WISDOM AND DESTINY

By

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

Translated by ALFRED SUTRO

TO

GEORGETTE LEBLANC

I OFFER THIS BOOK, WHEREIN HER THOUGHT BLENDS WITH MINE

INTRODUCTION

This essay on Wisdom and Destiny was to have been a thing of sometwenty pages, the work of a fortnight; but the idea took root, othersflocked to it, and the volume has occupied M. Maeterlinck continuouslyfor more than two years. It has much essential kinship with the"Treasure of the Humble, " though it differs therefrom in treatment; forwhereas the earlier work might perhaps be described as the eagerspeculation of a poet athirst for beauty, we have here rather theendeavour of an earnest thinker to discover the abode of truth. And ifthe result of his thought be that truth and happiness are one, this wasby no means the object wherewith he set forth. Here he is no longercontent with exquisite visions, alluring or haunting images; he probesinto the soul of man and lays bare all his joys and his sorrows. It isas though he had forsaken the canals he loves so well--the green, calm, motionless canals that faithfully mirror the silent trees andmoss-covered roofs--and had adventured boldly, unhesitatingly, on thebroad river of life. 

He describes this book himself, in a kind of introduction that isalmost an apology, as "a few interrupted thoughts that entwinethemselves, with more or less system, around two or three subjects. " Hedeclares that there is nothing it undertakes to prove; that there arenone whose mission it is to convince. And so true is this, soabsolutely honest and sincere is the writer, that he does not shrinkfrom attacking, qualifying, modifying, his own propositions; fromadvancing, and insisting on, every objection that flits across hisbrain; and if such proposition survive the onslaught of itsadversaries, it is only because, in the deepest of him, he holds it forabsolute truth. For this book is indeed a confession, a naive, outspoken, unflinching description of all that passes in his mind; andeven those who like not his theories still must admit that this mind isstrangely beautiful. 

There have been many columns filled--and doubtless will be again--withingenious and scholarly attempts to place a definitive label on M. Maeterlinck, and his talent; to trace his thoughts to their origin, clearly denoting the authors by whom he has been influenced; in ameasure to predict his future, and accurately to establish the placethat he fills in the hierarchy of genius. With all this I feel that Ihave no concern. Such speculations doubtless have their use and servetheir purpose. I shall be content if I can impress upon those who mayread these lines, that in this book the man is himself, of untrammelledthought; a man possessed of the rare faculty of seeing beauty in allthings, and, above all, in truth; of the still rarer faculty of lovingall things, and, above all, life. 

Nor is this merely a vague and, at bottom, a more or less meaninglessstatement. For, indeed, considering this essay only, that deals withwisdom and destiny, at the root of it--its fundamental principle, itsguiding, inspiring thought--is love. "Nothing is contemptible in thisworld save only scorn, " he says; and for the humble, the foolish, nay, even the wicked, he has the same love, almost the same admiration, asfor the sage, the saint, or the hero. Everything that exists fills himwith wonder, because of its existence, and of the mysterious force thatis in it; and to him love and wisdom are one, "joining hands in acircle of light. " For the wisdom that holds aloof from mankind, thatdeems itself a thing apart, select, superior, he has scant sympathy--ithas "wandered too far from the watchfires of the tribe. " But the wisdomthat is human, that feeds constantly on the desires, the feelings, thehopes and the fears of man, must needs have love ever by its side; andthese two, marching together, must inevitably find themselves, sooneror later, on the ways that lead to goodness. "There comes a moment inlife, " he says, "when moral beauty seems more urgent, more penetrating, than intellectual beauty; when all that the mind has treasured must bebathed in the greatness of soul, lest it perish in the sandy desert, forlorn as the river that seeks in vain for the sea. " But forunnecessary self-sacrifice, renouncement, abandonment of earthly joys, and all such "parasitic virtues, " he has no commendation or approval;feeling that man was created to be happy, and that he is not wise whovoluntarily discards a happiness to-day for fear lest it be taken fromhim on the morrow. "Let us wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds--tillthen, each man to his work. The hour will sound at last--let us notwaste our time in seeking it on the dial of life. "

In this book, morality, conduct, life are Surveyed from every point ofthe compass, but from an eminence always. Austerity holds no place inhis philosophy; he finds room even "for the hours that babble aloud intheir wantonness. " But all those who follow him are led by smilingwisdom to the heights where happiness sits enthroned between goodnessand love, where virtue rewards itself in the "silence that is thewalled garden of its happiness. "

It is strange to turn from this essay to Serres Chaudes and LaPrincesse Maleine, M. Maeterlinck's earliest efforts--the one acollection of vague images woven into poetical form, charming, dreamy, and almost meaningless; the other a youthful and very remarkable effortat imitation. In the plays that followed the Princesse Maleine therewas the same curious, wandering sense of, and search for, a vague andmystic beauty: "That fair beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweetmusic which no ear can measure. " In a little poem of his, Et s'ilrevenait, the last words of a dying girl, forsaken by her lover, who isasked by her sister what shall be told to the faithless one, should heever seek to know of her last hours:

 "Et s'il m'interroge encore Sur la derniere heure?-- Dites lui que j'ai souri De peur qu'il ne pleure . .. "

touch, perhaps, the very high-water mark of exquisite simplicity andtenderness blent with matchless beauty of expression. Pelleas etMelisande was the culminating point of this, his first, period--asimple, pathetic love-story of boy and girl--love that was pure andalmost passionless. It was followed by three little plays--"formarionettes, " he describes them on the title-page; among them being LaMort de Tintagiles, the play he himself prefers of all that he haswritten. And then came a curious change: he wrote Aglavaine etSelysette. The setting is familiar to us; the sea-shore, the ruinedtower, the seat by the well; no less than the old grandmother andlittle Yssaline. But Aglavaine herself is strange: this woman who haslived and suffered; this queenly, majestic creature, calmly consciousof her beauty and her power; she whose overpowering, overwhelming loveis yet deliberate and thoughtful. The complexities of real life arevaguely hinted at here: instead of Golaud, the mediaeval, tyrannoushusband, we have Selysette, the meek, self-sacrificing wife; instead ofthe instinctive, unconscious love of Pelleas and Melisande, we havegreat burning passion. But this play, too, was only a stepping-stone--alink between the old method and the new that is to follow. For therewill probably be no more plays like Pelleas et Melisande, or even likeAglavaine et Selysette. Real men and women, real problems anddisturbance of life--it is these that absorb him now. His next playwill doubtless deal with a psychology more actual, in an atmosphereless romantic; and the old familiar scene of wood, and garden, andpalace corridor will be exchanged for the habitual abode of men. 

I have said it was real life that absorbed him now, and yet am I awarethat what seems real to him must still appear vague and visionary tomany. It is, however, only a question of shifting one's point of view, or, better still, of enlarging it. Material success in life, fame, wealth--these things M. Maeterlinck passes indifferently by. There arecertain ideals that are dear to many on which he looks with the vaguewonder of a child. The happiness of which he dreams is an inwardhappiness, and within reach of successful and unsuccessful alike. Andso it may well be that those content to buffet with their fellows forwhat are looked on as the prizes of this world, will still write himdown a mere visionary, and fail to comprehend him. The materialist whocomplacently defines the soul as the "intellect plus the emotions, "will doubtless turn away in disgust from M. Maeterlinck's constantreferences to it as the seat of something mighty, mysterious, inexhaustible in life. So, too, may the rigid follower of positivereligion, to whom the Deity is a power concerned only with thejudgment, reward, and punishment of men, protest at his saying that"God, who must be at least as high as the highest thoughts He hasimplanted in the best of men, will withhold His smile from those whosesole desire has been to please Him; and they only who have done goodfor sake of good, and as though He existed not; they only who haveloved virtue more than they loved God Himself, shall be allowed tostand by His side. " But, after all, the genuine seeker after truthknows that what seemed true yesterday is to-day discovered to be only amilestone on the road; and all who value truth will be glad to listento a man who, differing from them perhaps, yet tells them what seemstrue to him. And whereas in the "Treasure of the Humble" he looked onlife through a veil of poetry and dream, here he stands among hisfellow-men, no longer trying to "express the inexpressible, " but, inall simplicity, to tell them what he sees. 

"Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself anact of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy andcontentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniestheights of our soul. " This thought lies at the root of his wholephilosophy--goodness, happiness, love, supporting each other, intertwined, rewarding each other. "Let us not think virtue willcrumble, though God Himself seem unjust. Where could the virtue of manfind more everlasting foundation than in the seeming injustice of God?"Strange that the man who has written these words should have spent allhis school life at a Jesuit college, subjected to its severe, semi-monastic discipline; compelled, at the end of his stay, to go, with the rest of his fellows, through the customary period of"retreat, " lasting ten days, when the most eloquent of the fatherswould, one after the other, deliver sermons terrific to boyishimagination, sermons whose unvarying burden was Hell and the wrath ofGod--to be avoided only by becoming a Jesuit priest. Out of theeighteen boys in the "rhetorique" class, eleven eagerly embraced thischance of escape from damnation. As for M. Maeterlinckhimself--fortunately a day-boarder only--one can fancy him wanderinghome at night, along the canal banks, in the silence broken only by thepealing of church bells, brooding over these mysteries . .. But how longa road must the man have travelled who, having been taught the God ofFra Angelico, himself arrives at the conception of a "God who sitssmiling on a mountain, and to whom our gravest offences are only as thenaughtiness of puppies playing on the hearth-rug. "

His environment, no less than his schooling, helped to give a mystictinge to his mind. The peasants who dwelt around his father's housealways possessed a peculiar fascination for him; he would watch them asthey sat by their doorway, squatting on their heels, as their customis--grave, monotonous, motionless, the smoke from their pipes almostthe sole sign of life. For the Flemish peasant is a strangely inertcreature, his work once done--as languid and lethargic as the canalthat passes by his door. There was one cottage into which the boy wouldoften peep on his way home from school, the home of seven brothers andone sister, all old, toothless, worn--working together in the daytimeat their tiny farm; at night sitting in the gloomy kitchen, lit by onesmoky lamp--all looking straight before them, saying not a word; orwhen, at rare intervals, a remark was made, taking it up each in turnand solemnly repeating it, with perhaps the slightest variation inform. It was amidst influences such as these that his boyhood waspassed, almost isolated from the world, brooding over lives of saintsand mystics at the same time that he studied, and delighted in, Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, Goethe and Heine. For his taste hasbeen catholic always; he admires Meredith as he admires Dickens, Helloand Pascal no less than Schopenhauer. And it is this catholicity, thisopen mind, this eager search for truth, that have enabled him to emergefrom the mysticism that once enwrapped him to the clearer daylight ofactual existence; it is this faculty of admiring all that is admirablein man and in life that some day, perhaps, may take him very far. 

It will surprise many who picture him as a mere dreamy decadent, to betold that he is a man of abiding and abundant cheerfulness, who findshappiness in the simplest of things. The scent of a flower, the flightof sea-gulls around a cliff, a cornfield in sunshine--these stir him tostrange delight. A deed of bravery, nobility, or of simple devotion; amere brotherly act of kindness, the unconscious sacrifice of thepeasant who toils all day to feed and clothe his children--these awakehis warm and instant sympathy. And with him, too, it is as with DeQuincey when he says, "At no time of my life have I been a person tohold myself polluted by the touch or approach of any creature that worea human shape"; and more than one unhappy outcast, condemned by thestern law of man, has been gladdened by his ready greeting and welcome. But, indeed, all this may be read of in his book--I desired but to makeit clear that the book is truly a faithful mirror of the man's ownthoughts, and feelings, and actions. It is a book that many willlove--all those who suffer, for it will lighten their suffering; allthose who love, for it will teach them to love more deeply. It is abook with its faults, doubtless, as every book must be; but it has beenwritten straight from the heart, and will go to the heart of many . .. 

Alfred Sutro

WISDOM AND DESTINY

1. In this book there will often be mention of wisdom and destiny, ofhappiness, justice, and love. There may seem to be some measure ofirony in thus calling forth an intangible happiness where so much realsorrow prevails; a justice that may well be ideal in the bosom of aninjustice, alas! only too material; a love that eludes the grasp in themidst of palpable hatred and callousness. The moment may seem butill-chosen for leisurely search, in the hidden recess of man's heart, for motives of peace and tranquillity; occasions for gladness, uplifting, and love; reasons for wonder and gratitude--seeing that thevast bulk of mankind, in whose name we would fain lift our voice, havenot even the time or assurance to drain to the dregs the misery anddesolation of life. Not to them is it given to linger over the inwardrejoicing, the profound consolation, that the satisfied thinker hasslowly and painfully acquired, that he knows how to prize. Thus has itoften been urged against moralists, among them Epictetus, that theywere apt to concern themselves with none but the wise alone. In thisreproach is some truth, as some truth there must be in every reproachthat is made. And indeed, if we had only the courage to listen to thesimplest, the nearest, most pressing voice of our conscience, and bedeaf to all else, it were doubtless our solitary duty to relieve thesuffering about us to the greatest extent in our power. It wereincumbent upon us to visit and nurse the poor, to console theafflicted; to found model factories, surgeries, dispensaries, or atleast to devote ourselves, as men of science do, to wresting fromnature the material secrets which are most essential to man. But yet, were the world at a given moment to contain only persons thus activelyengaged in helping each other, and none venturesome enough to daresnatch leisure for research in other directions, then could thischaritable labour not long endure; for all that is best in the goodthat at this day is being done round about us, was conceived in thespirit of one of those who neglected, it may be, many an urgent, immediate duty in order to think, to commune with themselves, in orderto speak. Does it follow that they did the best that was to be done? Tosuch a question as this who shall dare to reply? The soul that ismeekly honest must ever consider the simplest, the nearest duty to bethe best of all things it can do; but yet were there cause for regrethad all men for all time restricted themselves to the duty that laynearest at hand. In each generation some men have existed who held inall loyalty that they fulfilled the duties of the passing hour bypondering on those of the hour to come. Most thinkers will say thatthese men were right. It is well that the thinker should give histhoughts to the world, though it must be admitted that wisdom befindsitself sometimes in the reverse of the sage's pronouncement. Thismatters but little, however; for, without such pronouncement, thewisdom had not stood revealed; and the sage has accomplished his duty. 

2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is themisery of man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so shouldthere be physicians for human misery. But can the fact that disease is, unhappily, only too prevalent, render it wrong for us ever to speak ofhealth? which were indeed as though, in anatomy--the physical sciencethat has most in common with morals--the teacher confined himselfexclusively to the study of the deformities that greater or lesserdegeneration will induce in the organs of man. We have surely the rightto demand that his theories be based on the healthy and vigorous body;as we have also the right to demand that the moralist, who fain wouldsee beyond the present hour, should take as his standard the soul thatis happy, or that at least possesses every element of happiness, saveonly the necessary consciousness. 

We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I imagine, neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times, as thoughthis injustice had ended, else should we never emerge from our circle. 

It is imperative that there should be some who dare speak, and think, and act as though all men were happy; for otherwise, when the day comesfor destiny to throw open to all the people's garden of the promisedland, what happiness shall the others find there, what justice, whatbeauty or love? It may be urged, it is true, that it were best, firstof all, to consider the most pressing needs, yet is this not alwayswisest; it is often of better avail from the start to seek that whichis highest. When the waters beleaguer the home of the peasant inHolland, the sea or the neighbouring river having swept down the dykethat protected the country, most pressing is it then for the peasant tosafeguard his cattle, his grain, his effects; but wisest to fly to thetop of the dyke, summoning those who live with him, and from thencemeet the flood, and do battle. Humanity up to this day has been like aninvalid tossing and turning on his couch in search of repose; buttherefore none the less have words of true consolation come only fromthose who spoke as though man were freed from all pain. For, as man wascreated for health, so was mankind created for happiness; and to speakof its misery only, though that misery be everywhere and seemeverlasting, is only to say words that fall lightly and soon areforgotten. Why not speak as though mankind were always on the eve ofgreat certitude, of great joy? Thither, in truth, is man led by hisinstinct, though he never may live to behold the long-wished-forto-morrow. It is well to believe that there needs but a little morethought, a little more courage, more love, more devotion to life, alittle more eagerness, one day to fling open wide the portals of joyand of truth. And this thing may still come to pass. Let us hope thatone day all mankind will be happy and wise; and though this day nevershould dawn, to have hoped for it cannot be wrong. And in any event, itis helpful to speak of happiness to those who are sad, that thus atleast they may learn what it is that happiness means. They are everinclined to regard it as something beyond them, extraordinary, out oftheir reach. But if all who may count themselves happy were to tell, very simply, what it was that brought happiness to them, the otherswould see that between sorrow and joy the difference is but as betweena gladsome, enlightened acceptance of life and a hostile, gloomysubmission; between a large and harmonious conception of life, and onethat is stubborn and narrow. "Is that all?" the unhappy would cry. "Butwe too have within us, then, the elements of this happiness. " Surelyyou have them within you! There lives not a man but has them, thoseonly excepted upon whom great physical calamity has fallen. But speaknot lightly of this happiness. There is no other. He is the happiestman who best understands his happiness; for he is of all men most fullyaware that it is only the lofty idea, the untiring, courageous, humanidea, that separates gladness from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpfulto speak, and as often as may be; not with the view of imposing our ownidea upon others, but in order that they who may listen shall, littleby little, conceive the desire to possess an idea of their own. For inno two men is it the same. The one that you cherish may well bring nocomfort to me; nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs ofmy life. Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; but youunconsciously make this the easier for me, by telling of the idea thatis yours. It may happen that I shall find solace in that which bringssorrow to you, and that which to you speaks of gladness may be fraughtwith affliction for me. But no matter; into my grief will enter allthat you saw of beauty and comfort, and into my joy there will pass allthat was great in your sadness, if indeed my joy be on the same planeas your sadness. It behoves us, the first thing of all, to prepare inour soul a place of some loftiness, where this idea may be lodged; asthe priests of ancient religions laid the mountain peak bare, andcleared it of thorn and of root for the fire to descend from heaven. There may come to us any day, from the depths of the planet Mars, theinfallible formula of happiness, conveyed in the final truth as to theaim and the government of the universe. Such a formula could only bringchange or advancement unto our spiritual life in the degree of thedesire and expectation of advancement in which we might long have beenliving. The formula would be the same for all men, yet would each onebenefit only in the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness, knowledge, that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all studyof justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation, provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, astepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable dayof all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute truth, in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is given us tolive in a truth more important still, the truth of our soul and ourcharacter; and some wise men have proved that this life can be lived inthe midst of gravest material errors. 

