"What surprises us foreigners in the poems of this people is the unbounded faith in love, as the supreme power in the world, as the most beautiful and _divine thing_ on earth, ... the first and last word of creation, its only principle of life, because it alone can urge us to complete self-surrender." Schuré's intimation that this respect for love is peculiar to the Germans is, of course, absurd, for it is found in the modern literature of all civilized countries of Europe and America; as for instance in Michael Angelo's The might of one fair face sublimes my love, For it _hath weaned my heart from low desires_. ENGLISH TESTIMONY English literature, particularly, has been saturated with this sentiment for several centuries. Love is "all purity," according to Shakspere's Silvius. Schlegel remarked that by the manner in which Shakspere handled the story of _Romeo and Juliet_, it has become "a glorious song of praise on that inexpressible feeling which _ennobles the soul_ and gives to it its highest sublimity, and which _elevates even the senses_ themselves into soul;" --which reminds one of Emerson's expression that the body is "ensouled" through love. Steele declared that "Love is a passion of the mind (_perhaps the noblest_), which was planted in it by the same hand that created it;" and of Lady Elizabeth Hastings he wrote that "to love her was a liberal education." In Steel's _Lover_ (No. 5) we read: "During this emotion I am highly elated in my Being, and my every sentiment improved by the effects of that Passion.... I am more and more convinced that this Passion is in lowest minds the strongest Incentive that can move the Soul of Man to laudable Accomplishments." And in No. 29: "Nothing can _mend the Heart_ better than an honorable Love, except Religion." Thomas Otway sang: O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. There's in you all that we believe of heaven, Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love. "Love taught him shame," said Dryden, and Spenser wrote a Hymn in Honor of Love, in which he declared that Such is the power of that sweet passion That it _all sordid baseness doth expel_, And the refined mind doth newly fashion Unto a fairer form, which now doth dwell In his high thought, that would itself excel. Leigh Hunt wrote: "My love has made me better and more desirous of improvement than I have been." Love, indeed, is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire, With angels shared, by Allah given, To _lift from earth our low desire_. Devotion wafts the mind above, But heaven itself descends in love. --_Byron_.