If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
Lewis further reminds us: “There is no safe investment. It is the one love out of the four that takes the greatest chance and can be/is hit with the most loss more often. Agape/Charity gives all and asks for nothing in return. Agape/Charity teaches us and expects us to love, to care for, the unlovable, the undeserving, and the ugly. It is not natural because it does not tell us to favor or respect (a) those who can be directly benefit or help us, (b) those who are directly related to or dependent upon us, or (c) those who are in some other measurable way useful or valuable to us. This is important because Agape/Charity is seemingly unnatural. Contrary to popular understanding, the significance of Agape is not that it is an unconditional love, but that it is primarily a love of the will, rather than of the emotions.
This is the highest and most unselfish of the loves, the one that the Apostle Paul talks about in detail in 1 Corinthians 13. Lewis recognizes this selfless love as the greatest of the four loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue for one to achieve.
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