3. Is it idle to speak of justice, happiness, morals, and allthings connected therewith, before the hour of science hassounded--that definitive hour, wherein all that we cling to maycrumble? The darkness that hangs over our life will then, it may be, pass away; and much that we do in the darkness shall be otherwise donein the light. But nevertheless do the essential events of our moral andphysical life come to pass in the darkness as completely, asinevitably, as they would in the light, Our life must be lived while wewait for the word that shall solve the enigma, and the happier, thenobler our life, the more vigorous shall it become; and we shall havethe more courage, clear-sightedness, boldness, to seek and desire thetruth. And happen what may, the time can be never ill-spent that wegive to acquiring some knowledge of self. Whatever our relation maybecome to this world in which we have being, in our soul there will yetbe more feelings, more passions, more secrets unchanged and unchanging, than there are stars that connect with the earth, or mysteries fathomedby science. In the bosom of truth undeniable, truth all absorbing, manshall doubtless soar upwards; but still, as he rises, still shall hissoul unerringly guide him; and the grander the truth of the universe, the more solace and peace it may bring, the more shall the problems ofjustice, morality, happiness, love, present to the eyes of all men thesemblance they ever have worn in the eyes of the thinker. We shouldlive as though we were always on the eve of the great revelation; andwe should be ready with welcome, with warmest and keenest and fullest, most heartfelt and intimate welcome. And whatever the form it shalltake on the day that it comes to us, the best way of all to prepare forits fitting reception is to crave for it now, to desire it as lofty, asperfect, as vast, as ennobling as the soul can conceive. It must needsbe more beautiful, glorious, and ample than the best of our hopes; for, where it differ therefrom or even frustrate them, it must of necessitybring something nobler, loftier, nearer to the nature of man, for itwill bring us the truth. To man, though all that he value go under, theintimate truth of the universe must be wholly, preeminently admirable. And though, on the day it unveils, our meekest desires turn to ashesand float on the wind, still shall there linger within us all we haveprepared; and the admirable will enter our soul, the volume of itswaters being as the depth of the channel that our expectation hasfashioned. 

4. Is it necessary that we should conceive ourselves to be superiorto the universe? Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is onlya feeble ray that has issued from Nature; a tiny atom of that wholewhich Nature alone shall judge. Is it fitting that the ray of lightshould desire to alter the lamp whence it springs?

That loftiness within us, from whose summit we venture to pass judgmenton the totality of life, to absolve or condemn it, is doubtless themerest pin-prick, visible to our eye alone, on the illimitable sphereof life. It is wise to think and to act as though all that happened toman were all that man most required. It is not long ago--to cite onlyone of the problems that the instinct of our planet is invited tosolve--that a scheme was on foot to inquire of the thinkers of Europewhether it should rightly be held as a gain or a loss to mankind if anenergetic, strenuous, persistent race, which some, through prejudicedoubtless, still regard as inferior to the Aryan in qualities of heartand of soul--if the Jews, in a word, were to vanish from the face ofthe earth, or to acquire preponderance there. I am satisfied that thesage might answer, without laying himself open to the charge ofindifference or undue resignation, "In what comes to pass will behappiness. " Many things happen that seem unjust to us; but of all theachievements of reason there has been none so helpful as the discoveryof the loftier reason that underlies the misdeeds of nature. It is fromthe slow and gradual vindication of the unknown force that we deemed atfirst to be pitiless, that our moral and physical life has derived itschief prop and support. If a race disappears that conforms with ourevery ideal, it will be only because our ideal still falls short of thegrand ideal, which is, as we have said, the intimate truth of theuniverse. 

Our own experience has taught us that even in this world of realitythere exist dreams and desires, thoughts and feelings of beauty, ofjustice, and love, that are of the noblest and loftiest. And if therebe any that shrink from the test of reality--in other words, from themysterious, nameless power of life--it follows that these must bedifferent, but not that their beauty is less, or their vastness, orpower to console. Till reality confront us, it is well, it may be, tocherish ideals that we hold to surpass it in beauty; but once face toface with reality, then must the ideal flame that has fed on ournoblest desires be content to throw faithful light on the less fragile, less tender beauty of the mighty mass that crushes these desires. Nordoes this seem to me to imply a mere drowsy fatalism, or servileacquiescence, or optimism shrinking from action. The sage no doubt mustmany a time forfeit some measure of the blind, the head-strong, fanatical zeal that has enabled some men, whose reason was fettered andbound, to achieve results that are nigh superhuman; but therefore nonethe less is it certain that no man of upright soul should go forth insearch of illusion or blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a regioninferior to that of his noblest hours. To do our true duty in life, itmust ever be done with the aid of all that is highest in our soul, highest in the truth that is ours. And even though it be permissible attimes in actual, every-day life to compromise with events, and notfollow impulse to the ruthless end--as did St. Just, for instance, whoin his admirable and ardent desire for universal peace, happiness, justice, in all good faith sent thousands to the scaffold--in the lifeof thought it is our unvarying duty to pursue our thought right to theend. 

Again, the knowledge that our actions still await the seal of finaltruth can deter from action those only who would have remained no lessinert had no such knowledge been theirs. Thought that rises encourageswhere it disheartens. And to those of a loftier vision, prepared inadvance to admire the truth that will nullify all they have done, itseems only natural still to endeavour with all might and main toenhance what yet may be termed the justice, the beauty, the reason ofthis our earth. They know that to penetrate deeper, to understand, torespect--all this is enhancement. Above all, they have faith in "theidea of the universe. " They are satisfied that every effort that tendsto improvement approaches the secret intention of life; they are taughtby the failure of their noblest endeavours, by the resistance of thismighty world, to discover anew fresh reasons for wonder, for ardour, for hope. 

As you climb up a mountain towards nightfall, the trees and the houses, the steeple, the fields and the orchards, the road, and even the river, will gradually dwindle and fade, and at last disappear in the gloomthat steals over the valley. But the threads of light that shine fromthe houses of men and pierce through the blackest of nights, theseshine on undimmed. And every step that you take to the summit revealsbut more lights, and more, in the hamlets asleep at your foot. Forlight, though so fragile, is perhaps the one thing of all that yieldsnaught of itself as it faces immensity. Thus it is with our moral lighttoo, when we look upon life from some slight elevation. It is well thatreflection should teach us to disburden our soul of base passions; butit should not discourage, or weaken, our humblest desire for justice, for truth, and for love. 

Whence comes this rule that I thus propound? Nay, I know not myself. Tome it seems helpful and requisite; nor could I give reasons other thanspring from the feelings alone. Such reasons, however, at times shouldby no means be treated too lightly. If I should ever attain a summitwhence this law seemed useless to me, I would listen to the secretinstinct bidding me not linger, but climb on still higher, till itsusefulness should once again be clearly apparent to me. 

5. This general introduction over, let us speak more particularlyof the influence that wisdom can have upon destiny. And, the occasionpresenting itself here, I shall do well perhaps to state now, at thevery beginning, that in this book it will be vain to seek for anyrigorous method. For indeed it is but composed of oft-interruptedthoughts, that entwine themselves with more or less system around twoor three subjects. Its object is not to convince; there is nothing itprofesses to prove. Besides, in life books have by no means theimportance that writers and readers claim for them. We should regardthem as did a friend of mine, a man of great wisdom, who listened oneday to the recital of the last moments of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. Antoninus Pius--who was perhaps truly the best and most perfect manthis world has known, better even than Marcus Aurelius; for in additionto the virtues, the kindness, the deep feeling and wisdom of hisadopted son, he had something of greater virility and energy, ofsimpler happiness, something more real, spontaneous, closer to everydaylife--Antoninus Pius lay on his bed, awaiting the summons of death, hiseyes dim with unbidden tears, his limbs moist with the pale sweat ofagony. At that moment there entered the captain of the guard, come todemand the watchword, such being the custom. AEQUANIMITAS--EVENNESS OFMIND, he replied, as he turned his head to the eternal shadow. It iswell that we should love and admire that word, said my friend. Butbetter still, he added, to have it in us to sacrifice, unknown toothers, unknown even to ourselves, the time fortune accords us whereinto admire it, in favour of the first little useful, living deed thatthe same fortune incessantly offers to every willing heart. 

6. "It was doubtless the will of their destiny that men and eventsshould oppress them whithersoever they went, " said an author of theheroes of his book. Thus it is with the majority of men; Indeed, withall those who have not yet learned to distinguish between exterior andmoral destiny. They are like a little bewildered stream that I chancedto espy one evening as I stood on the hillside. I beheld it far down inthe valley, staggering, struggling, climbing, falling: blindly gropingits way to the great lake that slumbered, the other side of the forest, in the peace of the dawn. Here it was a block of basalt that forced thestreamlet to wind round and about four times; there, the roots of ahoary tree; further on still, the mere recollection of an obstacle nowgone for ever thrust it back to its source, bubbling in impotent fury, divided for all time from its goal and its gladness. But, in anotherdirection, at right angles almost to the distraught, unhappy, uselessstream, a force superior to the force of instinct had traced a long, greenish canal, calm, peaceful, deliberate; that flowed steadily acrossthe country, across the crumbling stones, across the obedient forest, on its clear and unerring, unhurrying way from its distant source onthe horizon to the same tranquil, shining lake. And I had at my feetbefore me the image of the two great destinies offered to man. 

7. Side by side with those whom men and events oppress, there areothers who have within them some kind of inner force, which has itswill not only with men, but even with the events that surround them. Ofthis force they are fully aware, and indeed it is nothing more than aknowledge of self that has far overstepped the ordinary limits ofconsciousness. 

Our consciousness is our home, our refuge from the caprice of fate, ourcentre of happiness and strength. But these things have been said sooften that we need do no more than refer to them, and indicate them asour starting-point. Ennoblement comes to man in the degree that hisconsciousness quickens, and the nobler the man has become, theprofounder must consciousness be. Admirable exchange takes place here;and even as love is insatiable in its craving for love, so isconsciousness insatiable in its craving for growth, for moraluplifting; and moral uplifting for ever is yearning for consciousness. 

8. But this knowledge of self is only too often regarded asimplying no more than a knowledge of our defects and our qualities, whereas it does indeed extend infinitely further, to mysteries vastlymore helpful. To know oneself in repose suffices not, nor does itsuffice to know oneself in the past or the present. Those within whomlies the force that I speak of know themselves in the future too. Consciousness of self with the greatest of men implies consciousness upto a point of their star or their destiny. They are aware of some partof their future, because they have already become part of this future. They have faith in themselves, for they know in advance how events willbe received in their soul. The event in itself is pure water that flowsfrom the pitcher of fate, and seldom has it either savour or perfume orcolour. But even as the soul may be wherein it seeks shelter, so willthe event become joyous or sad, become tender or hateful, become deadlyor quick with life. To those round about us there happen incessant andcountless adventures, whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germof heroism; but the adventure passes away, and heroic deed is therenone. But when Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, anadulterous woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession tothe level of God. 

9. It might almost be said that there happens to men only that theydesire. It is true that on certain external events our influence is ofthe feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which theseevents shall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritualpart, on what is radiant, undying within them. There are thousands ofmen within whom this spiritual part, that is craving for birth in everymisfortune, or love, or chance meeting, has known not one moment oflife--these men pass away like a straw on the stream. And others thereare within whom this immortal part absorbs all; these are like islandsthat have sprung up in the ocean; for they have found immovableanchorage, whence they issue commands that their destiny needs mustobey. The life of most men will be saddened or lightened by the thingthat may chance to befall them--in the men whom I speak of, whatevermay happen is lit up by their inward life. When you love, it is notyour love that forms part of your destiny; but the knowledge of selfthat you will have found, deep down in your love--this it is that willhelp to fashion your life. If you have been deceived, it is not thedeception that matters, but the forgiveness whereto it gave birth inyour soul, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of thisforgiveness--by these shall your life be steered to destiny's haven ofbrightness and peace; by these shall your eyes see more clearly than ifall men had ever been faithful. But if, by this act of deceit, therehave come not more simpleness, loftier faith, wider range to your love, then have you been deceived in vain, and may truly say nothing hashappened. 

10. Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of thenature of ourselves. There comes no adventure but wears to our soul theshape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are but offered tothose who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity andsilence. And whether you climb up the mountain or go down the hill tothe valley, whether you journey to the end of the world or merely walkround your house, none but yourself shall you meet on the highway offate. If Judas go forth to-night, it is towards Judas his steps willtend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates openhis door, he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for wisdom. Our adventures hover around uslike bees round the hive when preparing to swarm. They wait till themother-idea has at last come forth from our soul, and no sooner has sheappeared than they all come rushing towards her. Be false, andfalsehoods will haste to you; love, and adventures will flock to you, throbbing with love. They seem to be all on the watch for the signal wehoist from within: and if the soul grow wiser towards evening, thesorrow will grow wiser too that the soul had fashioned for itself inthe morning. 

11. No great inner event befalls those who summon it not; and yet isthere germ of great inner event in the smallest occurrence of life. Butevents such as these are apportioned by justice, and to each man isgiven of the spoil in accord with his merits. We become that which wediscover in the sorrows and joys that befall us; and the least expectedcaprices of fate soon mould themselves on our thoughts. It is in ourpast that destiny finds all her weapons, her vestments, her jewels. Were the only son of Thersites and Socrates to die the same day, Socrates' grief would in no way resemble the grief of Thersites. Misfortune or happiness, it seems, must be chastened ere it knock atthe door of the sage; but only by stooping low can it enter thecommonplace soul. 

12. As we become wiser we escape some of our instinctive destinies. There is in us all sufficient desire for wisdom to transform intoconsciousness most of the hazards of life. And all that has thus beentransformed can belong no more to the hostile powers. A sorrow yoursoul has changed into sweetness, to indulgence or patient smiles, is asorrow that shall never return without spiritual ornament; and a faultor defect you have looked in the face can harm you no more, or even beharmful to others. 

Instinct and destiny are for ever conferring together; they support oneanother, and rove, hand in hand, round the man who is not on his guard. And whoever is able to curb the blind force of instinct within him, isable to curb the force of external destiny also. He seems to createsome kind of sanctuary, whose inviolability will be in the degree ofhis wisdom and the consciousness he has acquired becomes the centre ofa circle of light, within which the passer-by is secure from thecaprice of fate. Had Jesus Christ or Socrates dwelt in Agamemnon'spalace among the Atrides, then had there been no Oresteia; nor wouldOedipus ever have dreamed of destroying his sight if they had beentranquilly seated on the threshold of Jocasta's abode. Fatality shrinksback abashed from the should that has more than once conquered her;there are certain disasters she dare not send forth when this soul isnear; and the sage, as he passes by, intervenes in numberless tragedies. 

