from J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion.
Of all the themes chosen by the poets, none has endured so long as the tale of the heroic. It is in the earliest epics, earlier even than the Odyssey. It is a greater theme than romance, though romance, ordinarily a lyric condition, occasionally rises to it. Did a man know every language every spoken, and had he read every work ever written, were he to find and record only the smallest part of only the most profound writing upon the heroic, he should have to sit in his high-tech library for months.
There is something in the hero of song and music. It is in the music of his laugh which disdains an enemy. It is in tears as tragedy inevitably strikes, and more than once in the same place. It is in the murmur and thanks of the poor in spirit who look on and suffer. It is in the deep chorus of the sea which carries him from his home, and washes him back upon it. It is in tender words for his lover, O three graces in one, my Beauty, Joy, and Plenty. It is in the glad tidings of victory, and it is in the dull silence of defeat. And this is why the earliest poets chose to sing their stories in song, for they heard this music, which is the trilling echo of divinity, the shadow of Glory.
And yet the poet finishes the song, and the hero must die, after all of his sufferings, and sometimes in the midst of them, and what must be done after it is finished? Even Beren the Befriended died in battle, but was brought back in resurrected body only at the strange mercy of the gods. And the gods were moved by the lamentation of Lúthien daughter of Melian, who miraculously found the thread of song to tell her sorrow in some wayward weft of the eternal fabric lost long ago, so that no woman is ever likely to repeat her deed.
A man may only bear so much divinity before it kills him. Prospero abdicates his power that he might return to Italy with his newly-wedded daughter and son. The mundane has its place, in which the crowds share, and in which the hero must share if he is to live well. For heroism always depends upon extraordinary grace. Homer knew this, and that is why his heroes have the blood of gods in their veins, why gods smith their armour, why gods advise and protect them. But there is an ordinary grace for the ordinary existence - for marriage, for labour with the hands until evening, for quiet and a simple gravestone. If a man is to leave this ordinary existence, he must be called. There is grace appointed for such times. But the man who leaves without a call presumes upon God's extraordinary grace. He commits sacrilege. To avoid this, the hero must study when it is fitting to subdue and to suffer, and when it is fitting to walk away.
Richard Wagner's Ring cycle idolizes the most pernicious form of modern heroism- the heroic romance. Here is Brunnhilde in the early part of the Götterdämmerung, speaking of the ring, now a love-token from Siegfried, to her Valkyrie sister Waltraute:
Ha! know'st thou what 'tis to me?
How canst thou grasp it, loveless maid!
More than Vahalla's rapture,
more than the fame of gods is this my ring:
one glance at its lustrous gold,
one flash of its holy fire
more is to me e'en than all the heaven's aye-enduring delight.
For blissfully there shineth the love of Siegfried.
Love of Siegfried!
O might but its rapture be told thee!
that lives in the ring.
Go hence to the holy council of gods!
And of my ring tell o'er to them my words:
(rather more slowly) from love I never will turn,
of love they never shall rob me,
though into ruins
Valhalla's splendor should fall!
To the credit of Wagner's genius, Brunnhilde indeed sees the ruin of Valhalla. The love she snatched with Siegfried from out of the ordinary life, without marriage, communal covenant, or obedience, can only find consummation in life through consumption in a fiery death. Having forsaken the gods, the lovers must play their own sacrificial lambs in order to atone for their sacrilege.
That death is no death proper for men, and moreover it is quite ridiculous when we jump out of myth and into the present. Practically speaking, whatever the commercials suggest, there is only a small need for heroism. These days, if it is possible at all, to be heroic is to suffer deeply with stubborn charity, and who goes looking for that? Perhaps only Christians and event-coordinators, and anyway it will come to them unhoped for in its due time. But still the best of life is to be had in the mundane, ordinary existence: "Territory, status, and love, sing all the birds, are what matter: ... a place I may go both in and out of."
Of course ordinary men and women must have fun and adventure too: there is a place for theatre and the make-believe epic, and that is one of the chief reasons we love the writings of G.K. Chesterton. But the really demanding sort of heroism in which Chesterton himself lived - the deadly seriousness, the fury, and the compassion that churns the gut - to hold these things in one's soul is a rare calling. Be wary of taking it up, and be ready to lay it down. (These days we have too many wannabe heroes calling themselves pundits. You can tell this by the way they contrive in themselves feelings of shock and horror, for effect. Sadly, many cases practice the art so often, they either deceive themselves into thinking that their horror is real, or they lose their capacity to feel anything else.)
