Of
this book, one would say, that, with the highest elements, it has
failed of success. It came near to be the Hymn of Love, which Plato
attempted in the "Banquet;" the love, which, Dante says, Casella sang
among the angels in Paradise; and which, as rightly celebrated, in its
genesis, fruition, and effect, might well entrance the souls, as it
would lay open the genesis of all institutions, customs, and manners.
The book had been grand, if the Hebraism had been omitted, and the law
stated without Gothicism, as ethics, and with that scope for ascension
of state which the nature of things requires. It is a fine Platonic
development of the science of marriage; teaching that sex is universal,
and not local; virility in the male qualifying every organ, act, and
thought; and the feminine in woman. Therefore, in the real or spiritual
world, the nuptial union is not momentary, but incessant and total;
and chastity not a local, but a universal virtue; unchastity being
discovered as much in the trading, or planting, or speaking, or
philosophizing, as in generation; and that, though the virgins he saw
in heaven were beautiful, the wives were incomparably more beautiful,
and went on increasing in beauty evermore.
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