Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave
itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in
the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things.
-- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (KJV)

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Quotation:
We need at times, some of us at most times, that Charity
from others which, being Love Himself in them, loves the
unlovable. But this, though a sort of love we need, is not the
sort we want. We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty,
generosity, fairness, usefulness. The first hint that anyone
is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock.
This is so well recognized that spiteful people will pretend
to be loving us with Charity precisely because they know that
it will wound us. To say to one who expects a renewal of
Affection, Friendship, or Eros, ?I forgive you as a Christian?
is merely a way of continuing the quarrel. Those who say it
are of course lying. But the thing would not be falsely said
in order to wound unless, if it were true, it would be
wounding.
... C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), The Four Loves [1960]