Those who are summoned to heroism must remember that the dark valley of heroism is called the Terrible. It is, to put it lightly, a rather unpleasant place. It also happens to be impossibly difficult to mess and win through it. And the character of impossibility is precisely what allows for a heroic situation, for the stonewall defiance against the impossible is precisely what stamps the rare title of hero upon a man or a woman. But if it is impossible, how is it accomplished, and how is anyone called a hero? Here is the answer. Every hero's success, and every pedestal of fame, must inescapably come as a gift of God, since it is only God's Mercy which has the power, at the last moment, to turn the tables upon doom. Only divine Pity completes the impossible quest. So it must be whenever a man burning with desire attempts the indestructible to destroy or the free to possess.
Then, if all that can be done is in good faith done, whether Pity has broken the spell, or whether the quest has failed, greatness must breathe a sigh of relief: it must diminish, and go into the West (which is the old world for Home).
from Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons.
Homer, Odyssey, 11.488-491.
Let me hear no smooth talk
Of death from you, Odysseus, light of councils.
Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand
for some poor country man, on iron rations,
than lord it over all the exhausted dead.
Homer, Odyssey, trans. Fitzgerald, 11.577-581.
'For little price,' he said, 'do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems, and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir....
Then Beren and Lúthien went through the Gate, and down the labyrinthine stairs; and together wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men. For they came to the seat of Morgoth in his nethermost hall that was upheld by horror, lit by fire, and filled with weapons of death and torment.
from J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion.
Of all the themes chosen by the poets, none has endured so long as the tale of the heroic. It is in the earliest epics, earlier even than the Odyssey. It is a greater theme than romance, though romance, ordinarily a lyric condition, occasionally rises to it. Did a man know every language every spoken, and had he read every work ever written, were he to find and record only the smallest part of only the most profound writing upon the heroic, he should have to sit in his high-tech library for months.
There is something in the hero of song and music. It is in the music of his laugh which disdains an enemy. It is in tears as tragedy inevitably strikes, and more than once in the same place. It is in the murmur and thanks of the poor in spirit who look on and suffer. It is in the deep chorus of the sea which carries him from his home, and washes him back upon it. It is in tender words for his lover, O three graces in one, my Beauty, Joy, and Plenty. It is in the glad tidings of victory, and it is in the dull silence of defeat. And this is why the earliest poets chose to sing their stories in song, for they heard this music, which is the trilling echo of divinity, the shadow of Glory.
And yet the poet finishes the song, and the hero must die, after all of his sufferings, and sometimes in the midst of them, and what must be done after it is finished? Even Beren the Befriended died in battle, but was brought back in resurrected body only at the strange mercy of the gods. And the gods were moved by the lamentation of Lúthien daughter of Melian, who miraculously found the thread of song to tell her sorrow in some wayward weft of the eternal fabric lost long ago, so that no woman is ever likely to repeat her deed.
A man may only bear so much divinity before it kills him. Prospero abdicates his power that he might return to Italy with his newly-wedded daughter and son. The mundane has its place, in which the crowds share, and in which the hero must share if he is to live well. For heroism always depends upon extraordinary grace. Homer knew this, and that is why his heroes have the blood of gods in their veins, why gods smith their armour, why gods advise and protect them. But there is an ordinary grace for the ordinary existence - for marriage, for labour with the hands until evening, for quiet and a simple gravestone. If a man is to leave this ordinary existence, he must be called. There is grace appointed for such times. But the man who leaves without a call presumes upon God's extraordinary grace. He commits sacrilege. To avoid this, the hero must study when it is fitting to subdue and to suffer, and when it is fitting to walk away.
Richard Wagner's Ring cycle idolizes the most pernicious form of modern heroism- the heroic romance. Here is Brunnhilde in the early part of the Götterdämmerung, speaking of the ring, now a love-token from Siegfried, to her Valkyrie sister Waltraute:
Ha! know'st thou what 'tis to me?
How canst thou grasp it, loveless maid!
More than Vahalla's rapture,
more than the fame of gods is this my ring:
one glance at its lustrous gold,
one flash of its holy fire
more is to me e'en than all the heaven's aye-enduring delight.
For blissfully there shineth the love of Siegfried.
Love of Siegfried!
O might but its rapture be told thee!
that lives in the ring.
Go hence to the holy council of gods!
And of my ring tell o'er to them my words:
(rather more slowly) from love I never will turn,
of love they never shall rob me,
though into ruins
Valhalla's splendor should fall!
