Page:Love in Hindu Literature.djvu/23

 LOVE IN HINDU LITERATURE. 9 All through the poem we find our brave world-conqueror amazed and almost confounded in the " magic circle " of love. Lili's spell over Goethe is thus described : " Heart, my heart, what is this feeling. That doth weigh on thee so sore ? What new life art thou revealing That I know myself no more ? Gone is all that once was dearest. Gone the care that once was nearest, Gone the labour, gone the bliss, Ah ! whence conies such change as this ? With suqh magic-web she binds me, To burst through I have no skill ; All-absorbing passion blinds me. Paralyses my poor will. In her charmed sphere delaying, I must live, her will obeying."

If the exquisite little story has any ' criticism of life,' it is a very simple one. It is an extollation, an apotheosis, of the " heart of a woman." It is the in- fluence of Beatrice upon Dante. The author has not preached here any ism, he has no philosophy of social reconstruction to offer ; he is neither a Nietzschean nor a Blakist, neither a Shavian nor an Ibsenist ; he is not an advocate of " free love " or clandestine connexions ; he is not preaching the sanctity of home or the duties of married life ; he is neither pro -nor anti-suffragist ; he is not a feminist, not a misogynist ; his sole aim is to delineate with just a few simple touches one of the