Marriage is without doubt one of the most sacred human institutions,
but only sacred through inward truth, and no civic formula or churchly
ritual can make it sacred if the inward truth is wanting in it. And
better a thousand dissolved and broken false marriages than one true
marriage prevented or one untrue one with the semblance of sincerity
and sacredness upheld.
But Christ is yet in distress and anguish. He is yet in the throes of
birth, in the pains of growth. Our world is as my brother Hebbel said:
a wound of God. But as I add: a healing wound; therefore not less
painful. And what distinguishes the true marriage from the untrue is
this very quality of pain. Never did I suffer through Lucia what I
suffered through Elsje. In the apparent happiness there is contentment
and complacency, in the real an everlasting gnawing and torturing
longing, a desire for more, more - the desire to express oneself more
fully, the desire to be more closely united, to be bound together more
firmly, more indissolubly, more everlastingly.
Pages:
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397