Liber Aleph

THE BOOK OF WISDOM OR FOLLY 5 e Gesta de Amore (Histories of Love) OW Literature overfloweth with the Murders of Love, so also doeth History, and the Lesson is ever the same. Thus the Loves of Abelard and of Heloise were destroyed by the System of Repression in which they chanced to move. Thus Beatrice was robbed of Dante by social Artificialities; and Paolo slain on account of Things external to his Love of Francesca. Then, per contra, Martin Luther, being a Giant of Will, and also the Eighth Henry of England, as a mighty King, bent them to overturn the whole World that they might have satisfaction of their Loves. And who shall follow them? For even now we find great Churchmen, Statesmen, Princes, Dramamakers, and many lesser Men, overwhelmed utterly and ruined by the conflict between their Passions and the Society about them. Wherein which Party errs is no matter of Moment for our Thought; but the Existence of the War is Evidence of Wrong done to Nature. n