To the credit of Wagner's genius, Brunnhilde indeed sees the ruin of Valhalla. The love she snatched with Siegfried from out of the ordinary life, without marriage, communal covenant, or obedience, can only find consummation in life through consumption in a fiery death. Having forsaken the gods, the lovers must play their own sacrificial lambs in order to atone for their sacrilege.
That death is no death proper for men, and moreover it is quite ridiculous when we jump out of myth and into the present. Practically speaking, whatever the commercials suggest, there is only a small need for heroism. These days, if it is possible at all, to be heroic is to suffer deeply with stubborn charity, and who goes looking for that? Perhaps only Christians and event-coordinators, and anyway it will come to them unhoped for in its due time. But still the best of life is to be had in the mundane, ordinary existence: "Territory, status, and love, sing all the birds, are what matter: ... a place I may go both in and out of."
Of course ordinary men and women must have fun and adventure too: there is a place for theatre and the make-believe epic, and that is one of the chief reasons we love the writings of G.K. Chesterton. But the really demanding sort of heroism in which Chesterton himself lived - the deadly seriousness, the fury, and the compassion that churns the gut - to hold these things in one's soul is a rare calling. Be wary of taking it up, and be ready to lay it down. (These days we have too many wannabe heroes calling themselves pundits. You can tell this by the way they contrive in themselves feelings of shock and horror, for effect. Sadly, many cases practice the art so often, they either deceive themselves into thinking that their horror is real, or they lose their capacity to feel anything else.)
Those who are summoned to heroism must remember that the dark valley of heroism is called the Terrible. It is, to put it lightly, a rather unpleasant place. It also happens to be impossibly difficult to mess and win through it. And the character of impossibility is precisely what allows for a heroic situation, for the stonewall defiance against the impossible is precisely what stamps the rare title of hero upon a man or a woman. But if it is impossible, how is it accomplished, and how is anyone called a hero? Here is the answer. Every hero's success, and every pedestal of fame, must inescapably come as a gift of God, since it is only God's Mercy which has the power, at the last moment, to turn the tables upon doom. Only divine Pity completes the impossible quest. So it must be whenever a man burning with desire attempts the indestructible to destroy or the free to possess.
Then, if all that can be done is in good faith done, whether Pity has broken the spell, or whether the quest has failed, greatness must breathe a sigh of relief: it must diminish, and go into the West (which is the old world for Home).
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Heart of Conservatism
Belloc Wednesdays are back. Today I will tell you, with every reason and in all seriousness, that you will now, if you have the patience, read the most perfectly conservative outpouring of the heart there ever was, or ever is likely to be.
The preface to The Four Men: A Farrago (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1912).
The preface to The Four Men: A Farrago (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1912).
My County, it has been proved in the life of every man that though his loves are human, and therefore changeable, yet in proportion as he attaches them to things unchangeable, so they mature and broaden.
On this account, Dear Sussex, are those women chiefly dear to men who, as the seasons pass, do but continue to be more and more themselves, attain balance, and abandon or forget vicissitude. And on this account, Sussex, does a man love an old house, which was his father's, and on this account does a man come to love with all his heart, that part of the earth which nourished his boyhood. For it does not change, or if it changes, it changes very little, and he finds in it the character of enduring things.
In this love he remains content until, perhaps, some sort of warning reaches him, that even his own County is approaching its doom. Then, believe me, Sussex, he is anxious in a very different way; he would, if he could, preserve his land in the flesh, and keep it there as it is, forever. But since he knows he cannot do that, "at least", he says, "I will keep her image, and that shall remain." And as a man will paint with a peculiar passion a face which he is only permitted to see for a little time, so will one passionately set down one's own horizon and one's fields before they are forgotten and have become a different thing. Therefore it is that I have put down in writing what happened to me now so many years ago, when I met first one man and then another, and we four bound ourselves together and walked through all your land, Sussex, from end to end. For many years I have not meant to write it down and have not; nor would I write it down now, or issue this book at all, Sussex, did I not know that you, who must like all created things decay, might with the rest of us be very near your ending. For I know very well in my mind that a day will come when the holy place shall perish and all the people of it and never more be what they were. But before that day comes, Sussex, may your earth cover me, and may some loud-voiced priest from Arundel, or Grinstead, or Crawley, or Storrington, but best of all from my home, have sung Do Mi Fa Sol above my bones.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Women
No one really knows the truth about them, so in a way they're like black holes or gnomes. However, I happen to have a small, tidy corner on the covered market of knowledge, and this post is a special display, sought for across oceans, inquired into on dark nights with fey friends, even wrested from the secret vault of wisdom.
