Even at the present day couples are to be found who are inspired by great love. They show an insatiable desire for all the riches of life, so as to have the means of being regally lavish towards each other. Neither defrauds the other of so much as a dewdrop. The fervour they give one another, the freedom they possess through one another, make the space that surrounds them warm and ample. Love is constantly giving them new impulses, new powers and new employment for their powers, whether these are directed inwards to home life or outwards to that of society. And thus the happiness, which for themselves is the source of life, becomes also a tributary stream by which the happiness of all is raised. The power of great love to enhance a person’s value for mankind can only be compared with the glow of religious faith or the creative joy of genius, but surpasses both in universal life-enhancing properties. Sorrow may sometimes make a person more tender towards the sufferings of others, more actively benevolent than happiness with its concentration upon self. But sorrow never led the soul to those heights and depths, to those inspirations and revelations of universal life, to that kneeling gratitude before the mystery of life, to which the piety of great love leads it. Like faith, this piety sanctifies all things. It gives significance to attention bestowed on one’s self, since _... If I am dear to some one else Then must I be to myself more dear._ It combines the most trifling things of life into an intelligent whole. He who is loved and loves in this way bears the same stamp as the Christian mystic, who grows ever clearer and yet more rich in mystery; ever fuller of life and yet calmer; ever more introspective and yet more radiant. There are some who think that this state is visionary and unnatural. But the truth—for everyone who has beheld it—is that _le vrai amour est simple comme un bas relief antique_. Such a relief, which before all others corresponds to the image, is to be found in the Naples museum. It shows a man and a woman, standing still on either side of a tree. An artist of antiquity may have already foreseen all the significance that a son of our time interpreted, when he placed a youth and a maiden beneath the tree of life with a cloven apple in their hands: _they divided the apple of life and ate it together_....