13. The mere presence of the sage suffices to paralyse destiny; and ofthis we find proof in the fact that there exists scarce a drama whereina true sage appears; when such is the case, the event needs must haltbefore reaching bloodshed and tears. Not only is there no drama whereinsage is in conflict with sage, but indeed there are very few whoseaction revolves round a sage. And truly, can we imagine that an eventshall turn into tragedy between men who have earnestly striven to gainknowledge of self? But the heroes of famous tragedies do not questiontheir souls profoundly; and it follows therefrom that the beauty thetragic poet presents is only a captive thing, is fettered with chains;for were his heroes to soar to the height the real hero would gain, their weapons would fall to the ground, and the drama itself becomepeace--the peace of enlightenment. It is only in the Passion of Christ, the Phaedo, Prometheus, the murder of Orpheus, the sacrifice ofAntigone--it is only in these that we find the drama of the sage, thesolitary drama of wisdom. But elsewhere it is rarely indeed that tragicpoets will allow a sage to appear on the scene, though it be for aninstant. They are afraid of a lofty soul; for they know that events areno less afraid, and that a murder committed in the presence of the sageseems quite other than the murder committed in the presence of thosewhose soul still knows not itself. Had Oedipus possessed the innerrefuge that Marcus Aurelius, for instance, had been able to erect inhimself--a refuge whereto he could fly at all times--had he onlyacquired some few of the certitudes open to every thinker--what coulddestiny then have done? What would she have entrapped in her snares?Would they have contained aught besides the pure light that streamsfrom the lofty soul, as it grows more beautiful still in misfortune?

But where is the sage in Oedipus? Is it Tiresias? He reads the future, but knows not that goodness and forgiveness are lords of the future. Heknows the truth of the gods, but not the truth of mankind. He ignoresthe wisdom that takes misfortune to her arms and would fain give it ofher strength. Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength oflove be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who seeswithout loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness. 

14. We are told that the famous tragedies show us the struggle of managainst Fate. I believe, on the contrary, that scarcely a drama existswherein fatality truly does reign. Search as I may, I cannot find onewhich exhibits the hero in conflict with destiny pure and simple. Forindeed it is never destiny that he attacks; it is with wisdom he isalways at war. Real fatality exists only in certain externaldisasters-as disease, accident, the sudden death of those we love; butINNER FATALITY there is none. Wisdom has will power sufficient torectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at timesinvade the narrow domain of external fatality. It is true that we musthave amassed considerable and patient treasure within us for this willpower to find the resources it needs. 

15. The statue of destiny casts a huge shadow over the valley, which itseems to enshroud in gloom; but this shadow has clearest outline forsuch as look down from the mountain. We are born, it may be, with theshadow upon us; but to many men is it granted to emerge from beneathit; and even though infirmity or weakness keep us, till death, confinedin these sombre regions, still we can fly thence at times on the wingsof our hopes and our thoughts. There may well be some few over whomFate exerts a more tyrannous power, by virtue of instinct, heredity andother laws more relentless still, more profound and obscure; but evenwhen we writhe beneath unmerited, crushing misfortune; even whenfortune compels us to do the thing we should never have done, had ourhands been free; even then, when the deed has been done, the misfortunehas happened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the leastinfluence on that which shall come to pass in our soul. She may strikeat the heart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keepback the light that shall stream to this heart from the erroracknowledged, the pain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent thesoul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, intofeelings and treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never sogreat over all things external, she always must halt when she finds onthe threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. And if it be grantedher then to pass through to the hidden dwelling, it is but as abountiful guest she will enter, bringing with her new pledges of peace:refreshing the slumberous air, and making still clearer the light, thetranquillity deeper--illumining all the horizon. 

16. Let us ask once again: what had destiny done if she had, by someblunder, lured Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus Pius into thesnares that she laid around Oedipus? I will even assume that she mighthave compelled Antoninus, for instance, to murder his father, and, allunwittingly, to profane the couch of his mother. Would that noblesovereign's soul have been hopelessly crushed? Would the end of it allnot have been as the end of all dramas must be wherein the sage isattacked--great sorrow surely, but also great radiance that springsfrom this sorrow, and already is partly triumphant over the shadow ofgrief? Needs must Antoninus have wept as all men must weep; but tearscan quench not one ray in the soul that shines with no borrowed light. To the sage the road is long that leads from grief to despair; it is aroad untravelled by wisdom. When the soul has attained such loftinessas the life of Antoninus shows us that his had acquired, then is eachfalling tear illumined by beautiful thought and by generous feeling. Hewould have taken calamity to him, to all that was purest, most vast, inhis soul; and misfortune, like water, espouses the form of the vasethat contains it. Antoninus, we say, would have brought resignation tobear; but this is a word that too often conceals the true working of anoble heart. There is no soul so petty but what it too may believe thatit is resigned. Alas! it is not resignation that comforts us, raisesand chastens; but indeed the thoughts and the feelings in whose name weembrace resignation; and it is here that wisdom doles out the rewardsthey have earned to her faithful. 

Some ideas there are that lie beyond the reach of any catastrophe. Hewill be far less exposed to disaster who cherishes ideas within himthat soar high above the indifference, selfishness, vanities ofeveryday life. And therefore, come happiness or sorrow, the happiestman will be he within whom the greatest idea shall burn the mostardently. Had fate so desired it, Antoninus also, perhaps, had beenguilty of incest and parricide; but his inward life would not have beencrushed thereby, as was that of Oedipus; nay, these very catastropheswould have given him mightier strength, and destiny would have fled indespair, strewing the ground by the emperor's palace with her nets andher blunted weapons; for even as triumph of dictators and consuls couldbe celebrated only in Rome, so can the true triumph of Fate take placenowhere save in our soul. 

17. Where do we find the fatality in "Hamlet, " "King Lear, " in"Macbeth"? Is its throne not erected in the very centre of the oldking's madness, on the lowest degree of the young prince's imagination, at the very summit of the Thane's morbid cravings? Macbeth we may wellpass by; not need we linger over Cordelia's father, for his absence ofconsciousness is all too manifest; but Hamlet, Hamlet the thinker--ishe wise? Is the elevation sufficient wherefrom he looks down on thecrimes of Elsinore? He seems to regard them from the loftiest heightsof his intellect; but in the light-clad mountain range of wisdom thereare other peaks that tower far above the heights of the intellect--thepeaks of goodness and confidence, of indulgence and love. If he couldhave surveyed the misdeeds of Elsinore from the eminence whence MarcusAurelius or Fenelon, for instance, had surely surveyed them, what wouldhave resulted then? And, first of all, does it not often happen that acrime which is suddenly conscious of the gaze of a mightier soul willpause, and halt, and at last crawl back to its lair; even as bees ceasefrom labour when a gleam of sunshine steals into the hive?

The real destiny, the inner destiny would in any event have followedits course in the souls of Claudius and Gertrude; for these sinful oneshad delivered themselves into its hands, as must needs be the case withthose whose ways are evil; but would it have dared to spread itsinfluence abroad if one of those sages had been in the palace? Would ithave dared to overstep the shining, denouncing barrier that hispresence would have imposed, and maintained, in front of the palacegates? When the sage's destiny blends with that of men of inferiorwisdom, the sage raises them to his level, but himself will rarelydescend. Neither on earth nor in the domain of fatality do rivers flowback to their source. But to return: let us imagine a sovereign, all-powerful soul--that of Jesus, in Hamlet's place at Elsinore; wouldthe tragedy then have flown on till it reached the four deaths at theend? Is that conceivable? A crime may be never so skilfullyplanned--when the eyes of deep wisdom rest on it, it becomes like atrivial show that we offer to very small children at nightfall: somemagic-lantern performance, whose tawdry imposture a last gleam ofsunshine lays bare. Can you conceive Jesus Christ--nay, any wise manyou have happened to meet--in the midst of the unnatural gloom thatoverhung Elsinore? Is not every action of Hamlet induced by a fanaticalimpulse, which tells him that duty consists in revenge alone? and doesit need superhuman effort to recognise that revenge never can be aduty? I say again that Hamlet thinks much, but that he is by no meanswise. He cannot conceive where to look for the weak spot in destiny'sarmour. Lofty thoughts suffice not always to overcome destiny; foragainst these destiny can oppose thoughts that are loftier still; butwhat destiny has ever withstood thoughts that are simple and good, thoughts that are tender and loyal? We can triumph over destiny only bydoing the very reverse of the evil she fain would have us commit. Forno tragedy can be inevitable. At Elsinore there is not a soul butrefuses to see, and hence the catastrophe; but a soul that is quickwith life will compel those around it to open their eyes. Where was itwritten that Laertes, Ophelia, Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, shoulddie--where, save in Hamlet's pitiful blindness? But was this blindnessinevitable? Why speak of destiny when a simple thought had sufficed toarrest all the forces of murder? The empire of destiny is surelysufficiently vast. I acknowledge her might when a wall crashes down onmy head, when the storm drives a ship on the rocks, when diseaseattacks those whom I love; but into man's soul she never will come, uncalled. Hamlet is unhappy because he moves in unnatural darkness; andhis ignorance puts the seal upon his unhappiness. We have but to issuecommands and fate will obey--there is nothing in the world that willoffer such long and patient submission. Horatio, up to the last, couldhave issued commands; but his master's shadow lay on him, and he lackedthe courage to shake himself free. Had there been but one soulcourageous enough to cry out the truth, then had the history ofElsinore not been shrouded in tears of hatred and horror. Butmisfortune, that bends beneath the fingers of wisdom like the cane thatwe cut from the tree, becomes iron, and murderously rigid, in the handof unconsciousness. Once again, all depended here, not on destiny, buton the wisdom of the wisest, and this Hamlet was; therefore did he, byhis presence, become the centre of the drama of Elsinore; and onhimself only did the wisdom of Hamlet depend. 

18. And if you look distrustfully on imaginary tragedies, you have onlyto investigate some of the greatest dramas of authentic history to findthat in these too the destinies of men are no different: that theirways are the same, and their petulance, their revolt and submission. You will discover that there too it is a force of man's own creatingthat plays the most active part in what if pleases us to term"fatality. " This fatality, it is true, is enormous, but rarelyirresistible. It does not leap forth at a given moment from aninexorable, inaccessible, unfathomable abyss. It is build up of theenergy, the desires and suffering, the thoughts and passions of ourbrothers; and these passions should be well known to us, for theydiffer not from our own. In our most inexplicable moments, in our mostmysterious, unexpected misfortunes, we rarely find ourselves strugglingwith an invisible enemy, or one that is entirely foreign to us. Whystrive of our own free will to enlarge the domain of the inevitable?They who are truly strong are aware that among the forces that opposetheir schemes there are some that they know not; but against such asthey do know they fight on as bravely as though no others existed; andthese men will be often victorious. We shall have added most strangelyto our safety and happiness and peace the day that our sloth and ourignorance shall have ceased to term fatal. What should truly be lookedon as human and natural by our intelligence and our energy. 

19. Let us consider one noteworthy victim of destiny, Louis XVI. Never, it would seem, did relentless fatality clamour so loudly for thedestruction of an unfortunate man; of one who was gentle, and good, andvirtuous, and honourable. And yet, as we look more closely into thepages of history, do we not find that fatality distils her poison fromthe victim's own wavering feebleness, his own trivial duplicity, blindness, unreason, and vanity? And if it be true that some kind ofpredestination governs every circumstance of life, it appears to be noless true that such predestination exists in our character only; and tomodify character must surely be easy to the man of unfettered will, foris it not constantly changing in the lives of the vast bulk of men? Isyour own character, at thirty, the same as it was when you were tenyears younger? It will be better or worse in the measure that you havebelieved that disloyalty, wickedness, hatred and falsehood havetriumphed in life, or goodness, and truth, and love. And you will havethought that you witnessed the triumph of hatred or love, of truth orof falsehood, in exact accord with the lofty or baser idea as to thehappiness and aim of your life that will slowly have arisen within you. For it is our most secret desire that governs and dominates all. Ifyour eyes look for nothing but evil, you will always see eviltriumphant; but if you have learned to let your glance rest onsincerity, simpleness, truth, you will ever discover, deep down in allthings, the silent overpowering victory of that which you love. 

20. It is scarcely from this point of view, however, that Louis XVI. Should be Judged. Let us rather imagine ourselves in his place, in themidst of his doubt and bewilderment, his darkness and difficulties. Nowthat we know all that happened it is easy enough to declare what shouldhave been done; but are we ourselves, at this moment, aware of what isour duty? Are we not contending with troubles and doubts of our own?and were it not well that they who one day shall pass judgment upon usshould seek out the track that our footsteps have left on the sands ofthe hillock we climbed, hoping thence to discover the future? LouisXVI. Was bewildered: do we know what ought to be done? Do we know whatwe best had abandon, what we best had defend? Are we wiser than he aswe waver betwixt the rights of human reason and those that circumstanceclaims? And when hesitation is conscientious, does it not often possessall the elements of duty? There is one most important lesson to belearned from the example of this unfortunate king: and it is that whendoubt confronts us which in itself is noble and great, it is our dutyto march bravely onwards, turning neither to right nor to left of us, going infinitely further than seems to be reasonable, practical, just. The idea that we hold to-day of duty, and justice, and truth, may seemclear to us now, and advanced and unfettered; but how different will itappear a few years, a few centuries later! Had Louis XVI. Done what weshould have done--we who now are aware of what had been the right thingto do--had he frankly renounced all the follies of royal prerogative, and loyally adopted the new truth and loftier justice that had sprunginto being, then should we to-day be admiring his genius. And the kinghimself, perhaps--for he was not a foolish man, or wicked--may have forone instant beheld his own situation with the clear eye of an impartialphilosopher. That at least is by no means impossible, historically orpsychologically. Even in our most solemn hours of doubt it is rare thatwe know not where we should look for the fixed point of duty, itsunalterable summit; but we feel that there stretches a distance toowide to be travelled between the actual thing to be done and thismountain-peak, that glitters afar in its solitude. And yet it is provedby man's whole history--by the life of each one of us--that it is onthe loftiest summit that right has always its dwelling; and that tothis summit we too at the end must climb, after much precious time hasbeen lost on many an intermediate eminence. And what is a sage, a greatman, a hero, if not one who has dared to go, alone and ahead of theothers, to the deserted table-land that lay more or less within sightof all men?

21. We do not imply that Louis XVI. Should necessarily have been a manof this stamp, a man of genius; although to have genius seems almostthe duty of him who sways in his hands the destiny of vast numbers ofmen. Nor do we claim that the best men among us to-day would have beenable to escape his errors, or the misfortunes to which they gave rise. And yet there is one thing certain: that of all these misfortunes nonehad super-human origin; not one was supernaturally, or toomysteriously, inevitable. They came not from another world; they werelaunched by no monstrous god, capricious and incomprehensible. Theywere born of an idea of justice that men failed to grasp; an idea ofjustice that suddenly had wakened in life, but never had lain asleep inthe reason of man. And is there a thing in this world can be morereassuring, or nearer to us, more profoundly human, than an idea ofjustice? Louis XVI. May well have regretted that this idea, thatshattered his peace, should have awakened during his reign; but thiswas the only reproach he could level at fate; and when we murmur atfate ourselves our complaints have much the same value. For the rest, it is legitimate enough to suppose that there needed but one single actof energy, absolute loyalty, disinterested, clear-sighted wisdom, tochange the whole course of events. If the flight to Varennes--in itselfan act of duplicity and culpable weakness--had only been arranged alittle less childishly, foolishly (as any man would have arranged itwho was accustomed to the habits of life), there can be not a doubtthat Louis XVI. Would never have died on the scaffold. Was it a god, orhis blind reliance on Marie Antoinette, that led him to entrust deFersen--a stupid, conceited, and tactless creature--with thepreparations and control of this disastrous journey? Was it a forceinstinct with great mystery, or only his own unconsciousness, heedlessness, thoughtlessness, and a kind of strange apatheticsubmission--such as the weak and the idle will often display at momentsof danger, when they seem almost to challenge their star--that inducedhim again and again, at each change of horses, to put his head out ofthe carriage window, and thus be recognised three or four times? And atthe moment that decided all, in that throbbing and sinister night ofVarennes--a night indeed when fatality should have been an immovablemountain governing all the horizon--do we not see this fatalitystumbling at every step, like a child that is learning to walk andwonders, is it this white pebble or that tuft of grass that will causeit to fall to right or to left of the path? And then, at the tragichalt of the carriage, in that black night: at the terrible cry sentforth by young Drouet, "In the name of the Nation!" there had neededbut one order from the king, one lash of the whip, one pull at thecollar--and you and I would probably not have been born, for thehistory of the world had been different. And again, in presence of themayor, who stood there, respectful, disconcerted, hesitating, ready tofling every gate open had but one imperious word been spoken; and atthe shop of M. Sauce, the worthy village grocer; and, last of all, whenGoguelat and de Choiseul had arrived with their hussars, bringingrescue, salvation--did not all depend, a hundred times over, on a mereyes or no, a step, a gesture, a look? Take any ten men with whom youare intimate, let them have been King of France, you can foretell theissue of their ten nights. Ah, it was that night truly that heapedshame on fatality, that laid bare her weakness! For that night revealedto all men the dependence, the wretched and shivering poverty of thegreat mysterious force that, in moments of undue resignation, seems toweigh so heavily on life! Never before has she been beheld socompletely despoiled of her vestments, of her imposing, deceptiverobes, as she incessantly came and went that night, from death to life, from life to death; throwing herself at last, like a woman distraught, into the arms of an unhappy king, whom she besought til dawn for adecision, an existence, that she herself never can find save only inthe depths of the will and the intellect of man. 

