Guinevere and Lancelot

Lately I’m finding it difficult to concentrate when reading books, so I’ve started to re-read The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck. It is a friend that doesn’t fail me.

There’s this paragraph in it that got etched into me when I read it first at the age of sixteen:

At this time Queen Guinevere loved Lancelot for his bravery, for his courtesy, for his fame, and for his lack of cleverness. She did not as yet want to change him, push back his untamed lock of hair, whip him with doubt and confusion and jealousy to keep her image glowing in his brain. She did not yet love him enough to be cruel to him. Her affection was warmly self-contained, the quality of love with which a woman can be kind, and friendly, and very wise—too wise to instruct him openly.

There are many more fragments like that one where a hefty piece of insight is mentioned simply and offhandedly, like it was no big deal. It’s a great book.