love belongs to the kingdom of the senses: it is the love of Beatrice, the worship of Madonna; the Babylonian woman is the symbol of sexual desire.
Kant's enumeration of the transcendental ideas of love would have to be extended if it is to be held. For the purely spiritual love, the love of Plato and Bruno, which is absolutely free from desire, is none the less a transcendental concept; nor is its significance as a concept impaired, because such a love has never been fully realised.
It is the problem put forward in "Tannhäuser." We have Tannhäuser, Wolfram, Venus, and Maria. The fact that two lovers, who have found each other once for all—Tristan and Isolde—choose death instead of the bridal bed, is just as absolute a proof of a higher, maybe metaphysical, something in mankind, as the martyrdom of a Giordano Bruno.
"Dir, hohe Liebe, töne
Begeistert mein Gesang,
Die mir in Engelschöne
Tief in die Seele drang!
Du nahst als Gott gesandte:
Ich folg' aus holder Fern',—
So führst du in die Lande,
Wo ewig strahlt dein Stern."
Who is the object of such love? Is it woman, as she has been represented in this work, who lacks all higher qualities, who gets her value from another, who has no power to attain value on her own account? Impossible. It is the ideally beautiful, the immaculate woman, who is loved in such high fashion. The source of this beauty and chastity in women must now be found.
The question as to whether the female sex is the more beautiful, and as to whether it deserves the title of "the" beautiful, has been much disputed.
It may be well to consider by whom and how far woman is considered beautiful.
It is well known that woman is not most beautiful in the nude. I admit that in pictures or statues the nude female may look well. But the sexual impulse makes it impossible
