The fundamental fact of individuality stands between them as the
last obstacle to their complete union. The more intense the emotion, the
more desperately it tilts against this barrier, against the
impossibility of complete mutual absorption, and the more passionately
it demands another common form of existence. Individuality and the
eternal duality of being is felt as a curse. The lovers cannot endure
the thought of continuing life as distinct personalities.
The great erotic who, against all expectation, finds the being to whom
he can surrender himself unreservedly and with a sense of immortality,
discovers within himself the supreme and only happiness, and by that
very fact has himself become the source of his unhappiness. Personality,
the greatest gift bestowed upon the children of man, has flashed its
light upon the tragedy of life: solitude, eternal duality. The soul
recognises with unspeakable dismay in its own fundamental principle the
cause of its isolation and the impossibility of final union with the
beloved.
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