22. And yet this is not the entire truth. It is helpful to regardevents in this fashion, thus seeking to minimise the importance offatality, looking upon it as some vague and wandering creature that wehave to shelter and guide. We gain the more courage thereby, the moreconfidence, initiative; and these are qualities essential to the doingof anything useful; and they shall stand us in good stead, too, whenour own hour of danger draws nigh. But for all that, we do not pretendthat there truly is no other force--that all things can be governed byour will and our intellect. These must be trained to act like thesoldiers of a conquering army; they must learn to thrive at the cost ofall that opposes them; they must find sustenance even in the unknownthat towers above them. Those who desire to emerge from the ordinaryhabits of life, from the straitened happiness of mere pleasure-seekingmen, must march with deliberate conviction along the path that is knownto them, yet never forget the unexplored regions through which thispath winds. We must act as though we were masters--as though all thingswere bound to obey us; and yet let us carefully tend in our soul athought whose duty it shall be to offer noble submission to the mightyforces we may encounter. It is well that the hand should believe thatall is expected, foreseen; but well, too, that we should have in us asecret idea, inviolable, incorruptible, that will always remember thatwhatever is great most often must be unforeseen. It is the unforeseen, the unknown, that fulfil what we never should dare to attempt; but theywill not come to our aid if they find not, deep down in our heart, analtar inscribed to their worship. Men of the mightiest will--men likeNapoleon--were careful, in their most extraordinary deeds, to leaveopen a good share to fate. Those within whom there lives not a generoushope will keep fate closely confined, as they would a sickly child; butothers invite her into the limitless plains man has not yet thestrength to explore, and their eyes follow her every movement. 

23. These feverish hours of history resemble a storm that we see on theocean; we come from far inland; we rush to the beach, in keenexpectation; we eye the enormous waves with curious eagerness, withalmost childish intensity. And there comes one along that is threetimes as high and as fierce as the rest. It rushes towards us like somemonster with diaphanous muscles. It uncoils itself in mad haste fromthe distant horizon, as though it were bearer of some urgent, completerevelation. It ploughs in its wake a track so deep that we feel thatthe sea must at last be yielding up one of her secrets; but all thingshappen the same as on a breathless and cloudless day, when languidwavelets roll to and fro in the limpid, fathomless water; from theocean arises no living thing, not a blade of grass, not a stone. 

If aught could discourage the sage--though he is not truly wise whoseastonishment is not enlightened, and his interest quickened, by theunforeseen thing that discourages--it would be the discovery, in thisFrench Revolution, of more than one destiny that is infinitely sadder, more overwhelming, more inexplicable, than that of Louis XVI. I referto the Girondins: above all, to the admirable Vergniaud. To-day even, though we know all that the future kept hidden from him, and are ableto divine what it was that was sought by the instinctive desire of thatexceptional century--to-day even it were surely not possible to actmore nobly, more wisely, than he. Let fortune hurl any man into theburning centre of a movement that had swept every barrier down, it weresurely not possible to reveal a finer character or loftier spirit. Could we fashion, deep down in our heart, out of all that is purestwithin us, out of all our wisdom and all our love, some beautiful, spotless creature with never a thought of self, without weakness orerror--such a being would desire a place by the side of Vergniaud, onthose deserted Convention seats, "whereon the shadow of death seemedalready to hover, " that he might think as Vergniaud thought, and sospeak, and act. He saw the infallible, eternal, that lay the other sideof that tragical moment; he knew how to be humane and benevolent still, through all those terrible days when humanity and benevolence seemedthe bitterest enemies of the ideal of justice, whereto he hadsacrificed all; and in his great and noble doubt he marched bravelyonwards, turning neither to right nor to left of him, going infinitelyfurther than seemed to be reasonable, practical, just. The violentdeath that was not unexpected came towards him, with half his road yetuntravelled; to teach us that often in this strange conflict betweenman and his destiny, the question is not how to save the life of ourbody, but that of our most beautiful feelings, of our loftiest thoughts, "Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?"there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer, "Whatbecomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit mustdie, that my life may be saved?" And are not almost all the morals, andheroism, and virtue of man summed up in that single choice?

24. But what may this wisdom be that we rate thus highly? Let us notseek to define it too closely; that were but to enchain it. If a manwere desirous to study the nature of light, and began by extinguishingall the lights that were near, would not a few cinders, a smoulderingwick, be all he would ever discover? And so has it been with those whoessayed definition. "The word wise, " said Joubert, "when used to achild, is a word that each child understands, and that we need neverexplain. " Let us accept it even as the child accepts it, that it maygrow with our growth. Let us say of wisdom what Sister Hadewijck, themysterious enemy of Ruijsbroeck the Admirable, said of love: "Itsprofoundest abyss is its most beautiful form. " Wisdom requires no form;her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is nomotionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne. She is Minerva whofollows us, soars to the skies with us, falls to the earth with us, mingles her tears with our tears, and rejoices when we rejoice. Trulywise you are not unless your wisdom be constantly changing from yourchildhood on to your death. The more the word means to you, the morebeauty and depth it conveys, the wiser must you become; and each stepthat one takes towards wisdom reveals to the soul ever-widening space, that wisdom never shall traverse. 

25. He who knows himself is wise; yet have we no sooner acquired realconsciousness of our being than we learn that true wisdom is a thingthat lies far deeper than consciousness. The chief gain of increasedconsciousness is that it unveils an ever-loftier unconsciousness, onwhose heights do the sources lie of the purest wisdom. The heritage ofunconsciousness is for all men the same; but it is situate partlywithin and partly without the confines of normal consciousness. Thebulk of mankind will rarely pass over the border; but true lovers ofwisdom press on, till they open new routes that cross over thefrontier. If I love, and my love has procured me the fullestconsciousness man may attain, then will an unconsciousness light upthis love that shall be quite other than the one whereby commonplacelove is obscured. For this second unconsciousness hedges the animalround, whereas the first draws close unto God; but needs must it loseall trace of the second ere it become aware of itself. Inunconsciousness we ever must dwell; but are able to purify, day afterday, the unconsciousness that wraps us around. 

26. We shall not become wise through worshipping reason alone; andwisdom means more than perpetual triumph of reason over inferiorinstincts. Such triumphs can help us but little if our reason be nottaught thereby to offer profoundest submission to another and differentinstinct--that of the soul. These triumphs are precious, because theyreveal the presence of diviner instinct, that grows ever diviner still. And their aim is not in themselves; they serve but to clear the way forthe destiny of the soul, which is a destiny, always, of purificationand light. 

27. Reason flings open the door to wisdom; but the most living wisdombefinds itself not in reason. Reason bars the gate to malevolentdestiny; but wisdom, away on the horizon, throws open another gate topropitious destiny. Reason defends and withdraws; forbids, rejects, anddestroys. Wisdom advances, attacks, and adds; increases, creates, andcommands. Reason produces not wisdom, which is rather a craving ofsoul. It dwells up above, far higher than reason; and thus is it of thenature of veritable wisdom to do countless things whereof reasondisapproves, or shall but approve hereafter. So was it that wisdom oneday said to reason, It were well to love one's enemies and return goodfor evil. Reason, that day, tiptoe on the loftiest peak in its kingdom, at last was fain to agree. But wisdom is not yet content, and seeksever further, alone. 

28. If wisdom obeyed reason only, and sought nothing more than toovercome instinct, then would wisdom be ever the same. There would bebut one wisdom for all, and its whole range would be known to man, forreason has more than once explored its entire domain. 

Certain fixed points there well may be that are common to all classesof wisdom; but there exists none the less the widest possibledifference between the atmospheres that enwrapped the wisdom of JesusChrist and of Socrates, of Aristides and Marcus Aurelius, of Fenelonand Jean Paul. Let the same event befall these men on the self-sameday: if it fall into the running waters of their wisdom, it willundergo complete transformation, becoming different in every one; if itfall into the stagnant water of their reason, it will remain as it was, unchanged. If Jesus Christ and Socrates both were to meet theadulterous woman, the words that their reason would prompt them tospeak would vary but little; but belonging to different worlds would bethe working of the wisdom within them, far beyond words and far beyondthoughts. For differences such as these are of the very essence ofwisdom. There is but one starting-point for the wise--the threshold ofreason. But they separate one from the other as soon as the triumphs ofreason are well understood; in other words, as soon as they enterfreely the domain of the higher unconsciousness. 

29. To say "this is reasonable" is by no means the same as to say "thisis wise. " The thing that is reasonable is not of necessity wise, and athing may be very wise and yet be condemned by over-exacting reason. Itis from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom;and goodness, we are told by Plutarch, "extends much further thanjustice. " Is it to reason or wisdom that heroism should be ascribed?Wisdom, perhaps, is only the sense of the infinite applied to our morallife. Reason, it is true, has the sense of the infinite also, but darenot do more than accord it bare recognition. It would seem opposed tothe very instinct of reason to regard the sense of the infinite asbeing of importance in life; but wisdom is wise in the measure that theInfinite governs all she procures to be done. 

In reason no love can be found--there is much love in wisdom; and allthat is highest in wisdom entwines around all that is purest in love. Love is the form most divine of the infinite, and also, because mostdivine, the form most profoundly human. Why should we not say thatwisdom is the triumph of reason divine over reason of man?

30. We cannot cultivate reason too fully, but by wisdom only shouldreason be guided. The man is not wise whose reason has not yet beentaught to obey the first signal of love. What would Christ, all theheroes, have done had their reason not learned to submit? Is each deedof the hero not always outside the boundary of reason? and yet, whowould venture to say that the hero is not wiser by far than thesluggard who quits not his chair because reason forbids him to rise?Let us say it once more--the vase wherein we should tend the truewisdom is love, and not reason. Reason is found, it is true, at theroot-springs of wisdom, yet is wisdom not reason's flower. For we speaknot of logical wisdom here, but of wisdom quite other, the favouritesister of love. 

Reason and love battle fiercely at first in the soul that begins toexpand; but wisdom is born of the peace that at last comes to passbetween reason and love; and the peace becomes the profounder as reasonyields up still more of her rights to love. 

31. Wisdom is the lamp of love, and love is the oil of the lamp. Love, sinking deeper, grows wiser; and wisdom that springs up aloft comesever the nearer to love. If you love, you must needs become wise; bewise, and you surely shall love. Nor can any one love with theveritable love but his love must make him the better; and to growbetter is but to grow wiser. There is not a man in the world butsomething improves in his soul from the moment he loves--and thatthough his love be but vulgar; and those in whom love never dies mustneeds continue to love as their soul grows nobler and nobler. Love isthe food of wisdom; wisdom the food of love; a circle of light withinwhich those who love, clasp the hands of those who are wise. Wisdom andlove are one; and in Swedenborg's Paradise the wife is "the love of thewisdom of the wise. "

32. "Our reason, " said Fenelon, "is derived from the clearness of ourideas. " But our wisdom, we might add--in other words, all that is bestin our soul and our character, is to be found above all in those ideasthat are not yet clear. Were we to allow our clear ideas only to governour life, we should quickly become undeserving of either much love oresteem. For, truly, what could be less clear than the reasons that bidus be generous, upright, and just; that teach us to cherish in allthings the noblest of feelings and thoughts? But it happily so comes topass that the more clear ideas we possess, the more do we learn torespect those that as yet are still vague. We must strive withoutceasing to clarify as many ideas as we can, that we may thus arouse inour soul more and more that now are obscure. The clear ideas may attimes seem to govern our external life, but the others perforce mustmarch on at the head of our intimate life, and the life that we seeinvariably ends by obeying the invisible life. On the quality, number, and power of our clear ideas do the quality, number, and power dependof those that are vague; and hidden away in the midst of these vagueones, patiently biding their hour, there may well lurk most of thedefinite truths that we seek with such ardour. Let us not keep themwaiting too long; and indeed, a beautiful crystal idea we awaken withinus shall not fail, in its turn, to arouse a beautiful vague idea; whichlast, growing old, and having itself become clear (for is not perfectclearness most often the sign of decrepitude in the idea?), shall alsogo forth, and disturb from its slumber another obscure idea, butloftier, lovelier far than it had been itself in its sleep; and thus, it may be, treading gently, one after the other, and neverdisheartened, in the midst of those silent ranks--some day, by merechance, a small hand, scarce visible yet, shall touch a great truth. 

33. Clear ideas and obscure ideas; heart, intellect, will, and reason, and soul--truly these words that we use do but mean more or less thesame thing: the spiritual riches of man. The soul may well be no morethan the most beautiful desire of our brain, and God Himself be onlythe most beautiful desire of our soul. So great is the darkness herethat we can but seek to divide it; and the lines that we trace must beblacker still than the sections they traverse. Of all the ideals thatare left to us, there is perhaps only one that we still can accept; andthat one is to gain full self-knowledge; but to how great an extentdoes this knowledge truly depend on our reason--this knowledge that atfirst would appear to depend on our reason alone? Surely he who at lasthad succeeded in realising, to the fullest extent, the place that hefilled in the universe--surely he should be better than others, bewiser and truer, more upright; in a word, be more moral? But can anyman claim, in good faith, to have grasped this relation; and do not theroots of the most positive morals lie hidden beneath some kind ofmystic unconsciousness? Our most beautiful thought does no more thanpass through our intelligence; and none would imagine that the harvestmust have been reaped in the road because it is seen passing by. Whenreason, however precise, sets forth to explore her domain, every stepthat she takes is over the border. And yet is it the intellect thatlends the first touches of beauty to thought; the rest lies not whollywith us; but this rest will not stir into motion until intellecttouches the spring. Reason, the well-beloved daughter of intellect, must go take her stand on the threshold of our spiritual life, havingfirst flung open the gates of the prison beneath, where the living, instinctive forces of being lie captive, asleep. She must wait, withthe lamp in her hand; and her presence alone shall suffice to ward offfrom the threshold all that does not yet conform with the nature oflight. Beyond, in the regions unlit by her rays, obscure lifecontinues. This troubles her not; indeed, she is glad. . .. She knowsthat, in the eyes of the God she desires all that has not yet crossedher arcade of light--be it dream, be it thought, even act--can addnothing to, can take nothing from, the ideal creature she is craving tomould. She watches the flame of her lamp; needs must it burn brightly, and remain at its post, and be seen from afar. She listens, untroubled, to the murmur of inferior instincts out there in the darkness. But theprisoners slowly awake; there are some who draw nigh to the threshold, and their radiance is greater than hers. There flows from them a lightless material, softer and purer than that of the bold, hard flame whichher hand protects. They are the inscrutable powers of goodness andlove; and others follow behind, more mysterious still, and moreinfinite, seeking admission. What shall she do? If, at the time thatshe took her stand there on the threshold, she had still lacked thecourage to learn that she could not exist alone, then will she betroubled, afraid; she will make fast the gates; and should these beever reopened, she would find only quivering cinders at the foot of thegloomy stairs. But if her strength be unshaken; if from all that shecould not learn she has learned, at least, that in light there cannever be danger, and that reason itself may be freely staked wheregreater brightness prevails--then shall ineffable changes take place onthe threshold, from lamp unto lamp. Drops of an unknown oil will blendwith the oil of the wisdom of man; and when the white strangers havepassed, the flame of her lamp shall rise higher, transformed for alltime; shall shed purer and mightier radiance amidst the columns of theloftier doorway. 

