peahats

A brilliant light was shone on my sorry self at the library the other day. I was reading Purgatorio: CantoXVIII "The mind, which is created apt to love, is mobile unto everything that pleases, so soon as by pleasure it is roused to action. Your faculty of apprehension draws an image from a real existence, and displays it within you, so that it makes the mind turn to it; and if, thus turned, the mind incline toward it, that inclination is love; it is nature which is bound anew in you by pleasure. Then, as the fire moves upward by virtue of its form, which is born to ascend thither where it most abides in its own matter, so the captive mind enters into longing, which is a spiritual motion, and never rests until the thing beloved makes it rejoice. Now it may be apparent to thee how far the truth is hidden from the people who aver that every love is in itself a laudable thing, because, perchance, its subject-matter always appears to be good; but not every seal is good although the wax be good."