The betrothed and accepted lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden by her acceptance. She was heaven while he pursued her, but she cannot be heaven if she stoops to one such as he!
Interpretation
Acceptance in love diminishes the allure of desire and pursuit.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that the thrill and charm of romantic pursuit often resides in the chase, rather than in the actual acceptance of love. When a lover is fully accepted, the mystical allure of the beloved can diminish, as they become more accessible and less of an unattainable ideal, thereby affecting the dynamics of attraction and desire in a relationship.
In practice
A couple might reflect on this quote during a romantic dinner to discuss how their initial attraction has evolved.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
I need to feel strongly, to love and admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe.
Every kiss provokes another. Oh, in those earliest days of love how naturally the kisses spring to life! So closely, in their profusion, do they crowd together that lovers would find it as hard to count the kisses exchanged in an hour as to count the flowers in a meadow in May.
The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? Any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.
For what the lover would, that would the beloved; what she would ask of him that should he go before to grant. Without accord such as this, love is but a bond and a constraint.
And you will remember that love is not getting, but giving; not a wild dream of pleasure, and a madness of desire — oh no, love is not that — it is goodness, and honour, and peace, and pure living — yes, love is that; and it is the best thing in the world, and the thing that lives longest.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.