This doctrine of love had not prospered in the world, where it found briers too deeply rooted, thorns too cruel; it had become a supernatural and sacred thing, so sublime that it fled the world and took refuge in the cloister, like a sickly plant in a hothouse, leaving a free field for vice. Tenderness seemed to come only from feebleness; every form of art seemed immoral, all love a degenerate and ill-balanced thing, and no one realised the need goodness has of intelligence. The pettinesses of feminine religiosity, encouraged, unhappily, by a section of the clergy, tended to make divine love itself ineffectual and almost ridiculous. Yet the author of the _Imitation_ has defined love as the true source of activity: “Nothing is there in Heaven or earth sweeter than love, nothing stronger, broader, higher, fuller, better, or more winsome, for love is of God, nor can it rest but in Him, above the world created. The lover runneth and flieth, and is alive with joy; he is free, and nothing restraineth him; he giveth all for all, hath all in all, because he resteth above all things in the one sovereign good whence all other goodnesses proceed and flow. He looketh not to gifts, but raiseth himself above all to look only to the giver. Love often knoweth no limit, but its fervour carrieth it far above measure. Love feeleth no weight, making light of toil, would do more than it is able, pleadeth no impossibility, because it thinketh it may and can do all. Wherefore it is strong for anything, and where he that loveth not doth faint and fail, love doeth and achieveth many things.”[139] Why then had not this beautiful religion, this beautiful philosophy become the religion and philosophy of the world? Why had they not sent their streams of activity flowing in ever-widening channels? Men wished to solve this problem, and restore to the world the philosophy it had so misunderstood—to interpret love as it should be interpreted, through impressions and sensibility, and not through the intellect. Hence Castiglione’s saying, “God is only seen through women.” This saying, it is clear, does not apply to all women; it has reference to those who are worthy to exercise an active influence.