The Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength

by C.S. Lewis

Ransom found this difficult. At last he said: “Is the begetting of young not a pleasure among the hrossa?” “A very great one, Hmn. This is what we call love.” “If a thing is a pleasure, a hmn wants it again. He might want the pleasure more often than the number of young that could be fed.” It took Hyoi a long time to get the point. “You mean,” he said slowly, “that he might do it not only in one or two years of his life but again?” “Yes.” “But why? Would he want his dinner all day or want to sleep after he had slept? I do not understand.” “But a dinner comes every day. This love, you say, comes only once while the hross lives?” “But it takes his whole life. When he is young he has to look for his mate; and then he has to court her; then he begets young; then he rears them; then he remembers all this, and boils it inside him and makes it into poems and wisdom.” “But the pleasure he must be content only to remember?” “That is like saying, ‘My food I must be content only to eat.’ ” “I do not understand.” “A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmn, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing.