53:"In the salt mines, nearing the end of the winter season, the miners will throw a leafless wintry bough into one of the abandoned workings. Two or three months later, through the effects of the waters saturated with salt which soak the bough and then let it dry as they recede, the miners find it covered with a shining deposit of crystals. The tiniest twigs no bigger than a tom-tit’s claw are encrusted with an infinity of little crystals scintillating and dazzling. The original little bough is no longer recognizable; it has become a child’s plaything very pretty to see. When the sun is shining and the air is perfectly dry the miners of Hallein seize the opportunity of offering these diamond-studded boughs to travellers preparing to go down to the mine."
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seen to be visually "falling in love" with her. What struck
Stendhal the most, as an undertone of madness grew moment by moment in the discourse of the officer, was how the officer saw perfections in this woman which were more or less invisible to Stendhal's eyes. For example, he began to praise Madame Gherardi's hand, which had been curiously marked by smallpox in her childhood and had remained very pocked and rather brown.
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Thus, according to
Stendhal, the moment one begins to take interest in a person, one no longer sees him or her as they really are, but as it suits one to see them. According to this metaphor, one sees flattering illusions created by a nascent interest; illusions analogous to pretty diamonds hiding a
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you hold in your hand and which you think so pretty. Stripped of its leaves by the winter it was certainly anything but dazzling until the crystallization of the salt covered its black twigs with such a multitude of shining diamonds that only here and there can one still see the twigs as they really
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describes the process as a transformation in which the loved one's characteristics are crystallized via mental events and neurological reconfigurations such that attractive characteristics are exaggerated and unattractive characteristics are given little or no attention. She uses this basis for her
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Along one particular trip into the 500-ft deep
Salzburg mines, Stendhal and Madame Gherardi were introduced to an intelligent Bavarian officer who thereafter joined their company. Soon enough, the officer began to become quite taken by Madame Gherardi. The officer, according to Stendhal, could be
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Just at that moment Madame
Gherardi was toying with a pretty branch covered with salt crystals which the miners had given her. The sun was shining and the salt prisms glittered like the finest diamonds in a brightly lit ballroom. From this observation Stendhal formulated his concept of mental
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122:"When we are in Bologna, we are entirely indifferent; we are not concerned to admire in any particular way the person with whom we shall perhaps one day be madly in love with; even less is our imagination inclined to overrate their worth."
80:"The effect produced on this young man by the nobility of your Italian features and those eyes of which he has never seen the like is precisely similar to the effect of crystallization upon that little branch of
128:, and takes the road to Rome. The departure, according to Stendhal, has nothing to do with one's will; it is an instinctive moment. This transformative process actuates in terms of four steps along a journey:
26:, which describes the process, or mental metamorphosis, in which the characteristics of a new love are transformed into perceptual diamonds of shimmering beauty. According to a quotation by Stendhal:
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This journey or crystallization process, shown above, was detailed by
Stendhal on the back of a playing card while speaking to Madame Gherardi, during his trip to the Salzburg salt mine.
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What I call 'crystallization' is the operation of the mind that draws from all that presents itself the discovery that the loved object has some new perfections.
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Stendhal describes or compares the “birth of love” in a new relationship as being a process similar or analogous to a trip to Rome. In the analogy the city of
75:"crystallization" and thus set forth to explain it to Madame Gherardi, who was curiously unaware of the officer's enhanced infatuation for her.
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In a word, in
Bologna “crystallization” has not yet begun. When the journey begins, love departs. One leaves Bologna, climbs the
89:"This branch is a faithful representation of la Ghita (Madame Gherardi) as viewed by the imagination of this young officer."
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with his friend and associate Madame
Gherardi. Here they discovered the phenomenon of salt “
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leafless branch of hornbeam, perceived only by the eyes of the one falling in love.
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Stendhal's depiction of "crystallization" in the process of falling in love
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In the summer of 1818 Stendhal took a trip to the salt mines of
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description of a "limerent object", related to the concept of
72:"Where shall I find a comparison to illustrate my thought?"
49:” and used it as a metaphor for human relationships.
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is a concept, developed in 1822 by the French writer
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147:– one envisions gaining the love of the loved one.
135:– one marvels at the qualities of the loved one.
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68:"How shall I explain what I see?"
248:. Maryland: Scarborough House.
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16:The "falling in love" process
219:. New York: Penguin Books.
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98:Process of crystallization
240:Tennov, Dorothy (1979).
198:De l'amour, Paris, 1822
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66:Stendhal reasoned,
244:Love and Limerence
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211:Stendhal (1822).
58:Story behind term
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114:represents
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270:Categories
186:References
133:Admiration
180:limerence
126:Apennines
87:That is,
281:Stendhal
82:hornbeam
43:Salzburg
24:Stendhal
215:On Love
151:Delight
104:Bologna
39:Hallein
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85:are."
41:near
276:Love
250:ISBN
221:ISBN
145:Hope
112:Rome
110:and
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