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January 14, 2008
the love of real life
How sweet it was to love for once with the love of real life; for now he knew that nothing of what he had imagined to be love was real love, neither the turgid longing of the lonely youth, nor the passionate yearning of the dreamer, nor yet the nervous foreboding of the child. These were currents in the ocean of love, single reflections of its full light, fragments of love as the meteors rushing through space are splinters of a world--for that was love; a world complete in itself, fully rounded, vast, and orderly. It was no medley of confused sensations and moods rushing one upon another! Love was like nature, ever changing, ever renewing; no feeling died and no emotion withered without giving life to the seed of something still more perfect which was imbedded in it. Quietly, sanely, with full, deep breaths--it was good to love so and love with all his soul. The days fell bright and new-coined, down from heaven itself; they no longer followed one upon another as a matter of course like the hackneyed pictures in a peep show. Every one was a revelation. With each day that passed, he felt stronger, greater, and nobler. He had never known such strength and fullness of feeling; there were moments when he seemed to himself titanic, much more than man, so inexhaustible was the well spring of his soul, so broad-winged the tenderness that swelled his heart, so wondrous the sweep of his vision, so infinite the gentleness of his judgments.
Jens Peter Jacobsen - Niels Lyhne
Posted by amin at January 14, 2008 12:19 AM