34. So much for isolated wisdom; now let us return to the wisdom thatmoves to the grave in the midst of the mighty crowd of human destinies;for the destiny of the sage holds not aloof from that of the wicked andfrivolous. All destinies are for ever commingling; and the adventure israre in whose web the hempen thread blends not with the golden. Thereare misfortunes more gradual, less frightful of aspect, than those thatbefell Oedipus and the prince of Elsinore; misfortunes that quail notbeneath the gaze of truth or justice or love. Those who speak of theprofit of wisdom are never so wise as when they freely admit, withoutpride or heart-burning, that wisdom grants scarcely a boon to herfaithful that the foolish or wicked would prize. And indeed, it mayoften take place that the sage, as he moves among men, shall passalmost unnoticed, shall affect them but slightly; be this that his stayis too brief, that he comes too late, that he misses true contact; orperchance that he has to contend with forces too overwhelming, amassedby myriad men from time immemorial. No miracles can he perform onmaterial things; he can save only that which life's ordinary laws stillallow to be saved; and himself, it may be, shall be suddenly seized ina great inexorable whirlwind. But, though he perish therein, still doeshe escape the fate that is common to most; for at least he will diewithout having been forced--for weeks, or it may be for years, beforethe catastrophe--to be the helpless, despairing witness of the ruin ofhis soul. And to save some one--if we admit that in life there aretruly two lives--does not of necessity mean that we save him from deathand disaster; but indeed that we render him happier, inasmuch as we tryto improve him. Moral salvation is the greatest salvation; and yet, what a trifle this seems, as everything seems that is done on theloftiest summits of soul. Was the penitent thief not saved; and thatnot alone in the Christian sense of the word, but in its fullest, mostperfect meaning? Still had he to die, and at that very hour; but hedied eternally happy; because at the very last moment he too had beenloved, and a Being of infinite wisdom had declared that his soul hadnot been without value; that his soul, too, had been good, and had notpassed through the world unperceived of all men. 

35. As we go deeper down into life we discover the secret of more andmore sorrow and helplessness. We see that many souls round us lead idleand foolish lives, because they believe they are useless, unnoticed byall, unloved, and convinced they have nothing within them that isworthy of love. But to the sage the hour must come when every soul thatexists claims his glance, his approval, his love--if only because itpossesses the mysterious gift of existence. The hour must come when hesees that falsehood and weakness and vice are but on the surface; whenhis eye shall pierce through, and discover the strength, and the truth, and the virtue that lie underneath. Happy and blessed hour, whenwickedness stands forth revealed as goodness bereft of its guide; andtreachery is seen to be loyalty, for ever astray from the highway ofhappiness; and hatred becomes only love, in poignant despair, that isdigging its grave. Then, unsuspected of any, shall it be with all thosewho are near the good man as it was with the penitent thief; into thehumblest soul that will thus have been saved by a look, or a word, or asilence, shall the true happiness fall--the happiness fate cannottouch; that brings to all men the oblivion it gave unto Socrates, andcauses each one to forget, until nightfall, that the death--giving cuphad been drained ere the sun went down. 

36. The inner life, perhaps, is not what we deem it to be. There are asmany kinds of inner lives as there are of external lives. Into thesetranquil regions the smallest may enter as readily as he who isgreatest, for the gate that leads thither is not always the gate of theintellect. It often may happen that the man of vast knowledge shallknock at this gate in vain, reply being made from within by the man whoknows nothing. The inner life that is surest, most lasting, possessedof the uttermost beauty, must needs be the one that consciousnessslowly erects in itself, with the aid of all that is purest in thesoul. And he is wise who has learned that this life should be nourishedon every event of the day: he to whom deceit or betrayal serves but toenhance his wisdom: he in whom evil itself becomes fuel for the flameof love. He is wise who at last sees in suffering only the light thatit sheds on his soul; and whose eyes never rest on the shadow it castsupon those who have sent it towards him. And wiser still is the man towhom sorrow and joy not only bring increase of consciousness, but alsothe knowledge that something exists superior to consciousness even. Tohave reached this point is to reach the summit of inward life, whenceat last we look down on the flames whose light has helped our ascent. But not many can climb so high; and happiness may be achieved in theless ardent valley below, where the flames spring darkly to life. Andthere are existences still more obscure which yet have their places ofrefuge. There are some that instinctively fashion inward lives forthemselves. There are some that, bereft of initiative or ofintelligence, never discover the path that leads into themselves, andare never aware of all that their refuge contains; and yet will theiractions be wholly the same as the actions of those whose intellectweighs every treasure. There are some who desire only good, though theyknow not wherefore they desire it, and have no suspicion that goodnessis the one fixed star of loftiest consciousness. The inner life beginswhen the soul becomes good, and not when the intellect ripens. It issomewhat strange that this inner life can never be formed out of evil. No inner life is for him whose soul is bereft of all nobleness. He mayhave full knowledge of self; he may know, it may be, wherefore he shunsgoodness; and yet shall he seek in vain for the refuge, the strength, the treasure of invisible gladness, that form the possessions of himwho can fearlessly enter his heart. For the inward life is built up ofa certain rejoicing of soul; and the soul can never be happy if itpossess not, and love not, something that is pure. It may perhaps errin its choice, but then even will it be happier than the soul to whichit has never been given to choose. 

37. And thus are we truly saving a man if we bring about that he lovesevil somewhat less than he loved it before; for we are helping that manto construct, deep down in his soul, the refuge where--against destinyshall brandish her weapons in vain. This refuge is the monument ofconsciousness, or, it may be, of love; for love is nothing butconsciousness, still vaguely in search of itself; and veritableconsciousness nothing but love that at last has emerged from theshadow. And it is in the deepest recess of this refuge that the soulshall kindle the wondrous fire of her joy. And this joy of the soul islike unto no other joy; and even as material fire will chase awaydeadly disease from the earth, so will the joy of the soul scattersorrow that malevolent destiny brings. It arises not from exteriorhappiness; it arises not from satisfied self-love; for the joy thatself-love procures becomes less as the soul becomes nobler, but the joyof pure love increases as nobility comes to the soul. Nor is this joyborn of pride; for to be able to smile at its beauty is not enough tobring joy to the soul. The soul that has sought in itself has the rightto know of its beauty; but to brood on this beauty too much, to becomeover-conscious thereof, were perhaps to detract somewhat from theunconsciousness of its love. The joy that I speak of takes not fromlove what it adds unto consciousness; for in this joy, and in this joyalone, do consciousness and love become one, feeding each on the other, each gaining from that which it gives. The striving intellect may wellknow happiness beyond the reach of the satisfied body; but the soulthat grows nobler has joys that are often denied to the strivingintellect. These two will often unite and labour together at buildingthe house within. But still it will happen at times that both workapart, and widely different then are the structures each will erect. And were this to be so, and the being I loved best of all in the worldcame and asked me which he should choose--which refuge I held to bemost unattackable, sweetest, profoundest--I would surely advise him toshelter his destiny in the refuge of the soul that grows nobler. 

38. Is the sage never to suffer? Shall no storm ever break on the roofof his dwelling, no traps be laid to ensnare him? Shall wife andfriends never fail him? Must his father not die, and his mother, hisbrothers, his sons--must all these not die like the rest? Shall angelsstand guard at each highway through which sorrow can pass into man? Didnot Christ Himself weep as He stood before Lazarus' tomb? Had notMarcus Aurelius to suffer--from Commodus, the son who already showedsigns of the monster he was to become; from Faustina, the wife whom heloved, but who cared not for him? Was not destiny's hand laid heavy onPaulus Aemilius, who was fully as wise as Timoleon? did not both hissons die, one five days before his triumph in Rome, and the other butthree days after? What becomes of the refuge, then, where wisdom keepswatch over happiness? Must we take back all we have said? and is wisdomyet one more illusion, by whose aid the soul would fain conciliatereason, and justify cravings that experience is sure to reject as beingopposed to reason?

39. Nay, In truth, the sage too must suffer. He suffers; and sufferingforms a constituent part of his wisdom. He will suffer, perhaps, morethan most men, for that his nature is far more complete. And beingnearer to all mankind, as the wise ever must be, his suffering will bebut the greater, for the sorrows of others are his. He will suffer inhis flesh, in his heart, in his spirit; for there are sides in allthese that no wisdom on earth can dispute against destiny. And so heaccepts his suffering, but is not discouraged thereby; not for him arethe chains that it fastens on those who cringe down before it, unawarethat it is but a messenger sent by a mightier personage, whom a bend inthe road hides from view. Needs must the sage, like his neighbour, bestartled from sleep by the shouts of the truculent envoy, by the blowsat the door that cause the whole house to tremble. He, too, must godown and parley. But yet, as he listens, his eyes are not fixed on thisbringer of evil tidings; his glance will at times be lifted over themessenger's shoulder, will scan the dust on the horizon in search ofthe mighty idea that perhaps may be near at hand. And indeed, when ourthoughts rest on fate, at such times as happiness enfolds us, we feelthat no great misfortune can be suddenly burst upon us. The proportionswill change, it is true, when the blow falls; but it is equally truethat before the misfortune can wholly destroy the abiding couragewithin us, it first must triumph in our heart over all we adore, overall we admire, and love. And what alien power can expel from our soul afeeling and thought that we hurl not our selves from its throne?Physical suffering apart, not a single sorrow exists that can touch usexcept through our thoughts; and whence do our thoughts derive theweapons wherewith they attack or defend us? We suffer but little fromsuffering itself; but from the manner wherein we accept it overwhelmingsorrow may spring. "His unhappiness was caused by himself, " said athinker of one whose eyes never looked over the brutal messenger'sshoulder--"his unhappiness was caused by himself; for all misery isinward, and caused by ourselves. We are wrong in believing that itcomes from without. For indeed we create it within us, out of our verysubstance. "

40. It is only in the manner of our facing the event that its activeforce consists. Assemble ten men who, like Paulus Aemilius, have lostboth their sons at the moment when life seemed sweetest, then will themisfortune appear to vary in every one. Misfortune enters within us, but must of necessity yield obedience to all our commands. Even as theorder may be that it finds inscribed on the threshold, so will it sow, or destroy, or reap. If my neighbour, a commonplace man, were to losehis two sons at the moment when fate had granted his dearest desires, then would darkness steal over all, unrelieved by a glimmer of light;and misfortune itself, contemptuous of its too facile success, wouldleave naught behind but a handful of colourless cinders. Nor is itnecessary for me to see my neighbour again to be aware that his sorrowwill have brought to him pettiness only; for sorrow does merely restoreto us that which our soul had lent in happier days. 

41. But this was the misfortune that befell Paulus Aemilius. Rome, still aglow with his triumph, waited, dismayed, wondering what was tohappen. Were the gods defying the sage, and how would the sage reply?Would the hero be crushed by his sorrow, or would sorrow acknowledgeits master? Mankind, at moments like these, seems aware that destiny isyet once again making trial of the strength of her arm, and that changeof some kind must befall if her blow crush not where it alights. Andsee with what eagerness men at such moments will question the eyes oftheir chiefs for the password against the invisible. 

But Paulus Aemilius has gathered together an assembly of the people ofRome; he advances gravely towards them, and thus does he speak: "I, whonever yet feared anything that was human, have, amongst such as weredivine, always had, a dread of fortune as faithless and inconstant;and, for the very reason that in this war she had been as a favourablegale in all my affairs, I still expected some change and reflux ofthings. In one day I passed the Ionian Sea, and reached Corcyra fromBrundisium; thence in five more I sacrificed at Delphi, and in otherfive days came to my forces in Macedonia, where, after I had finishedthe usual sacrifices for the purifying of the army, I entered on myduties, and in the space of fifteen days put an honourable period tothe war. Still retaining a jealousy of fortune, even from the smoothcurrent of my affairs, and seeing myself secure and free from thedanger of any enemy, I chiefly dreaded the change of the goddess atsea, whilst conveying home my victorious army, vast spoils, and acaptive king. Nay, indeed, after I was returned to you safe, and sawthe city full of joy, congratulating, and sacrifices, yet still Idistrusted, well knowing that fortune never conferred any greatbenefits that were unmixed and unattended with probabilities ofreverse. Nor could my mind, that was still as it were in labour, andalways foreseeing something to befall this city, free itself from thisfear, until this great misfortune befell me in my own family, and till, in the midst of those days set apart for triumph, I carried two of thebest of sons, my only destined successors, one after another to theirfunerals. Now therefore, I am myself safe from danger, at least as towhat was my greatest care; and I trust and am verily persuaded that, for the time to come, fortune will prove constant and harmless untoyou; since she has sufficiently wreaked her jealousy at our greatsuccesses on me and mine, and has made the conqueror as marked anexample of human instability as the captive whom he led in triumph, with this only difference, that Perseus, though conquered, does yetenjoy his children, while the conqueror Aemilius is deprived of his. "

42. This was the Roman fashion of accepting the greatest sorrow thatcan befall a man at the moment when sorrow is felt the most keenly--atthe moment of his greatest happiness. And there are many ways ofaccepting misfortune--as many, indeed, as there are generous feelingsor thoughts to be found on the earth; and every one of those thoughts, every one of those feelings, has a magic wand that transforms, on thethreshold, the features and vestments of sorrow. Job would have said, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of theLord"; and Marcus Aurelius perhaps, "If it be no longer allowed me tolove those I loved high above all, it is doubtless that I may learn tolove those whom I love not yet. "

43. And let us not think that these are mere empty words wherewith theyconsole themselves, words that in vain seek to hide the wound thatbleeds but the more for the effort. But if it were so, if empty wordscould console, that surely were better than to be bereft of allconsolation. And further, if we have to admit that all this isillusion, must we not, in mere justice, also admit that illusion is thesolitary thing that the soul can possess; and in the name of what otherillusion shall we venture to rate this illusion so lightly? Ah, whenthe night falls and the great sages I speak of go back to their lonelydwelling, and look on the chairs round the hearth where their childrenonce were, but never shall be again--then, truly, can they not escapesome part of the sorrow that comes, overwhelming, to those whosesuffering no noble thought chastens. For it were wrong to attribute tobeautiful feeling and thought a virtue they do not possess. There are, external tears that they cannot restrain; there are holy hours whenwisdom cannot yet console. But, for the last time let us say it, suffering we cannot avoid for suffering there ever must be; still doesit rest with ourselves to choose what our suffering shall bring. Andlet us not think that this choice, which the eye cannot see, is truly avery small matter, and helpless to comfort a sorrow whose cause theeyes never cease to behold. Out of small matters like these are allmoral joys built up, and these are profounder far than intellectual orphysical joys. Translate into words the feeling that spurs on the hero, and how trivial it seems! Insignificant too does the idea of dutyappear that Cato the younger had formed, when compared with theenormous disturbance it caused in a mighty empire, or the terribledeath it brought on. And yet, was not Cato's idea far greater than thedisturbance, or death, that ensued? Do we not feel, even now, that Catowas right? And was not his life rendered truly and nobly happy, thanksto this very idea, that the reason of man will not even consider, sounreasonable does it appear? All that ennobles our life, all that werespect in ourselves, the mainsprings of our virtue, the limits thatfeeling will even impose upon vices or crimes--all these appear veriesttrifles when viewed by the cold eye of reason; and yet do they fashionthe laws that govern every man's life. Would life be endurable if wedid not obey many truths that our reason rejects? The wretchedest evenobeys one of these; and the more truths there are that he yields to, the less wretched does he become. The assassin will tell you, "Imurder, it is true, but at least do not steal. " And he who has stolensteals, but does not betray; and he who betrays would at least notbetray his brother. And thus does each one cling for refuge to his lastfragment of spiritual beauty. No man can have fallen so low but hestill has a retreat in his soul, where he ever shall find a few dropsof pure water, and be girt up anew with the strength that he needs togo on with his life. For here again reason is helpless, unable tocomfort; she must halt on the threshold of the thief's last asylum, even as she must halt on the threshold of Job's resignation, of thelove of Marcus Aurelius, of the sacrifice made by Antigone. She halts, is bewildered, she does not approve; and yet knows full well that torise in revolt were only to combat the light whereof she is shadow; foramidst all this she is but as one who stands with the sun full uponhim. His shadow is there at his feet; as he moves, it will follow; ashe rises or stoops, its outline will alter; but this shadow is all hecommands, that he masters, possesses, of the dazzling light thatenfolds him. And so has reason her being, too, beneath a superiorlight, and the shadow cannot affect the calm, unvarying splendour. Fardistant as Marcus Aurelius may be from the traitor, it is still fromthe selfsame well that they both draw the holy water that freshenstheir soul; and this well is not to be found in the intellect. For, strangely enough, it is not in our reason that moral life has itsbeing; and he who would let reason govern his life would be the mostwretched of men. There is not a virtue, a beautiful thought, or agenerous deed, but has most of its roots hidden far away from thatwhich can be understood or explained. Well might man be proud could hetrace every virtue, and joy, and his whole inward life, to the onething he truly possesses, the one thing on which he can depend--in aword, to his reason. But do what he will, the smallest event thatarrives will quickly convince him that reason is wholly unable to offerhim shelter; for in truth we are beings quite other than merelyreasonable creatures. 

