"
"I was like a person intoxicated with wine or love, unable to think of
anything but my passion," etc. The fact that she sought in this love the
pleasure of the senses is very apparent.
We are not concerned here with the problem of how far these women may be
regarded as pathological cases; all of them were filled with a vague
feminine desire for self-surrender, which they projected on a celestial
being, either because they did not come into contact with a suitable
terrestrial object, or because the impulse was abnormal from the
beginning. But their spiritual love never rose above empty
sentimentality and hysterical rapture. All of them, and some of them
were highly gifted, were thrilled with the love of Jesus, they had
visions of the "sweet wounds of the Saviour," and so on; but their
emotion did not kindle the smallest spark of creative power. The Queen
of Heaven, on the other hand, was a free creation of spiritually loving
poets and monks.
The women imitated metaphysical love and distorted it; sexual impulse,
arrogantly attempting to reach beyond the earth, reigned in the place of
spiritual, deifying love.
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