Some there are who do thus in beauty love each other. And to love thus
means that, little by little, the sense of ugliness is lost; that one's
eyes are closed to all the littlenesses of life, to all but the
freshness and virginity of the very humblest of souls. Loving thus, we
have no longer even the need to forgive. Loving thus, we can no longer
have anything to conceal, for that the ever-present soul transforms all
things into beauty. It is to behold evil in so far only as it purifies
indulgence, and teaches us no longer to confound the sinner with his
sin. Loving thus do we raise on high within ourselves all those about
us who have attained an eminence where failure has become impossible;
heights whence a paltry action has so far to fall that, touching earth,
it is compelled to yield up its diamond soul.
It is to transform, though all unconsciously, the feeblest intention
that hovers about us into illimitable movement. It is to summon all that
is beautiful in earth, heaven or soul, to the banquet of love.
Loving thus, we do indeed exist before our fellows as we exist before
God. It means that the least gesture will call forth the presence of the
soul with all its treasure. No longer is there need of death, disaster
or tears for that the soul shall appear; a smile suffices.
Loving thus, we perceive truth in happiness as profoundly as some of
the heroes perceived it in the radiance of greatest sorrow. It means
that the beauty that turns into love is undistinguishable from the love
that turns into beauty. It means to be able no longer to tell where the
ray of a star leaves off and the kiss of an ordinary thought begins. It
means to have come so near to God that the angels possess us.
Loving thus, the same soul will have been so beautified by us all that
it will become, little by little, the "unique angel" mentioned by
Swedenborg. It means that each day will reveal to us a new beauty in
that mysterious angel, and that we shall walk together in a goodness
that shall ever become more and more living, loftier and loftier. For
there exists also a lifeless beauty, made up of the past alone; but the
veritable love renders the past useless, and its approach creates a
boundless future of goodness, without disaster and without tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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