44. But if it be not our reason that chooses what suffering shall bringus, whereby is the choice then made? By the life we have lived tillthen, the life that has moulded our soul. Wisdom matures but slowly;her fruits shall not quickly be gathered. If my life has not been asthat of Paulus Aemilius, there shall be no comfort for me in thethoughts whereby he was consoled, not though every sage in the worldwere to come and repeat them to me. The angels that dry our eyes bearthe form and the features of all we have said and thought--above all, of what we have done, prior to the hour of misfortune. When ThomasCarlyle (a sage, although somewhat morbid) lost the wife he hadtenderly loved, with whom he had lived forty years, then did his sorrowtoo, with marvellous exactness, become as had been the bygone life ofhis love. And therefore was this sorrow of his majestic and vast;consoling and torturing alike in the midst of his self-reproach, hisregret, and his tenderness--as might be meditation or prayer on theshore of a gloomy sea. In the sorrow that floods our heart we have, asit were, a synthetic presentment of all the days that are gone; and asthese were, so shall our sorrow be poignant, or tender and gentle. Ifthere be in my life no noble or generous deeds that memory can bringback to me, then, at the inevitable moment when memory melts intotears, must these tears, too, be bereft of all that is generous ornoble. For tears in themselves have no colour, that they may the betterreflect the past life of our soul; and this reflection becomes ourchastisement or our reward. There is but one thing that never can turninto suffering, and that is the good we have done. When we lose one welove, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours whenwe loved not enough. If we always had smiled on the one who is gone, there would be no despair in our grief; and some sweetness would clingto our tears, reminiscent of virtues and happiness. For ourrecollections of veritable love--which indeed is the act of virtuecontaining all others--call from our eyes the same sweet, tender tearsas those most beautiful hours wherein memory was born. Sorrow is just, above all; and even as the cast stands ready awaiting the moltenbronze, so is our whole life expectant of the hour of sorrow, for it isthen we receive our wage. 

45. Here, standing close to the mightiest pillar of destiny's throne, we may see once again how restricted her power becomes on such assurpass her in wisdom. For she is barbarian still, and many men towerabove her. The commonplace life still supplies her with weapons, whichtoday are old-fashioned and crude. Her mode of attack, in exteriorlife, is as it always has been, as it was in Oedipus' days. She shootslike a blear-eyed bow-man, aiming straight ahead of her; but if thetarget be raised somewhat higher than usual, her arrows fall harmlessto earth. 

Suffering, sorrow, tears, regrets--these words, that vary so slightlyin meaning, are names that we give to emotions which in no two men arealike. If we probe to the heart of these words, these emotions, we findthey are only the track that is left by our faults; and there wherethese faults were noble (for there are noble faults as there are meanor trivial virtues) our sorrow will be nearer akin to veritablehappiness than the happiness of those whose consciousness still isconfined within narrowest limits. Would Carlyle have desired toexchange the magnificent sorrow that flooded his soul, and blossomed sotenderly there, for the conjugal joys, superficial and sunless, of hishappiest neighbour in Chelsea? And was not Ernest Renan's grief, whenHenriette, his sister, died, more grateful to the soul than the absenceof grief in the thousands of others who have no love to give to asister? Shall our pity go forth to him who, at times, will weep on theshore of an infinite sea, or to the other who smiles all his life, without cause, alone in his little room? "Happiness, sorrow"--could weonly escape from ourselves for one instant and taste of the hero'ssadness, would there be many content to return to their own superficialdelights?

Do happiness and sorrow, then, only exist in ourselves, and that evenwhen they seem to come from without? All that surrounds us will turn toangel or devil, according as our heart may be. Joan of Arc heldcommunion with saints, Macbeth with witches, and yet were the voicesthe same. The destiny whereat we murmur may be other, perhaps, than wethink. She has only the weapons we give her; she is neither just norunjust, nor does it lie in her province to deliver sentence on man. Shewhom we take to be goddess, is a disguised messenger only, come verysimply to warn us on certain days of our life that the hour has soundedat last when we needs must judge ourselves. 

46. Men of inferior degree, it is true, are not given to judgingthemselves, and therefore is it that fate passes judgment upon them. They are the slaves of a destiny of almost unvarying sternness, for itis only when man has been judged by himself that destiny can betransformed. Men such as these will not master, or alter within them, the event that they meet; nay, they themselves become morallytransformed by the very first thing that draws near them. If misfortunebefall them, they grovel before it and stoop down to its level; andmisfortune, with them, would seem always to wear its poorest andcommonest aspect. They see the finger of fate in every least thing thatmay happen--be it choice of profession, a friendship that greets them, a woman who passes, and smiles. To them chance and destiny always areone; but chance will be seldom propitious if accepted as destiny. Hostile forces at once take possession of all that is vacant within us, nor filled by the strength of our soul; and whatever is void in theheart or the mind becomes a fountain of fatal influence. The Margaretof Goethe and Ophelia of Shakespeare had perforce to yield meekly tofate, for they were so feeble that each gesture they witnessed seemedfate's own gesture to them. But yet, had they only possessed somefragment of Antigone's strength--the Antigone of Sophocles--would theynot then have transformed the destinies of Hamlet and Faust as well astheir own? And if Othello had taken Corneille's Pauline to wife and notDesdemona, would Desdemona's destiny then, all else remainingunchanged, have dared to come within reach of the enlightened love ofPauline? Where was it, in body or soul, that grim fatality lurked? Andthough the body may often be powerless to add to its strength, can thisever be true of the soul? Indeed, the more that we think of it, theclearer does it become that there could be one destiny only that mighttruly be said to triumph over man, the one that might have the powerloudly to cry unto all, "From this day onward there shall come no morestrength to thy soul, neither strength nor ennoblement. " But is there adestiny in the world empowered to hold such language?

47. And yet virtue often is chastised, and the advent of misfortunehastened, by the soul's very strength; for the greater our love may be, the greater the surface becomes we expose to majestic sorrow; whereforenone the less does the sage never cease his endeavours to enlarge thisbeautiful surface. Yes, it must be admitted, destiny is not alwayscontent to crouch in the darkness; her ice-cold hands will at times goprowling in the light, and seize on more beautiful victims. The tragicname of Antigone has already escaped me; and there will, doubtless, bemany will say, "She surely fell victim to destiny, all her great forcenotwithstanding; and is she not the instance we long have been seekingin vain?" It cannot be gainsaid: Antigone fell into the hands of theruthless goddess, for the reason that there lay in her soul three timesthe strength of any ordinary woman. She died; for fate had contrived itso that she had to choose between death and what seemed to her asister's imperative duty. She suddenly found herself wedged betweendeath and love--love of the purest and most disinterested kind, itsobject being a shade she would never behold on earth. And if destinythus has enabled to lure her into the murderous angle that duty anddeath had formed, it was only because her soul, that was loftier farthan the soul of the others, saw, stretching before it, theinsurmountable barrier of duty--that her poor sister Ismene could notsee, even when it was shown her. And, at that moment, as they bothstood there on the threshold of the palace, the same voices spoke tothem; Antigone listening only to the voice from above, wherefore shedied; Ismene unconscious of any save that which came from below--andshe lived. But instil into Antigone's soul something of the weaknessthat paralysed Ophelia and Margaret, would destiny then have thought itof service to beckon to death as the daughter of Oedipus issued fromthe doorway of Creon's palace? It was, therefore, solely because of thestrength of her soul that destiny was able to triumph. And, indeed, itis this that consoles the wise and the just--the heroes; destiny canvanquish them only by the good she compels them to do. Other men arelike cities with hundred gates, that she finds unguarded and open; butthe upright man is a fortified city, with the one gate only--of light;and this gate remains closed till love be induced to knock, and tocrave admission. Other men she compels to obey her; and destiny, doingher will, wills nothing but evil; but would she subdue the upright, sheneeds must desire noble acts. Darkness then will no longer enwrap herapproach. The upright man is secure in the light that enfolds him; andonly by a light more radiant still can she hope to prevail. Destinythen will become more beautiful still than her victim. Ordinary men shewill place between personal sorrow and the misfortune of others; but tomaster the hero or saint, she must cause him to choose between thehappiness of others and the grief that shall fall on himself. Ordinarymen she lays siege to with the aid of all that is ugly; against theothers she perforce must enlist whatever is noblest on earth. Againstthe first she has thousands of weapons, the very stones in the roadbecoming engines of mischief; but the others she can only attack withone irresistible sword, the gleaming sword of duty and truth. InAntigone's story is found the whole tale of destiny's empire on wisdom. Jesus who died for us, Curtius who leaped into the gulf, Socrates whorefused to desist from his teaching, the sister of charity who yieldsup her life to tending the sick, the humble wayfarer who perishesseeking to rescue his fellows from death--all these have been forced tochoose, all these bear the mark of Antigone's glorious wound on theirbreast. For truly those who live in the light have their magnificentperils also; and wisdom has danger for such as shrink fromself-sacrifice, though it may be that they who shrink fromself-sacrifice are perhaps not very wise. 

48. Pronounce the word "destiny, " and in the minds of all men an imagearises of gloom and of terror--of death. In their thoughts they regardit, instinctively, as the lane that leads straight to the tomb. Mostoften, indeed, it is only the name that they give unto death, when itshand is not visible yet. It is death that looms in the future, theshadow of death upon life. "None can escape his destiny" we oftenexclaim when we hear of death lying in wait for the traveller at thebend of the road. But were the traveller to encounter happinessinstead, we would never ascribe this to destiny; if we did, we shouldhave in our mind a far different goddess. And yet, are not joys to bemet with on the highways of life that are greater than any misfortune, more momentous even than death? May a happiness not be encountered thatthe eye cannot see? and is it not of the nature of happiness to be lessmanifest than misfortune, to become ever less apparent to the eye as itreaches loftier heights? But to this we refuse to pay heed. The wholevillage, the town, will flock to the spot where some wretched adventuretakes place; but there are none will pause for an instant and let theireyes rest on a kiss, or a vision of beauty that gladdens the soul, aray of love that illumines the heart. And yet may the kiss beproductive of joy no less great than the pain that follows a wound. Weare unjust; we never associate destiny with happiness; and if we do notregard it as being inseparable from death, it is only to connect itwith disaster even greater than death itself. 

49. Were I to refer to the destiny of OEdipus, Joan of Arc, Agamemnon, you would give not a thought to their lives, but only behold the lastmoments of all, the pathway of death. You would stoutly maintain thattheir destiny was of the saddest, for that their end was sad. Youforget, however, that death can never be happy; but nevertheless it isthus we are given to judging of life. It is as though death swallowedall; and should accident suddenly end thirty years Lot unclouded joy, the thirty years would be hidden away from our eyes by the gloom of onesorrowful hour. 

50. It is wrong to think of destiny only in connection with death anddisaster. When shall we cease to believe that death, and not life, isimportant; that misfortune is greater than happiness? Why, when we tryto sum up a man's destiny, keep our eyes fixed only on the tears thathe shed, and never on the smiles of his joy? Where have we learned thatdeath fixes the value of life, and not life that of death? We deplorethe destiny of Socrates, Duncart, Antigone, and many others whose liveswere noble; we deplore; their destiny because their end was sudden andcruel; and we are fain to admit that misfortune prevails over wisdomand virtue alike. But, first of all, you yourself are neither just norwise if you seek in wisdom and justice aught else but wisdom andjustice alone. And further, what right have we thus to sum up an entireexistence in the one hour of death? Why conclude, from the fact thatSocrates and Antigone met with unhappy ends, that it was their wisdomor virtue brought unhappiness to them? Does death occupy more space inlife than birth? Yet do you not take the sage's birth into account asyou ponder over his destiny. Happiness or unhappiness arises from allthat we do from the day of our birth to the day of our death; and it isnot in death, but indeed in the days and the years that precede it, that we can discover a man's true happiness or sorrow--in a word, hisdestiny. We seem to imagine that the sage, whose terrible death iswritten in history, spent all his life in sad anticipation of the endhis wisdom prepared; whereas in reality, the thought of death troublesthe wise far less than it troubles the wicked. Socrates had far lesscause than Macbeth to dread an unhappy end. And unhappy as his deathmay have been, it at least had not darkened his life; he had not spentall his days in dying preliminary deaths, as did the Thane of Cawdor. But it is difficult for us not to believe that a wound, that bleeds afew hours, must crumble away into nothingness all the peace of alifetime. 

51. I do not pretend that destiny is just, that it rewards the good andpunishes the wicked. What soul that were sure of reward could everclaim to be good? But we are less just than destiny even, when it isdestiny that we judge. Our eyes see only the sage's misfortune, formisfortune is known to us all; but we see not his happiness, for tounderstand the happiness of the wise and the just whose destinies weendeavour to gauge, we must needs be possessed of wisdom and justicethat shall be fully equal to theirs. When a man of inferior soulendeavours to estimate a great sage's happiness, this happiness flowsthrough his fingers like water; yet is it heavy as gold, and asbrilliant as gold, in the hand of a brother sage. For to each is thehappiness given that he can best understand. The sage's misfortune mayoften resemble the one that befalls other men; but his happiness hasnothing in common with that which he who is not wise terms happiness. In happiness there are far more regions unknown than there are inmisfortune. The voice of misfortune is ever the same; happiness becomesthe more silent as it penetrates deeper. 

When we put our misfortunes into one scale of the balance, each of uslays, in the other, all that he deems to be happiness. The savageflings feathers, and powder, and alcohol into the scale; civilised mensome gold, a few days of delirium; but the sage will deposit thereincountless things our eyes cannot see--all his soul, it may be, and eventhe misfortune that he will have purified. 

52. There is nothing in all the world more just than happiness, nothingthat will more faithfully adopt the form of our soul, or so carefullyfill the space that our wisdom clings open. Yet is it most silent ofall that there is in the world. The Angel of Sorrow can speak everylanguage--there is not a word but she knows; but the lips of the Angelof Happiness are sealed, save when she tells of the savage's joys. Itis hundreds of centuries past that misfortune was cradled, buthappiness seems even now to have scarcely emerged from its infancy. There are some men have learned to be happy; why are there none whosegreat gladness has urged them to lift up their voice in the name of thesilent Archangel who has flooded their soul with light? Are we notalmost teaching happiness if we do only speak of it; invoking it, if welet no day pass without pronouncing its name? And is it not the firstduty of those who are happy to tell of their gladness to others? Allmen can learn to be happy; and the teaching of it is easy. If you liveamong those who daily call blessing on life, it shall not be long ereyou will call blessing on yours. Smiles are as catching as tears; andperiods men have termed happy, were periods when there existed some whoknew of their happiness. Happiness rarely is absent; it is we that knownot of its presence. The greatest felicity avails us nothing if we knownot that we are happy; there is more joy in the smallest delightwhereof we are conscious, than in the approach of the mightiesthappiness that enters not into our soul. There are only too many whothink that what they have cannot be happiness; and therefore is it theduty of such as are happy, to prove to the others that they onlypossess what each man possesses deep down in the depths of his heart. To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest ofhappiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to usone to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, thatall men regarded with envy; and if he were very simply to say to us, "All is mine that you pray for each day: I have riches, and youth, andhealth; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am trulyable to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts thatfortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from thesegifts to fix my eyes far above happiness. If my marvellous travels andvictories, my strength and my love, have brought me the peace and thegladness I sought, it is only because they have taught me that it isnot in them that the veritable gladness and peace can be found. It wasin myself they existed, before all these triumphs; and still in myselfare they now, after all my achievement; and I know full well that hadbut a little more wisdom been mine, I might have enjoyed all I nowenjoy without the aid of so much good fortune. I know that today I amhappier still than I was yesterday, because I have learned at last thatI stand in no need of good fortune in order to free my soul, to bringpeace to my thoughts, to enlighten my heart. "

53. Of this the sage is fully aware, though no superhuman happiness mayhave descended upon him. The upright man knows it too, though he beless wise than the sage, and his consciousness less fully developed;for an act of goodness or justice brings with it a kind of inarticulateconsciousness that often becomes more effective, more faithful, moreloving, than the consciousness that springs into being from the verydeepest thought. Acts of this nature bring, above all, a specialknowledge of happiness. Strive as we may, our loftiest thoughts arealways uncertain, unstable; but the light of a goodly deed shinessteadily on, and is lasting. There are times when deep thought is nomore than merely fictitious consciousness; but an act of charity, theheroic duty fulfilled--these are true consciousness; in other words, happiness in action. The happiness of Marcus Aurelius, who condones amortal affront; of Washington, giving up power when he feared that hisglory was leading his people astray--the happiness of these will differby far from that of some mean-souled, venomous creature who might (ifsuch a thing may be assumed) by mere chance have discovered someextraordinary natural law. Long is the road that leads from thesatisfied brain to the heart at rest, and only such joys will nourishthere as are proof against winter's storms. Happiness is a plant thatthrives far more readily in moral than in intellectual life. Consciousness--the consciousness of happiness, above all--will notchoose the intellect as a hiding-place for the treasure it holds mostdear. At times it would almost seem as if all that is loftiest inintellect, fraught with most comfort, is transformed into consciousnessonly when passed through an act of virtue. It suffices not to discovernew truths in the world of thought or of fact. For ourselves, a truthonly lives from the moment it modifies, purifies, sweetens something wehave in our soul. To be conscious of moral improvement is of theessence of consciousness. Some beings there are, of vigorous intellect, whose intellect never is used to discover a fault, or foster a feelingof charity. And this happens often with women. In cases where a man anda woman have equal intellectual power, the woman will always devote farless of this power to acquiring moral self-knowledge. And truly theintellect that aims not at consciousness is but beating its wings inthe void. Loss and corruption needs must ensue if the force of ourbrain be not at once gathered up in the purest vase of our heart. Norcan such an intellect ever know happiness; nay, it seems to invitemisfortune. For intellect may be of the loftiest, mightiest, and yetperhaps never draw near unto joy; but in the soul that is gentle, andpure, and good, sorrow cannot for ever abide. And even though theboundary line between intellect and consciousness be not always asclearly defined as here we seem to assume, even though a beautifulthought in itself may be often a goodly action--yet, none the less willa beautiful thought, that springs not from noble deed, or wherefromnoble deed shall not spring, add but little unto our felicity; whereasa good deed, though it father no thought, will ever fall like softbountiful rain on our knowledge of happiness. 

