While the mystic attempts to embody the inconceivable Deity in his soul,
the worshipper of the Madonna, like the artist, imaginatively creates a
being which he sets up for contemplation at the greatest possible
distance. The mystic is blind, as it were; he is yearning personified,
and he would force God into his soul. The metaphysical lover needs a
plastic figure which, in the extremest case, may represent the whole
world to him, and this figure must be a woman. It is a historical
accident that this woman is frequently connected with a woman of
ecclesiastical tradition, an accident strengthened by insufficient
creative power on the part of the lover, or lack of courage and
self-confidence. He is grateful for the support given to him by
tradition. The greatest metaphysical lovers, Dante, Goethe and
Michelangelo, freely created the objects of their love; the Protestant
Goethe--whom some people even accuse of paganism--clung more closely
than either of the others to the Mary of Catholicism (in the final scene
of _Faust_).
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