Rationality
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To be rational is not to be sensible, which originally meant 'sensitive and aware' as it still does in French and Spanish, but which now means 'unpretentiously thoughtfull'. Rational does not even mean reasonable, which conveys the sense of being open to persuasion by sensible people: it means thinking along prescribed lines without any thought for sensibility in either sense. The difference for instance between real scientists and the routineers of science is that the real ones are sensible in the French and Spanish sense; whereas the routineers, being merely rational, have become the destroyers of our civilization.
Though one cannot and should not be rational about love, if only because it is an emotional and therefore unassessable concept, one should be sensible and reason able whenever its appearance threatens a hitherto settled and agreeable habit of living. Sure tests can indeed be found for recognizing true love from false, but cannot be classed as rational since they apply to irrational situations, and must therefore be neglected by all legal and academic institutions. For example, true love recognizes no alternative. It is not enough for a man to say: 'Y ou are the most beautiful girl 1 have ever seen.' An Eastern princess once countered this criticism of the past with: 'Ah, but my younger sister is said to be even more beautiful than I'-and then watched her suitor's face carefully.... Nor does true love dwell emotionally on the future. '1 would die for your sake' means little; many noble hearts risk their lives for those of ignoble strangers. Even the hope that both lovers will die together is unrealistic: what matters is life, not death.
Nor should love be put to any test: tests imply doubt. Nor should two lovers ever debate which of them is the more important or responsible. Though one of the two may have contributed a three-quarters part in power and wisdom, the whole would be incomplete without the other quarter, which thus becomes three times more valuable in terms of love than any of the other three. True love, in fact, neither plans the future nor presumes on the past, but takes everything as it comes.
All the above may have been sensibly and reasonably written, but not being a poem is unlikely to convince anybody of its truth.
- Robert Graves