by Geoffrey on Sun Jul 18, 2010 7:33 pm
Dear Andrew: Congratulations!! Bestowment of the title 'grandfather' is worth a thousand knighthoods. It is what we are sent here to collect. As Leonard said: "There is one thing in this life more valuable than gold, sex or religion - and that is family."
Sometimes I wonder if he has known love of a partner, not just "love of c**t" as he called it in Beautiful Losers, but also love of that person's personality; genuine love - as opposed to simple lust. Not just physical desire, but the deepest fondness and affection that can be transmitted from one heart to another within a monogamous relationship. Because not everybody is equipped to experience such an abandonment of self. For even though love can favour one with an exciting and emotional state of ecstasy, a potentially humiliating predicament may also await he who falls beneath the mercy of its whip. Romeo loved Juliet with every fibre in his body, but it ended in tragedy - and Heathcliffe's love for Cathy illustrates its wild and destructive power. Casanova once said: "Le marriage c'est le tombeau de l'amour," (marriage is the tomb of love) - and I am wondering if that gentleman could have been reincarnated in Leonard. And if so, why? What makes a man view the female form merely as an object made for his pleasure? Are you like this, Andrew? Because I cannot get out of my memory that salacious verse you sat and composed a while back. More than a statement, that poem was a declaration of how you condone physical rather than mental attraction, an unfortunate behavioural peculiarity you apparently share with Leonard. Well, you each both have a grandson now, so there is at least some positive common ground as well. My mother instilled into me a healthy set of standard morals conducive to living in a wholesome society, and I grew up with a healthy attitude towards the fairer sex - I was able to fall in love. Parental failure, mismanaged childhood - who knows what lies at the bottom of a lecher's uncontrollable libido? I bet you and Leonard never had your fingers slapped when unable to resist picking out sweets from a display of confectionary.