A Definition of Love

"A man falls in love because there is something wrong with him. It is not so much a matter of his health as it is of his mental climate; as, in winter one longs for the spring. He gets so that he can’t stand being alone. He may imagine he wants children, but he doesn’t, at least not as women do. Because once married and with children of his own, he longs to be alone again.

A man who falls in love is a sick man, he has a kind of what used to be called green sickness. Before he’s in love he’s in a weak condition, for which the only prognosis, and he is only too aware of this, is that he will go on living. And, in his invalidism he doesn’t feel he can go on living alone. It is not until after his marriage that he really knows how wrong or sick he has been.

The love one feels is not made for one but made by one. It comes from a lack in oneself. It is a deficiency, and therefore, a certifiable disease.

We are all animals, and therefore, we are continually being attracted. That this attraction should extend to what is called love is a human misfortune cultivated by novelists. It is the horror we feel of ourselves, that is of being alone with ourselves, which draws us to love, but this love should happen only once, and never be repeated, if we have, as we should, learnt our lesson, which is that we are, all and each one of us, always and always alone."

Surviving, Henry Green