Naturally, they'll deny all of it. But one would expect that, since they've always been skilled in the art of deception, which is the greatest weapon of war, and of course they're always ready to wage war.
It has to do with love, which is the old-fashioned word for 'relationships,' and with the perennial insoluble questions, do I love him? do I not love him?
But prior to the questions of love, there is a metaphysical event which transpires deep in a woman’s heart of hearts, a very sacred place where even she herself is not allowed but once a year, dressed in pure white linen, with bare feet, dripping in blood. (I wonder whether there may not be some fitting element of self-worship for woman, having to do with being the representative of Beauty on this mortal earth.) This temple is the seat of the will, and whenever she meets a man, a fundamental act of the will inclines her towards or away from the idea of love with him, whether she be conscious of it or no.
Absent this primitive allegiance of the will, she is incapable of falling in love with him, though he be the most admirable sort of person, and it's here she's sometimes forced to reply to suitors, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested." Yet from time to time the strength of his personality, the honour of his career, or the piety of his religion may work their effects upon her imagination, and he may eventually change her will.
Yet as long as she has a positive inclination, some far more important condition must be satisfied. It is difficult to tell what it is, since she may contentedly date a man for many months before realizing it herself. She must respect him for the greatness of his soul.
Greatness of soul is a tricky thing to understand, though everyone has a sense of it. Naming the thing sometimes provokes hostility - it appears to contradict the Christian virtue of humility. For the essence of greatness of soul is ambition. He (or she) loves glory. To be precise, greatness of soul is the habitual striving to do great and honourable deeds, together with the self-respect to seek deserved praise. After a few minutes in the presence of these people, we are aware of their power and might, we are often overcome with loyalty. Dr.Blackstock (Hillsdale College’s Provost) has a term for these people: princes of men. It is the secular equivalent of sainthood - though they likewise owe their excellence to grace, only through different channels.
They aim for high things, and they do not succumb to trouble. They write mellifluous poetry, they train up their children, they build sturdy houses, they make passionate love, they lay down their lives for their brother, heads turn when they enter a room, and under their rule regimes enjoy a golden age.
They are secure in themselves; they don’t cry for the attention that lesser people demand under lesser stress. They are content with their lot even though they be despised. They make sure never to stay in another man's debt. They believe in destiny, but they don't believe in inevitability.
When they fall in love, they are not gripped for long by stupor, and when they gain the affection of their beloved, they do not relax into a passive happiness, for they have enough common sense to know that she is not the beatific vision; not at all: they invite their love to be co-creator of the world they are making.
A woman can respect a man with such a soul, and, here is a hard thing: she probably won't be happy otherwise. Traditional aristocracies hate to marry down; this is the moral equivalent of marrying down. Still, you say, this doesn't explain why so many couples fall and stay in love, for few enough men and few enough women are capable of great deeds! Well, don't think of this in binary: there are grades, there are measures, there are backwaters and outliers. The postman may be further along than the speechwriter, and whatnot.
Yet through all the delightful complexity of it, the quality of greatness shines through the outward appearance, and a woman is able to recognize it, both in herself, and in her man. And when she sees a greater soul in a man than she sees in herself, she can fundamentally respect him.
Just so, a man can only fundamentally respect a woman who is greater than he, and probably won't be happy otherwise. But it turns out that though a couple each think of the other as higher than him or herself, that this is the operation of humility; really, they are equal. Consult your own experience. Do you not find that you have a similar degree of respect for each person in a happy couple? And do you not find that amongst couples that break apart, that you often had a much higher regard for one of them than the other?
And here I will tread cautiously, because it is in the power of these words to wound, so you must read them with salt and with caution of your own, but I have also seen that, in relationships between serious, honourable people, the woman is much more likely to break off the relationship than the man, and this may be because women generally are of greater worth then men. So that a great woman often finds that she does not recognize in her man a true equality of soul. Tragically, she cannot fundamentally respect him, and so, with him, she cannot be happy. (N.B. She never tells him so. Thus for the second time a man hears the dismal dismissal, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested.")
I'm far from explaining all love, its entwinings and unwindings, in this way. I merely explain what I believe to be a very important part of it. Take it or leave it.
