Note 20 — Women in Greek Poetry

That is to say, these feelings by themselves. As regards the first, no one, of course, would wish to deny that the sexual instinct, in its most sensual form, has often played a prominent part in what is unquestionably love-poetry; but the sexual instinct can never of itself supply the fundamental basis of the feeling necessary for the production of such poetry. Woman, regarded merely as a source of pleasure or convenience, can no more be an object of love than a bottle of brandy or a railway train.