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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: yourselves true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and true lovers?
For what is love (let me speak freely to you, gentlemen and
guests), what is love, but the very inspiration of that Deity whose
name is Love? Be sure that not without reason did the ancients
feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods, by whom the jarring
elements of chaos were attuned into harmony and order. How, then,
shall lovers make him the father of strife? Shall Psyche wed with
Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice's egg? or the soul be filled
with love, the likeness of the immortals, to burn with envy and
jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose has its thorn: but
it leaves poison and stings to the nettle. Cupid has his arrow:
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