Note 46 — FOURTH SECTION.
Reading edition
One of the most elaborate proverbs in the Talmud is on Charity:—"Iron breaks the stone, fire melts iron, water extinguishes fire, the clouds drink up the water, a storm drives away the clouds, man withstands the storm, fear unmans man, wine dispels fear, sleep drives away wine, and death sweeps all away—even sleep. But Solomon the Wise says, Charity saves from death." And there is hardly a finer passage in Shakespeare's Sonnets than that (CXVI.) in which he sings the disinterestedness of Love, and its superiority to all change:
"Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. * * * * * *
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom."