Aspects of the novelForster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
History
Aspects of the novel
Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
English fiction -- History and criticism; Fiction -- Technique
And lastly, love. I am using this celebrated word in its widest and
dullest sense. Let me be very dry and brief about sex in the first
place. Some years after a human being is born, certain changes occur in
it, as in other animals, which changes often lead to union with another
human being, and to the production of more human beings. And our race
goes on. Sex begins before adolescence, and survives sterility; it is
indeed coeval with our lives, although at the mating age its effects are
more obvious to society. And besides sex, there are other emotions, also
strengthening towards maturity: the various upliftings of the spirit,
such as affection, friendship, patriotism, mysticism--and as soon as we
try to determine the relation between sex and these other emotions we
shall of course begin to quarrel as violently as we ever could about
Walter Scott, perhaps even more violently. Let me only tabulate the
various points of view. Some people say that sex is basic and underlies
all these other loves--love of friends, of God, of country. Others say
that it is connected with them, but laterally, it is not their root.
Others say that it is not connected at all. All I suggest is that we
call the whole bundle of emotions love, and regard them as the fifth
great experience through which human beings have to pass. When human
beings love they try to get something. They also try to give something,
and this double aim makes love more complicated than food or sleep. It
is selfish and altruistic at the same time, and no amount of
specialization in one direction quite atrophies the other. How much time
does love take? This question sounds gross but it must be asked because
it bears on our present enquiry. Sleep takes about eight hours out of
the twenty-four, food about two more. Shall we put down love for another
two? Surely that is a handsome allowance. Love may weave itself into our
other activities--so may drowsiness and hunger. Love may start various
secondary activities: for instance, a man's love for his family may
cause him to spend a good deal of time on the Stock Exchange, or his
love for God a good deal of time in church. But that he has emotional
communion with any beloved object for more than two hours a day may be
gravely doubted, and it is this emotional communion, this desire to give
and to get, this mixture of generosity and expectation, that
distinguishes love from the other experiences on our list.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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