First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is
a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people
involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different
countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain
quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He
feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange
loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for
the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for
himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself.
Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a
young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed
any human creature on this earth.
Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can
be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only
a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The
preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and
given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as dearly as anyone else — but that
does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the
object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp.
A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering
madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the
value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost
everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state
of being be loved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with
the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover
craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.