It is the unreasoning, unquestioning love of a man for a woman or a
woman for a man, just as they are, for themselves only; "because it was
you and me," as Montaigne says. Not a respect for good qualities, a
mere admiration for beauty, a perception of strength or delicacy, but a
sort of predestined unity of spirit and body, an inner and instinctive
congeniality, a sense of supreme need and nearness, which has no
consciousness of raising or helping or forgiving about it, but is
rather an imperative desire for surrender, for sharing, for serving.
Thus, in love, faults and weaknesses are not things to be mended or
overlooked, but opportunities of lavish generosity. Sacrifice is not
only not a pain, but the deepest and acutest pleasure possible. Love of
this kind has nothing of the tolerance of friendship about it, the
process of addition and subtraction, the weighing of net results,
though that can provide a sensible and happy partnership enough. And
thus when an author has grace and power to perceive such a situation,
no further motive or purpose is needed; indeed the addition of any such
motive merely defames and tarnishes the quality of the divine gift.

It is not to be pretended that all human beings have the gift of loving
so. To love perfectly is a matter of genius; it may be worth while to
depict other sorts of love, for it has infinite gradations and
_nuances_. One of the grievous mistakes that the prophets and
prophetesses of love make is that they tend to speak as if only some
coldness and hardness of nature, which could be dispensed with at will
or by effort, holds men and women back from the innermost relationship.
It is the same mistake as that made by many preachers who speak as if
the moral sense was equally developed in all, or required only a little
effort of the will. But a man or a woman may be quite able to perceive
the nobility, the solemn splendour of a perfect love, and yet be
incapable of either feeling or inspiring it. The possession of such a
gift is a thing to thank God for; the absence of it is not a thing to
be shrewishly condemned. The power is not often to be found in
combination with high intellectual or artistic gifts. There is a law of
compensation in human nature, but there is also a law of limitations;
and this it is both foolish and cowardly to ignore.

When one comes to form such a list as I have tried to do of great
lovers in literature and life, it is surprising and rather distressi