Give me women, wine, and snuff,
Until I cry out, "Hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection,
'Till the day of resurrection.
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be,
My beloved trinity.
~John Keats
Naturally, they'll deny all of it. But one would expect that, since they've always been skilled in the art of deception, which is the greatest weapon of war, and of course they're always ready to wage war.
It has to do with love, which is the old-fashioned word for 'relationships,' and with the perennial insoluble questions, do I love him? do I not love him?
But prior to the questions of love, there is a metaphysical event which transpires deep in a woman’s heart of hearts, a very sacred place where even she herself is not allowed but once a year, dressed in pure white linen, with bare feet, dripping in blood. (I wonder whether there may not be some fitting element of self-worship for woman, having to do with being the representative of Beauty on this mortal earth.) This temple is the seat of the will, and whenever she meets a man, a fundamental act of the will inclines her towards or away from the idea of love with him, whether she be conscious of it or no.
Absent this primitive allegiance of the will, she is incapable of falling in love with him, though he be the most admirable sort of person, and it's here she's sometimes forced to reply to suitors, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested." Yet from time to time the strength of his personality, the honour of his career, or the piety of his religion may work their effects upon her imagination, and he may eventually change her will.
Yet as long as she has a positive inclination, some far more important condition must be satisfied. It is difficult to tell what it is, since she may contentedly date a man for many months before realizing it herself. She must respect him for the greatness of his soul.
Greatness of soul is a tricky thing to understand, though everyone has a sense of it. Naming the thing sometimes provokes hostility - it appears to contradict the Christian virtue of humility. For the essence of greatness of soul is ambition. He (or she) loves glory. To be precise, greatness of soul is the habitual striving to do great and honourable deeds, together with the self-respect to seek deserved praise. After a few minutes in the presence of these people, we are aware of their power and might, we are often overcome with loyalty. Dr.Blackstock (Hillsdale College’s Provost) has a term for these people: princes of men. It is the secular equivalent of sainthood - though they likewise owe their excellence to grace, only through different channels.
They aim for high things, and they do not succumb to trouble. They write mellifluous poetry, they train up their children, they build sturdy houses, they make passionate love, they lay down their lives for their brother, heads turn when they enter a room, and under their rule regimes enjoy a golden age.
They are secure in themselves; they don’t cry for the attention that lesser people demand under lesser stress. They are content with their lot even though they be despised. They make sure never to stay in another man's debt. They believe in destiny, but they don't believe in inevitability.
When they fall in love, they are not gripped for long by stupor, and when they gain the affection of their beloved, they do not relax into a passive happiness, for they have enough common sense to know that she is not the beatific vision; not at all: they invite their love to be co-creator of the world they are making.
A woman can respect a man with such a soul, and, here is a hard thing: she probably won't be happy otherwise. Traditional aristocracies hate to marry down; this is the moral equivalent of marrying down. Still, you say, this doesn't explain why so many couples fall and stay in love, for few enough men and few enough women are capable of great deeds! Well, don't think of this in binary: there are grades, there are measures, there are backwaters and outliers. The postman may be further along than the speechwriter, and whatnot.
Yet through all the delightful complexity of it, the quality of greatness shines through the outward appearance, and a woman is able to recognize it, both in herself, and in her man. And when she sees a greater soul in a man than she sees in herself, she can fundamentally respect him.
Just so, a man can only fundamentally respect a woman who is greater than he, and probably won't be happy otherwise. But it turns out that though a couple each think of the other as higher than him or herself, that this is the operation of humility; really, they are equal. Consult your own experience. Do you not find that you have a similar degree of respect for each person in a happy couple? And do you not find that amongst couples that break apart, that you often had a much higher regard for one of them than the other?
And here I will tread cautiously, because it is in the power of these words to wound, so you must read them with salt and with caution of your own, but I have also seen that, in relationships between serious, honourable people, the woman is much more likely to break off the relationship than the man, and this may be because women generally are of greater worth then men. So that a great woman often finds that she does not recognize in her man a true equality of soul. Tragically, she cannot fundamentally respect him, and so, with him, she cannot be happy. (N.B. She never tells him so. Thus for the second time a man hears the dismal dismissal, "I don't know why, I'm just not interested.")
I'm far from explaining all love, its entwinings and unwindings, in this way. I merely explain what I believe to be a very important part of it. Take it or leave it.
Give me women, wine, and snuff,
Until I cry out, "Hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection,
'Till the day of resurrection.
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be,
My beloved trinity.
~John Keats
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