The radius of their wants extends...

The radius of their wants extends; and when they become parents, their spirit completely changes. That heavy and lazy adolescent boy has now become active and mobile, and that girl who used not to get out of her bedclothes even during the day moves like lightning when she hears the cry of her child in the cradle. What is this power which has so galvanized the languor and weariness in these two young people? It is nothing but love.

It is love which turns the miser into a benefactor, and an impatient and intolerant person into someone with endurance and tolerance.

It is love which gave the selfish bird which collected grain only with itself in mind and looked only after itself, the form of a generous creature which calls for its chickens when it finds a grain of corn; or which, by some wonderful power, makes the mother, who was until yesterday a spoiled child who just ate and slept and was irritable and impatient, persevering and forbearing when faced with hunger, lack of sleep and dishevelment, which gives her the patience to endure the hardships of motherhood.

The bringing into existence of tenderness in, and the removal of heaviness and coarseness from, the spirit, or, put in another way, the purification of the feelings, and also the unification and singleness of purpose and concentration, and the disappearance of distraction and dispersion are the strengths and, in the end, power which is produced by the coming together of all the resulting effects of love.

In the language of poetry and literature, when love is spoken of, we encounter one effect more than any other, and that is the power of love to bring inspiration, and its prodigality. The nightingale learnt its song by the favour of the rose, otherwise there would not have been Any of this song and music fashioned from its beak.

^3 Although the favour of the rose is, if we attend only to the words, a matter outside the existence of the nightingale, it is in fact nothing but the force of love itself. Do you imagine that Majnun became deranged ( majnun ) by himself? It was the glance of Layla that transported him among the stars. [^4] Love awakens sleeping powers, and frees chained and fettered forces, just like the splitting of the atom and the freeing of atomic power.

It fires with inspiration and builds heroes - how many poets, philosophers and artists there have been who were created by a strong and powerful love. Love perfects the soul and brings out astounding latent abilities.