54. "How final must his farewell to happiness have been, " exclaimsRenan, speaking of the renouncement of Marcus Aurelius--"how final musthis farewell to happiness have been, for him to be capable of suchexcess! None will ever know how great was the suffering of that poor, stricken heart, or the bitterness the waxen brow concealed, calmalways, and even smiling. It is true that the farewell to happiness isthe beginning of wisdom, and the surest road to happiness. There isnothing sweeter than the return of joy that follows the renouncement ofjoy, as there is nothing more exquisite, of keener, deeper delight, than the enchantment of the disenchanted. "

In these terms does a sage describe a sage's happiness; but is it truethat the happiness of Marcus Aurelius, as of Renan himself, arose onlyfrom the return of joy that followed the renouncement of joy, and fromthe enchantment of the disenchanted? For then were it better thatwisdom be less, that we be the less disenchanted. But what can thewisdom desire that declares itself thus disenchanted? Was it not truththat it sought? and is there a truth that can stifle the love of truthin the depths of a loyal heart? The truth that has taught you that manis wicked and nature unjust; that justice is futile, and love withoutpower, has indeed taught you nothing if it have not at the same timerevealed a truth that is greater still, one that throws on thesedisillusions a light more brilliant, more ample, than the myriadflickering beams it has quenched all around you, For there lurksunspeakable pride, and pride of the poorest kind, in thus declaringourselves satisfied because we can find satisfaction in nothing thatis. Such satisfaction, in truth, is discontent only, too sluggish tolift its head; and they only are discontented who no longer wouldunderstand. 

Does not the man who conceives it his duty to forswear all happinessrenounce something as well that, as yet, has not turned into happiness?And besides, what are the joys to which we bid this somewhat affectedfarewell? It must surely be right to discard all happiness injurious toothers; but happiness that injures others will not long wear thesemblance of happiness in the eyes of the sage. And when his wisdom atlength has revealed the profounder joys, will it not be in allunconsciousness that he renounces those of lesser worth?

Let us never put faith in the wisdom or gladness that is based oncontempt of a single existing thing; for contempt and renouncement, itssickly offspring, offer asylum to none but the weak and the aged. Wehave only the right to scorn a joy when such scorn is whollyunconscious. But so long as we listen to the voice of contempt orrenouncement, so long as we suffer these to flood our heart withbitterness, so long must the joy we discard be a joy that we stilldesire. 

We must beware lest there enter our soul certain parasitic virtues. Andrenouncement, often, is only a parasite. Even if it do not enfeeble ourinward life, it must inevitably bring disquiet. Just as bees cease fromwork at the approach of an intruder into their hive, so will thevirtues and strength of the soul into which contempt or renouncementhas entered, forsake all their tasks, and eagerly flock round thecurious guest that has come in the wake of pride; for so long asrenouncement be conscious, so long will the happiness found thereinhave its origin truly in pride. And he who is bent on renouncement hadbest, first of all, forswear the delights of pride, for these arewholly vain and wholly deceptive. 

55. Within reach of all, demanding neither boldness nor energy, is this"enchantment of the disenchanted!" But what name shall we give to theman who renounces that which brought happiness to him, and rather wouldsurely lose it to-day than live in fear lest fortune haply deprive himthereof on the morrow? Is the mission of wisdom only to peer into theuncertain future, with ear on the stretch for the footfall of sorrowthat never may come--but deaf to the whirr of the wings of thehappiness that fills all space?

Let us not look to renouncement for happiness till we have sought itelsewhere in vain. It is easy to be wise if we be content to regard ashappiness the void that is left by the absence of happiness. But it wasnot for unhappiness the sage was created; and it is more glorious, aswell as more human, to be happy and still to be wise. The supremeendeavour of wisdom is only to seek in life for the fixed point ofhappiness; but to seek this fixed point in renouncement and farewell tojoy, is only to seek it in death. He who moves not a limb is persuaded, perhaps, he is wise; but was this the purpose wherefor mankind wascreated? Ours is the choice--whether wisdom shall be the honoured wifeof our passions and feelings, our thoughts and desires, or themelancholy bride of death. Let the tomb have its stagnant wisdom, butlet there be wisdom also for the hearth where the fire still burns. 

56. It is not by renouncing the joys that are near us that we shallgrow wise; but as we grow wise we unconsciously abandon the joys thatnow are beneath us. Even so does the child, as years come to him, giveup one by one without thinking the games that have ceased to amuse. Andjust as the child learns far more from his play than from work that isgiven him, so does wisdom progress far more quickly in happiness thanin misfortune. It is only one side of morality that unhappiness throwsinto light; and the man whom sorrow has taught to be wise, is like onewho has loved and never been loved in return. There must always besomething unknown to the love whereto no other love has made answer;and this, too, will remain unknown to him whose wisdom is born ofsorrow. 

"Is happiness truly as happy as people imagine?" was asked of two happyones once by a philosopher whom protracted injustice had saddened. No;it is a thing more desirable far, but also much less to be envied, thanpeople suppose; for it is in itself quite other than they can conceivewho have never been perfectly happy. To be gay is not to be happy, norwill he who is happy always be gay. It is only the little ephemeralpleasures that forever are smiling; and they die away as they smile. But some loftiness once obtained, lasting happiness becomes no lessgrave than majestic sorrow. Wise men have said it were best for us notto be happy, so that happiness thus might be always the one thingdesired. But how shall the sage, to whom happiness never has come, beaware that wisdom is the one thing alone that happiness neither cansadden nor weary? Those thinkers have learned to love wisdom with a farmore intimate love whose lives have been happy, than those whose liveshave been sad. The wisdom forced into growth by misfortune is differentfar from the wisdom that ripens beneath happiness. The first, where itseeks to console, must whisper of happiness; the other tells of itself. He who is sad is taught by his wisdom that happiness yet may be his; hewho is happy is taught by his wisdom that he may become wiser still. The discovery of happiness may well be the great aim of wisdom; and weneeds must be happy ourselves before we can know that wisdom itselfcontains all. 

57. There are some who are wholly unable to support the burden of joy. There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow. It mayeven be true that permanent happiness calls for more strength in manthan permanent sorrow; for the heart wherein wisdom is not delightsmore in the expectation of that which it has not yet, than in the fullpossession of all it has ever desired. He in whom happiness dwells isamazed at the heart that finds aliment only in fear or in hope, andthat cannot be nourished on what it possesses, though it possess all itever desired. 

We often see men who are strong and morally prudent whom happiness yetovercomes. Not finding therein all they sought, they do not defend it, or cling to it, with the energy needful in life. We must have alreadyacquired some not inconsiderable wisdom to be undismayed at perceivingthat happiness too has its sorrow, and to be not induced by this sorrowto think that ours cannot be the veritable happiness. The most preciousgift that happiness brings is the knowledge that springs up within usthat it is not a thing of mere ecstasy, but a thing that bids usreflect. It becomes far less rare, far less inaccessible, from themoment we know that its greatest achievement is to give to the soulthat is able to prize it an increase of consciousness, which the soulcould elsewhere never have found. To know what happiness means is offar more importance to the soul of man than to enjoy it. To be ablelong to love happiness great wisdom needs must be ours; but a wisdomstill greater for us to perceive, as we lie in the bosom of cloudlessjoy, that the fixed and stable part of that joy is found in the forcewhich, deep down in our consciousness, could render us happy stillthough misfortune wrapped us around. Do not believe you are happy tillyou have been led by your happiness up to the heights whence itselfdisappears from your gaze, but leaving you still, unimpaired, thedesire to live. 

58. There are some profound thinkers, such as Pascal, Schopenhauer, Hello, who seem not to have been happy, for all that the sense of theinfinite, universal, eternal, was loftily throned in their soul. But itmay well be an error to think that he who gives voice to themultitude's sorrow must himself always be victim to great personaldespair. The horizon of sorrow, surveyed from the height of a thoughtthat has ceased to be selfish, instinctive, or commonplace, differs butlittle from the horizon of happiness when this last is regarded fromthe height of a thought of similar nature, but other in origin. Andafter all, it matters but little whether the clouds be golden or gloomythat yonder float over the plain; the traveller is glad to have reachedthe eminence whence his eye may at last repose on illimitable space. The sea is not the less marvellous and mysterious to us though whitesails be not for ever flitting over its surface; and neither tempestnor day that is radiant and calm is able to bring enfeeblement unto thelife of our soul. Enfeeblement comes through our dwelling, by night andby day, in the airless room of our cold, self-satisfied, trivial, ungenerous thoughts, at a time when the sky all around our abode isreflecting the light of the ocean. 

But there is a difference perhaps between the sage and the thinker. Itmay be that sorrow will steal over the thinker as he stands on theheight he has gained; but the sage by his side only smiles--and thissmile is so loyal, so human and natural, that the humblest creature ofall must needs understand, and will gladly welcome it to him, as itfalls like a flower to the foot of the mountain. The thinker throwsopen the road "which leads from the seen to the unseen;" the sagethrows open the highway that takes us from that which we love to-day tothat which we yet shall love, and the paths that ascend from that whichhas ceased to console to that which, for long time to come, shall beladen with deep consolation. It is needful, but not all-sufficient, tohave reflected deeply and boldly on man, and nature, and God; for theprofoundest thought is of little avail if it contain no germ ofcomfort. Indeed, it is only thought that the thinker, as yet, does norwholly possess; as the other thoughts are, too, that remain outside ournormal, everyday life. It is easier far to be sad and dwell inaffliction than at once to do what time in the end will always compelus to do: to shake ourselves free from affliction. He who spends hisdays gloomily, in constant mistrust of his fellows, will often appear aprofounder thinker than the other, who lives in the faith and honestsimplicity wherein all men should dwell. Is there a man can believe hehas done all it lay in his power to do if, as he meditates thus, in thename of his brethren, on the sorrows of life, he hides fromthem--anxious, perhaps, not to weaken his grandiose picture ofsorrow--the reasons wherefore he accepts life, reasons that must bedecisive, since he himself continues to live? The thought must beincomplete surely whose object is not to console. It is easier for youto tell me the cause of your sorrow than, very simply, to speak of thedeeper, the weightier reasons that induce your instinct to cling tothis life whose distress you bemoan. Which of us finds not, unsought, many thousands of reasons for sorrow? It is doubtless of service thatthe sage should point out those that are loftiest, for the loftiestreasons for sorrow must be on the eve of becoming reasons for gladnessand joy. But reasons that have not within them these germs of greatnessand happiness--and in moral life open spaces abound where greatness andhappiness blend--these are surely not worthy of mention. Before we canbring happiness to others, we first must be happy ourselves; nor willhappiness abide within us unless we confer it on others. If there be asmile upon our lips, those around us will soon smile too; and ourhappiness will become the truer and deeper as we see that these othersare happy. "It is not seemly that I, who, willingly, have broughtsorrow to none, should permit myself to be sad, " said Marcus Aurelius, in one of his noblest passages. But are we not saddening ourselves, andlearning to sadden others, if we refuse to accept all the happinessoffered to man?

59. The humble thought that connects a mere satisfied glance, anordinary, everyday act of simple kindness, or an insignificant momentof happiness, with something eternal, and stable, and beautiful, is offar greater value, and infinitely nearer to the mystery of life, thanthe grand and gloomy meditation wherein sorrow, love, and despair blendwith death and destiny and the apathetic forces of nature. Appearancesoften deceive us. Hamlet, bewailing his fate on the brink of the gulf, seems profounder, imbued with more passion, than Antoninus Pius, whosetranquil gaze rests on the self-same forces, but who accepts them andquestions them calmly, instead of recoiling in horror and calling downcurses upon them. Our slightest gesture at nightfall seems moremomentous by far than all we have done in the day; but man was createdto work in the light, and not to burrow in darkness. 

60. The smallest consoling idea has a strength of its own that is notto be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisiteexpression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with itnothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness tothrow light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought ofhope, or of cheerful acceptance of inevitable law, in itself already isaction in search of a foothold wherefrom to take flight into life. Itcannot be harmful for us to acknowledge at times that action beginswith reality only, though our thoughts be never so large anddisinterested and admirable in themselves. 'For all that goes to buildup what is truly our destiny is contained in those of our thoughtswhich, hurried along by the mass of ideas still obscure, indistinct, incomplete, have had strength sufficient--or been forced, it may be--toturn into facts, into gestures, into feelings and habits. We do notimply by this that the other thoughts should be neglected. Those thatsurround our actual life may perhaps be compared with an army besieginga city. The city once taken, the bulk of the troops would probably notbe permitted to pass through the gates. Admission would be doubtlesswithheld from the irregular part of the army--barbarians, mercenaries, all those, in a word, whose natural tendencies would lead them todrunkenness, pillage, or bloodshed. And it might also very well happenthat fully two-thirds of the troops would have taken no part in thefinal decisive battle. But there often is value in forces that appearto be useless; and the city would evidently not have yielded to panicand thrown open her gates, had the well-disciplined force at the footof the walls not been flanked by the hordes in the valley. So is it inmoral life, too. Those thoughts are not wholly vain that have beenunable to touch our actual life; they have helped on, supported, theothers; yet is it these others alone that have fully accomplished theirmission And therefore does it behove us to have in our service, drawnup in front of the crowded ranks of our sad and bewildered thoughts, agroup of ideas more human and confident, ready at all times topenetrate vigorously into life. 

61. Even when our endeavour to emerge from reality is due to the purestdesire for immaterial good, one gesture must still be worth more than athousand intentions; nor is this that intentions are valueless, butthat the least gesture of goodness, or courage, or justice, makesdemands upon us far greater than a thousand lofty intentions. Chiromantists pretend that the whole of our life is engraved on ourpalm; our life, according to them, being a certain number of actionswhich imprint ineffaceable marks on our flesh, before or afterfulfilment; whereas not a trace will be left by either thoughts orintentions. If I have for many long days cherished projects of murderor treachery, heroism or sacrifice, my hand will tell nothing of these;but if I have killed some one--involuntarily perhaps, imagining he wasabout to attack me; or if I have rescued a child from the flames thatenwrapped it--my hand will bear, all my life, the infallible sign oflove or of murder. Chiromancy maybe delusion or not--it matters butlittle; here we are concerned with the great moral truth that underliesthis distinction. The place that I fill in the universe will never bechanged by my thought; I shall be as I was to the day of my death; butmy actions will almost invariably move me forwards or backwards in thehierarchy of man. Thought is a solitary, wandering, fugitive force, which advances towards us today and perhaps on the morrow will vanish, whereas every deed presupposes a permanent army of ideas and desireswhich have, after lengthy effort, secured foot-hold in reality. 

62. But we find ourselves here far away from the noble Antigone and theeternal problem of unproductive virtue. It is certain thatdestiny--understood in the ordinary sense of the word as meaning theroad that leads only to death--is wholly disregardful of virtue. Thisis the gulf, to which all systems of morality must come, as to acentral reservoir, to be purified or troubled for ever; and here musteach man decide whether he will justify fate or condemn it. Antigone'ssacrifice may well be regarded as the type of all such as are made inthe cause of duty. Do we not all of us know of heroic deeds whosereward has been only misfortune? A friend of my own, one day, as he layon the bed he was never to leave save for that other one only which iseternal, pointed out to me, one after the other, the differentstratagems fate had contrived to lure him to the distant city, wherethe draught of poisonous water awaited him that he was to swallow, wherefrom he must die. Strangely clear were the countless webs thatdestiny had spun round this life; and the most trivial event seemedendowed with marvellous malice and forethought. Yet had my friendjourneyed forth to that city in fulfilment of one of those duties thatonly the saint, or the hero, the sage, detects on the horizon ofconscience. What can we say? But let us leave this point for themoment, to return to it later. My friend, had he lived, would on themorrow have gone to another city, called thither by another duty; norwould he have paused to inquire whether it was indeed duty thatsummoned him. There are beings who do thus obey the commands that theirheart whispers low. They fret not at fortune's injustice; they care notthough virtue be thankless; theirs it is only to fight the injustice ofmen, which is the only injustice whereof they, as yet, seem aware. 

