Love's Enchantment Is of Your Own Making

“What’s there really to be sad about? The secret is that you love each other. You have a gift of sight not granted to other people. Cherish it. Keep the fire of your love burning and you’ll never be anything but fair and handsome to each other. That’s the charm, the only enchantment the cottage holds, and it’s of your own making.”

Mrs. Minnett, The Enchanted Cottage

The Enchanted Cottage (RKO, 1945) is one of my favorite movies. This film is filled with tremendous emotional power—on behalf of the actors and the audience. The primary characters are Oliver Bradford (Robert Young) and Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire). Both face tremendous personal struggles as the movie unfolds.

Laura’s began as a child when it seems she was dubbed an ugly duckling. Believing herself to be ugly, Laura grew up to be the homely old maid of the small New England town where she was born. She looks, acts and projects homeliness to the world around her. For the most part, she keeps to herself, and when she does venture out to social gatherings, the experiences are devastating.

For example, she attends a Halloween party at the local Canteen, where she has spent most of her time simply washing dishes as her way of supporting the war effort. The hostess of the Canteen coaxes Laura to leave the kitchen and go dance with the soldiers. Laura enters the hall, but she can get herself to go no further than the closest table, where she sits all alone watching the others dance and have fun. When an attractive man does approach Laura, she sends a terrified look his way that says “I’m ugly, dull and unlovable: Stay away.” And the young man backtracks. Eventually, Laura runs out of the Canteen in tears, having successfully proven to the world around her that she is unlovable. She has reinforced and strengthened her belief that she is ugly and undesirable.

Oliver, on the other hand, is handsome and wealthy. He comes from an upstanding New England family and is about to marry his fiancé, Beatrice. His hope is to rent the Enchanted Cottage for their honeymoon—one that will never take place. World War II is about to begin and Oliver is about to be called-up for military duty as a fighter pilot. His marriage is postponed and a few months later, his life is changed forever when his plane is shot down by enemy forces. Oliver survives, but his face is badly disfigured and his right arm is permanently paralyzed. On returning home, neither his family (his mother and step-father) nor his fiancé are able to accept him.

As a result, Oliver returns to the Enchanted Cottage, which is owned by Mrs. Minnett and where Laura is the housekeeper. His intent is to kill himself with a revolver, but Laura’s kindness is able to reach that abandoned part of him that wishes to continue living. Oliver spends most of his time, however, refusing to accept his new physical limitations. He wants things to be back the way they were before the War. He wants to be handsome and vigorous again, playing tennis and polo, and sweeping Beatrice off her feet. What Oliver doesn’t understand at this point in the film is that his unfortunate accident is actually the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Oliver and Beatrice were never meant for each other, and Oliver is about to discover the meaning of true love-- both of self and of another. He is gradually able to do this, not only through the help of Laura, but also through the help of a new friend, John, who was blinded in combat during World War I.

John helps Oliver to see the world through “new eyes,” just as John himself had learned to do after his accident. He and Laura help Oliver to cope through his grieving process. Eventually Oliver, like John, is able to accept life as it now is. He’s able to grow past his longing for life to be the way it was in the past. In accepting himself as he is now, he is able to begin life anew. And he’s able to help Laura grow beyond her former limitations just as she has helped him grow beyond his. Eventually, the two are married and the love they developed for each other transforms them spiritually and physically—at least in each others’ eyes.

The enchanting miracle of love makes Oliver visibly handsome to Laura and it makes Laura equally as beautiful to Oliver. This transformation is also partly a miracle of acceptance, because once they are both able to accept themselves unconditionally, and become comfortable with themselves, they are able to accept each other in the same way. Unfortunately, Oliver and Laura believe that the physical transformation is real—that everyone can see them as miraculously physically beautiful in the same way they see themselves. Truth is that there has been no actual physical transformation in their looks, and this becomes painfully evident when Oliver’s mother and step-father come to visit.

Oliver’s mother drops the bomb when she tells Laura that she’s so happy Oliver married Laura because “you’re so much better for him than a pretty girl would be.” Laura, who is pouring tea, drops the cup and teapot and places her hands to her face. And Oliver’s step-father confirms that Oliver looks exactly as he did when he left the hospital.

The enchantment is seemingly broken until Mrs. Minnett steps in and says  “What’s there really to be sad about? The secret is that you love each other. You have a gift of sight not granted to other people. Cherish it. Keep the fire of your love burning and you’ll never be anything but fair and handsome to each other. That’s the charm, the only enchantment the cottage holds, and it’s of your own making.”

There is total truth in what Mrs. Minnett says to Oliver and Laura. They share a love between them that has helped them to see each other and life with a sight that’s not granted to most other people-- that love is powerful enough to always keep them beautiful in the eyes of each other as well as within their own eyes. And it was of their own making. They entered a spiritual journey together, they have been led by the highest Spirit, and no one can rob them of the love they now possess.

Allow yourself to take a similar soul-journey. Through unconditional self-acceptance, allow self-love to wash over you so that you, too, can see yourself with a gift of sight that’s not granted to other people. Once you see yourself in this new light, the people who God intended to see you in the same light will, and you will see them in a similar light. You and they will then grow fully alive together and your souls will truly shine!