"Unaltered Love" 1
"Perfect Love"
Perfect love has this advantage in it, that it leaves the possessor of it nothing farther to desire. There is one object (at least) in which the soul finds absolute content, for which it seeks to live, or dares to die. The heart has as it were filled up the moulds of the imagination. The truth of passion keeps pace with and outlives the extravagance of mere language. There are no words so fine, no flattery so soft, that there is not a sentiment beyond them, that it is impossible to express, at the bottom of the heart where true love is. What idle sounds the common phrases, adorable creature, angel, divinity, are! What a proud reflection it is to have a feeling answering to all these, rooted in the breast, unalterable, unutterable, to which all other feelings are light and vain! Perfect love reposes on the object of its choice, like the halcyon on the wave; and the air of heaven is around it.
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1 These two shorts excerpts are from Hazlitt's Liber Amoris, the larger work was written in 1823 and my copy of the book is that as was published by The Hogarth Press (London), 1985; this extraction as contained on this page is that which is to be found in Selected Essays as edited by Geoffrey Keynes (London: Nonsuch Press, 1930).
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2011 (2020)