Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul,
inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in
itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was
desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words
and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for
it becomes one with the everlasting. The custom of our country would have
both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort
of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue, and
others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials,
until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong. And
this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty attachment is held to
be dishonourable, because time is the true test of this as of most other
things; and secondly there is a dishonour in being overcome by the love of
money, or of wealth, or of political power, whether a man is frightened
into surrender by the loss of them, or, having experienced the benefits of
money and political corruption, is unable to rise above the seductions of
them.
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