The Drama of Love and Death: A Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration. Edward Carpenter
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probably on account of this complex nature that for any big and permanent relationship of this kind there has to be a rather slow and gradual culmination. All the various elements have to be hunted up and brought into line. Like all great ideas love has its two sides—its instantaneous inner side, and its complex outer side of innumerable detail. In consciousness it tends to appear in a flash—simple, unique, and unchangeable; but in experience it has to be worked out with much labor. All the elements have to come into operation, and to contribute their respective quota to the total result. If we remember what happens when the spermatozoon and the ovum coalesce (see ch. ii. p. 19)—the extraordinary changes and disturbances which are induced in the chromatin elements of both nuclei, the fusion of the nuclei, and the ultimate ranging of the chromosomes in a line (for the formation of the new being) in such a way that every element is represented and contributes its share to the process—we cannot but be struck by the strange similarity to our own inner experience: how love searches the heart, drags every element of the inner nature forward from its lurking-place, gives it definition and shape, and somehow insists on it being represented, and, so to speak, toeing the line. We shall return to this point later. Here I only wish to insist on the complexity of the process, in order to show that for any big relationship plenty of time has to be allowed. Whichever side of the nature—mental, emotional, physical, and so forth—may have happened to take the lead, it must not and cannot monopolize the affair. It must drag the other sides in and give them their place. And this means time, and temporary bewilderment and confusion. It is curious how ‘falling in love’ has this very effect—how it paralyzes for a time—inhibiting the mental part and even the physical; how the smart talker becomes a dumb ass, and the man about town a modest fool, and the person who always does the right thing seems compelled to do everything wrong—as if a confusion were being created in the mind, analogous to that which we have observed in the cells. When we add to these considerations the extraordinary differences between persons, and between the proportions in which the elements of their characters are mixed, it is obvious how extremely complex the conditions of any one decent love-relation must be, and what tact and patience in the handling it may require.
The ignorance, therefore, which causes a young man, husband or lover, to think that the hurried completion of the sexual act is at once the initiation and the fulfilment of love, is fatal enough. It marks more often the end than the beginning of the affair. For, contrariwise, time and plenty of time has to be given in order to allow the central radiation in each case to have its perfect work. Is it too fanciful to suppose that the centrosome, which makes its appearance in the protozoön on its approach to conjunction, and which seems to rule the rearrangement of the chromatin elements within it, is the analogue of the radiating force in human courtship which so strangely sifts out and remoulds the elements of the lover’s personality? Does the magic of the centrosome correspond in some sense to the glamour, so well known in human affairs? And do they both proceed from some deep-hidden, profoundly important manifestation of the life, the energy, the divinity if you will, of the Race?
How strange is this matter of the glamour, and its decisiveness in awakening love by its presence, or leaving it cold by absence! Here is a story of a woman who, dreadfully disfigured in countenance by an accident in the hunting-field, called her fiancé to her, and nobly offered him his freedom; and he … accepted it! Accepted it, because, quite really and truly, the destruction of her physical beauty had for him shattered the Vision and the divinity. And here is another similar story where, contrariwise, the man immediately confirmed his love and devotion—because for him the glory around her was more illumined by her nobility of feeling than it could be darkened by her bodily defect.
Such glamour, working away in the hidden caverns of being, may at last, like Bruno’s “fabro vulcano,” weld two souls into one, and bring to light a real, a profound, and perhaps eternal union. It is after all that inner union which is the real thing; which gives all its joys to intercourse, and penetrating down into the world of sense, redeems that world into a thing of glory and beauty. For the complete action of that creative and organizing force plentiful time must be given; and the two lovers must possess their souls in patience till it has had its full and perfect work. Ovid in his Ars Amatoria has many lines on this subject. “Let the youth,” he says, “with tardy passion burn, like a damp torch” … “Non est Veneris properanda voluptas” … “Quod datum ex facili longum male nutrit amorem” (Love easily granted may not long endure), and so forth. And though these passages no doubt refer mainly to what may be called the practical conduct of amours, yet they have also a very pointed application to the more important aspects of the grand passion. A long foreground of approach, time and tact, diffusion of magnetism, mergence in one another, suffering, and even pain—all these must be expected and allowed for—though the best after all, in this as in other things, is often the unexpected and the unprepared.
And if the man has to allow time for all the elements of his nature to come forward and take their part in the great mystery, all the more is it true that he has to give the woman time for the fulfilling of her part. For in general it may be said (though of course with exceptions) that love culminates more slowly in women than in men. Men concentrate obviously on the definite part they have to play; but in women love is more diffused and takes longer to reach the point where it becomes an inspired and creative frenzy of the whole being. Caresses, tendernesses, provocation, sacrifices, and a thousand indirect influences have to gradually conspire to the working out of this result; and not infrequently the situation so arising demands great self-control on the part of the man. Yet these things are worth while. “The real marriage,” says some one, “takes place when from their intense love there comes to birth another soul—apart from each, and invisible, yet joining them together, one hand ahold of each—a radiant thing born of the sun and stars, which though tender and fragile at first, grows just like a bodily child, and leads them on, and dances with them.”
They are worth while, all these labors and troubles, and delays and sacrifices, if only out of them can be forged a fair and infrangible union. As in all the arts, so in the greatest of the arts, no lasting result can be attained, without such labor. Nor indeed without some degree of pain and suffering. Young folk and inexperienced may think it is not so. They may think that by a lucky stroke and practically without effort a man may write a “Blessed Damozel” or carve in marble a “Greek Slave”; but all experience points differently, and shows that directly or indirectly to such works have gone infinite labor and patience. And so to the conceiving and shaping of a perfect alliance between a man and a woman must always go much of suffering—for it is by suffering that the souls of human beings are brought into form and carved to fitness for each other.
Is it seriously—when one comes to think of it—possible to imagine love without pain? Figure to yourself, O man, a courtship absolutely undenied, from the first accepted, even encouraged, with complaisantly unresisting bride, smiling parents, fair-weather prospects, and cash unlimited! How awfully dull! Does not the stoutest heart quail at the suggestion? Or if such a mating might be deemed pleasant as far as its accessories and conditions were concerned, could it yet be termed Love?
For Love, if worth anything, seems to demand pain and strain in order to prove itself, and is not satisfied with an easy attainment. How indeed should one know the great heights except by the rocks and escarpments? And pain often in some strange way seems to be the measure of love—the measure by which we are assured that love is true and real; and so (which is one of the mysteries) it becomes transformed into a great joy. Yes, if men could only understand, here is one of the most precious of the mysteries, and the solving of a great riddle.
But that the course of true love does generally not run smooth is understood, more or less, by every one. And it is woman’s strange and imperious instinct—even though at considerable suffering to herself—to see that it doesn’t run smooth. Ellis practically bases[24] the whole of the evolution of modesty on this instinct—reaching far down in the animal kingdom—by which the female constantly throws difficulties and obstacles in the way of courtship (by her coynesses, contrarieties, changeable moods, and so forth); thus calling out in the male all his ingenuity, his impetuosity, his energy, in overcoming them; rousing dormant elements of his nature; delaying consummation and giving time for his character and all his qualities to concentrate; and indirectly