Now What, Really, Is Love?

drawn by the mating instinctHappy Valentine’s Day, folks. Here’s a quote about love to help you celebrate the day; it’s from Elinor Glyn’s This Passion Called Love. Smooches, everyone! I love you! Really, I do!

1925: Now What, Really, Is Love?

We are here talking of love between the sexes ~ that is, the state of being ‘in love’ ~ not of love between parents and children and friends, and brother to brother, sister to sister, or love for humanity. Love between the sexes, taken in the guise in which it shows itself to us on this planet, is the spiritual and glamorous disguise which envelops the coarser nature instinct for re-creation of species. A man or a woman in love is unconsciously drawn by the mating instinct ~ no matter how he or she may truly believe that the desire for union and nearness and companionship is something purely spiritual. Nature’s message is always carry on ~ reproduce ~ propagate. And so, since we live on the earth planet, we must all be affected by Nature’s laws. The lowest animal stage of life obeys this urge, but one of the things which differentiates man from the animal is his capacity to amalgamate the divine spiritual emotion with the instinct for re-creation. The spiritual part of love, in the broad sense, is sacrifice ~ that is, all individuals, while in love, desire to curb selfish desires in the interest of the loved one, however selfish the natural character may be. If this sacrificial element is not in the emotion, then it is not really love, but merely a demonstration of animal passion.

Source: Glyn, Elinor. This Passion Called Love. Auburn, N.Y.: The Authors’ Press, 1925.
~ pp. 9-10 ~