More closely, then, love does not subsist, as may frequently happen in the case of honour, upon the subject-matter of the mind and the casuistry of reflection, but originates in the emotions, and for the reason that here the distinctions of sex play an important part, possesses at the same time for its basis natural conditions as already related to spirit life. This basis is, however, only present in the sense that the individual comes into relation with such conditions by way of his soul-life, that essentially infinite aspect of himself. This state of a man's losing his own consciousness in another, this appearance of disinterestedness and unselfishness, by virtue of which a man first really finds himself and comes to himself--this oblivion of his own, so that the lover no longer exists, or is careful for himself, but discovers the roots of that life in another, and yet only comes into the full enjoyment of himself in that other is what gives us the infinite relation of love; and we must look for beauty mainly in so far as this feeling does not persist as mere impulse and emotion, but through the imagination makes its world conform to such a condition, exalts everything which otherwise belongs by virtue of its interest, circumstances, and objects to real existence and life, into an adornment of this feeling, bears away all else into the charmed circle, and only attaches a value to it in this relation. More particularly it is in female characters that love appears in most beautiful guise because this sacrifice, this surrender, is with them as the culmination of everything else. It is these qualities, in fact, which concentrate and extend life in its spiritual breadth and reality to the wealth of this emotion, which alone discover within it a stay for existence, and if any misfortune sweeps across the path, vanish like a light which is extinguished by the first rude breath[248]. In this personal and intimate sense of feeling love is not presented in classical art, and only appears as a feature of quite secondary importance for the representation, or is only conspicuous under its aspect of physical enjoyment. In Homer, either we find it is not emphasized at all, or love appears in its most respected type as wedded love in the sphere of the domestic state, exemplified in the figure of Penelope, or as solicitude of wife and mother, exemplified in the case of Andromache, or in other ethical relations of a similar character. The tie, on the other hand, which unites Paris to Helen is recognized as immoral, and the cause of the horror and fatal course of the Trojan war. The love, too, of Achilles for Briseis has little depth of sentiment or spiritual flavour, for Briseis is a slave entirely at his disposition. In the odes of Sappho it is true that the language of love receives the dramatic emphasis of lyrical enthusiasm; yet it is rather the insinuating and devouring flame of the blood which is