Ought we never to hesitate, then? and is our duty most faithfully donewhen we ourselves are wholly unconscious that this thing that we do isa duty? Is it most essential of all that we should attain a heightwhence duty no longer is looked on as the choice of our noblestfeelings, but as the silent necessity of all the nature within us?

63. There are some who wait and question themselves, who ponder, consider, and then at length decide. They too are right, for it mattersbut little whether the duty fulfilled be result of instinct orintellect. The gestures of instinct will often recall the delicate, naive and vague, unexpected beauty that clings to the child's leastmovement, and touches us deeply; but the gestures of matured resolvehave a beauty, too, of their own, more earnest and statelier, stronger. It is given to very few hearts to be naively perfect, nor should we goseek in them for the laws of duty. And besides, there is many asober-hued duty that instinct will fail to perceive, that yet will beclearly espied by mature resolution, bereft though this be of illusion;and man's moral value is doubtless established by the number of dutieshe sees and sets forth to accomplish. 

It is well that the bulk of mankind should listen to the instinct thatprompts them to sacrifice self on the altar of duty, and that withouttoo close self-questioning; for long must the questioning be ereconsciousness will give forth the same answer as instinct. And thosewho do thus close their eyes, and in all meekness follow theirinstinct, are in truth following the light that is borne at their head, though they know it not, see it not, by the best of their ancestors. But still this is not the ideal; and he who gives up the least thing ofall for the sake of his brother, well knowing what it is he gives upand wherefore he does it, stands higher by far in the scale of moralitythan the other, who flings away life without throwing one glance behind. 

64. In this world there are thousands of weak, noble creatures whofancy that sacrifice always must be the last word of duty; thousands ofbeautiful souls that know not what should be done, and seek only toyield up their life, holding that to be virtue supreme. They are wrong;supreme virtue consists in the knowledge of what should be done, in thepower to decide for ourselves whereto we should offer our life. Theduty each holds to be his is by no means his permanent duty. Theparamount duty of all is to throw our conception of duty into clearestpossible light. The word duty itself will often contain far more errorand moral indifference than virtue. Clytemnestra devoted her life torevenge--she murdered her husband for that he had slain Iphigenia;Orestes sacrificed his life in avenging Agamemnon's death onClytemnestra. And yet it has only needed a sage to pass by, saying, "pardon your enemies, " for all duties of vengeance to be banished forever from the conscience of man. And so may it one day suffice thatanother sage shall pass by for many a duty of sacrifice too to beexiled. But in the meanwhile there are certain ideas that prevail onrenouncement, resignation, and sacrifice, that are far more destructiveto the most beautiful moral forces of man than great vices, or eventhan crimes. 

65. There are some occasions in life, inevitable and of generalbearing, that demand resignation, which is necessary then, and good;but there are many occasions when we still are able to fight; and atsuch times resignation is no more than veiled helplessness, idleness, ignorance. So is it with sacrifice too, which indeed is most often thewithered arm resignation still shakes in the void. There is beauty insimple self-sacrifice when its hour has come unsought, when its motiveis happiness of others; but it cannot be wise, or of use to mankind, tomake sacrifice the aim of one's life, or to regard its achievement asthe magnificent triumph of the spirit over the body. (And here let usadd that infinitely too great importance is generally ascribed to thetriumph of spirit over body, these pretended triumphs being most oftenthe total defeat of life. ) Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue willpluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue setforth on its travels. It is a grave, error to think that the beauty ofsoul is most clearly revealed by the eager desire for sacrifice; forthe soul's fertile beauty resides in its consciousness, in theelevation and power of its life. There are some, it is true, that awakefrom their sleep at the call of sacrifice only; but these lack thestrength and the courage to seek other forms of moral existence. It is, as a rule, far easier to sacrifice self--to give up, that is, our moralexistence to the first one who chooses to take it--than to fulfil ourspiritual destiny, to accomplish, right to the end, the task for whichwe were created. It is easier far, as a rule, to die morally, nay, evenphysically, for others, than to learn how best we should live for them. There are too many beings who thus lull to sleep all initiative, personal life, and absorb themselves wholly in the idea that they areprepared and ready for sacrifice. The consciousness that never succeedsin travelling beyond this idea, that is satisfied ever to seek anoccasion for giving all that which it has, is a consciousness whoseeyes are sealed, and that crouches be-numbed at the foot of themountain. There is beauty in the giving of self, and indeed it is onlyby giving oneself that we do, at the end, begin to possess ourselvessomewhat; but if all that we some day shall give to our brethren is thedesire to give them ourselves, then are we surely preparing a gift ofmost slender value. Before giving, let us try to acquire; for this lastis a duty where from we are not relieved by the fact of our giving. Letus wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds; till then, each man to hiswork. The hour will sound at last; but let us not waste all our time inseeking it on the dial of life. 

66. There are many ways of sacrifice; and I speak not here of theself-sacrifice of the strong, who know, as Antigone knew, how to yieldthemselves up when destiny, taking the form of their brothers' manifesthappiness, calls upon them to abandon their own happiness and theirlife. I speak of the sacrifice here that is made by the feeble; thatleans for support, with childish content, on the staff of its owninanity--that is as an old blind nurse, who would rock us in thepalsied arms of renouncement and useless suffering. On this point letus note what John Ruskin says, one of the best thinkers of our time:"The will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other'shappiness and life; not by each other's misery or death. A child mayhave to die for its parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shallrather live for them; that not by sacrifice, but by its strength, itsjoy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; andas the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other rightrelations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. Theyare not intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthenthemselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautifulthings which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not surebut that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good menmust be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taughtthat there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such . . . That theyaccept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; neverunderstanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned becauseit is more fatal to their enemies than to them. "

67. You are told you should love your neighbour as yourself; but if youlove yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even so shall you love yourneighbour. Learn therefore to love yourself with a love that is wiseand healthy, that is large and complete. This is less easy than itwould seem. There is more active charity in the egoism of a strenuousclairvoyant soul than in all the devotion of the soul that is helplessand blind. Before you exist for others it behoves you to exist foryourself; before giving, you first must acquire. Be sure that, ifdeeply considered, more value attaches to the particle of consciousnessgained than to the gift of your entire unconsciousness. Nearly all thegreat things of this world have been done by men who concernedthemselves not at all with ideas of self-sacrifice. Plato's thoughtsflew on--he paused not to let his tears fall with the tears of themourners in Athens; Newton pursued his experiments calmly, nor leftthem to search for objects of pity or sorrow; and Marcus Aurelius aboveall (for here we touch on the most frequent and dangerous form ofself-sacrifice) Marcus Aurelius essayed not to dim the brightness ofhis own soul that he might confer happiness on the inferior soul ofFaustina. And if this was right in the lives of these men, of Plato andNewton and Marcus Aurelius, it is equally right in the life of everysoul; for each soul has, in its sphere, the same obligations to self asthe soul of the greatest. We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power. ' Herein is no egoism, orpride. To become effectually generous and sincerely humble there mustbe within us a confident, tranquil, and clear comprehension of all thatwe owe to ourselves. To this end we may sacrifice even the passion forsacrifice; for sacrifice never should be the means of ennoblement, butonly the sign of our being ennobled. 

68. Let us be ready to offer, when necessity beckons, our wealth, andour time, and our life, to our less fortunate brethren, making themthus an exceptional gift of a few exceptional hours; but the sage isnot bound to neglect his happiness, and all that environs his life, insole preparation for these few exceptional hours of greater or lesserdevotion. The truest morality tells us to cling, above all, to theduties that return every day, to acts of inexhaustible brotherlykindness. And, thus considered, we find that in the everyday walk oflife the solitary thing we can ever distribute among those who march byour side, be they joyful or sad, is the confidence, strength, thefreedom and peace, of our soul. Let the humblest of men, therefore, never cease to cherish and lift up his soul, even as though he werefully convinced that this soul of his should one day be called toconsole or gladden a God. When we think of preparing our soul, thepreparation should never be other than befits a mission divine. In thisdomain only, and on this condition, can man truly give himself, canthere be pre-eminent sacrifice. And think you that when the hour soundsthe gift of a Socrates or Marcus Aurelius--who lived many lives, formany a time had they compassed their whole life around--do you thinksuch a gift is not worth a thousand times more than what would be givenby him who had never stepped over the threshold of consciousness? Andif God there be, will He value sacrifice only by the weight of theblood in our body; and the blood of the heart--its virtue, itsknowledge of self, its moral existence--do you think this will all gofor nothing?

69. It is not by self-sacrifice that loftiness comes to the soul; butas the soul becomes loftier, sacrifice fades out of sight, as theflowers in the valley disappear from the vision of him who toils up themountain. Sacrifice is a beautiful token of unrest; but unrest shouldnot be nurtured within us for sake of itself. To the soul that isslowly awakening all appears sacrifice; but few things indeed are socalled by the soul that at last lives the life whereof self-denial, pity, devotion, are no longer indispensable roots, but only invisibleflowers. For in truth too many do thus feel the need ofdestroying--though it be without cause--a happiness, love, or a hopethat is theirs, thereby to obtain clearer vision of self in the lightof the consuming flame. It is as though they held in their hand a lampof whose use they know nothing; as though, when the darkness comes on, and they are eager for light, they scatter its substance abroad on thefire of the stranger. 

Let us beware lest we act as he did in the fable, who stood watch inthe lighthouse, and gave to the poor in the cabins about him the oil ofthe mighty lanterns that served to illumine the sea. Every soul in itssphere has charge of a lighthouse, for which there is more or lessneed. The humblest mother who allows her whole life to be crushed, tobe saddened, absorbed, by the less important of her motherly duties, isgiving her oil to the poor; and her children will suffer, the whole oftheir life, from there not having been, in the soul of their mother, the radiance it might have acquired. The immaterial force that shinesin our heart must shine, first of all, for itself; for on thiscondition alone shall it shine for the others as well; but see that yougive not away the oil of your lamp, though your lamp be never so small;let your gift be the flame, its crown. 

70. In the soul that is noble altruism must, without doubt, be alwaysthe centre of gravity; but the weak soul is apt to lose itself inothers, whereas it is in others that the strong soul discovers itself. Here we have the essential distinction. There is a thing that isloftier still than to love our neighbour as we love ourselves; it is tolove ourselves in our neighbour. Some souls there are whom goodnesswalks before, as there are others that goodness follows. Let us neverforget that, in communion of soul, the most generous by no means arethey who believe they are constantly giving. A strenuous soul neverceases to take, though it be from the poorest; a weak soul always isgiving, even to those that have most; but there is a manner of givingwhich truly is only the gesture of powerless greed; and we should find, it may be, if reckoning were kept by a God, that in taking from otherswe give, and in giving we take away. Often indeed will it so come aboutthat the very first ray of enlightenment will descend on thecommonplace soul the day it has met with another which took all that ithad to give. 

71. Why not admit that it is not our paramount duty to weep with allthose who are weeping, to suffer with all who are sad, to expose ourheart to the passer-by for him to caress or stab? Tears and sufferingand wounds are helpful to us only when they do not discourage our life. Let us never forget that whatever our mission may be in this world, whatever the aim of our efforts and hopes, and the result of our joysand our sorrows, we are, above all, the blind custodians of life. Absolutely, wholly certain is that one thing only; it is there that wefind the only fixed point of human morality. Life has been givenus--for a reason we know not--but surely not for us to enfeeble it, orcarelessly fling it away. For it is a particular form of life that werepresent on this planet--the life of feeling and thought; whence itfollows perhaps that all that inclines to weaken the ardour of feelingand thought is, in its essence, immoral. Our task let it be then tofoster this ardour, to enhance and embellish it; let us constantlystrive to acquire deeper faith in the greatness of man, in his strengthand his destiny; or, we might equally say, in his bitterness, weakness, and wretchedness; for to be loftily wretched is no less soul-quickeningthan it is to be loftily happy. After all, it matters but littlewhether it be man or the universe that we admire, so long as somethingappear truly admirable to us, and exalt our sense of the infinite. Every new star that is found in the sky will lend of its rays to thepassions, and thoughts, and the courage, of man. Whatever of beauty wesee in all that surrounds us, within us already is beautiful; whateverwe find in ourselves that is great and adorable, that do we find too inothers. If my soul, on awaking this morning, was cheered, as it dwelton its love, by a thought that drew near to a God--a God, we have said, who is doubtless no more than the loveliest desire of our soul--thenshall I behold this same thought astir in the beggar who passes mywindow the moment thereafter; and I shall love him the more for that Iunderstand him the better. And let us not think that love of this kindcan be useless; for indeed, if one day we shall know the thing that hasto be done, it will only be thanks to the few who love in this fashion, with an ever-deepening love. From the conscious and infinite love mustthe true morality spring, nor can there be greater charity than theeffort to ennoble our fellows. But I cannot ennoble you if I have notbecome noble myself; I have no admiration to give you if there benaught in myself I admire. If the deed I have done be heroic, itstruest reward will be my conviction that of an equal deed you arecapable too; this conviction ever will tend to become more spontaneouswithin me, and more unconquerable. Every thought that quickens my heartbrings quickening, too, to the love and respect that I have formankind. As I rise aloft, you rise with me. But if, the better to loveyou, I deem it my duty to tear off the wings from my love, your lovebeing wingless as yet; then shall I have added in vain to the plaintsand the tears in the valley, but brought my own love thereby not onewhit nearer the mountain. Our love should always be lodged on thehighest peak we can attain. Let our love not spring from pity when itcan be born of love; let us not forgive for charity's sake when justiceoffers forgiveness; nor let us try to console there where we canrespect. Let our one never-ceasing care be to better the love that weoffer our fellows. One cup of this love that is drawn from the springon the mountain is worth a hundred taken from the stagnant well ofordinary charity. And if there be one whom you no longer can lovebecause of the pity you feel, or the tears that he sheds; and if heignore to the end that you love him because you ennobled him at thesame time you ennobled yourself, it matters but little after all; foryou have done what you held to be best, and the best is not always mostuseful. Should we not invariably act in this life as though the Godwhom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our everyaction?

72. In a terrible catastrophe that took place but a short timeago, [Footnote: The fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris. ] destinyafforded yet another, and perhaps the most startling instance of whatit pleases men to term her injustice, her blindness, or herirresponsibility. She seemed to have singled out for especialchastisement the solitary external virtue that reason has left us--ourlove for our fellow-man. There must have been some moderately righteousmen amongst the victims, and it seems almost certain that there was atleast one whose virtue was wholly disinterested and sincere. It is thepresence of this one truly good man that warrants our asking, in allits simplicity, the terrible question that rises to our lips. Had henot been there we might have tried to believe that this act ofseemingly monstrous injustice was in reality composed of particles ofsovereign justice. We might have whispered to ourselves that what theytermed charity, out yonder, was perhaps only the arrogant flower ofpermanent injustice. 

We seem unwilling to recognise the blindness of the external forces, such as air, fire, water, the laws of gravity and others, with which wemust deal and do battle. The need is heavy upon us to find excuses forfate; and even when blaming her, we seem to be endeavouring still toexplain the causes of her past and her future action, conscious thewhile of a feeling of pained surprise, as though a man we valued highlyhad done some dreadful deed. We love to idealise destiny, and are wontto credit her with a sense of justice loftier far than our own; andhowever great the injustice whereof she may have been guilty, ourconfidence will soon flow back to her, the first feeling of dismayover; for in our heart we plead that she must have reasons we cannotfathom, that there must be laws we cannot divine. The gloom of theworld would crush us were we to dissociate morality from fate. To doubtthe existence of this high, protecting justice and virtue, would seemto us to be denying the existence of all justice and of all virtue. 

We are no longer able to accept the narrow morality of positivereligion, which entices with reward and threatens with punishment; andyet we are apt to forget that, were fate possessed of the mostrudimentary sense of justice, our conception of a lofty, disinterestedmorality would fade into thin air. What merit in being just ourselvesif we be not convinced of the absolute injustice of fate? We no longerbelieve in the ideals once held by saints, and we are confident that awise God will hold of as little account the duty done through hope ofrecompense, as the evil done for sake of gain; and this even though therecompense hoped for be nothing but the self-ensuing peace of mind. Wesay that God, who must be at least as high as the highest thoughts Hehas implanted in the best of men, will withhold His smile from thosewho have desired but to please Him; and that they only who have donegood for the sake of good and as though He existed not, they only whohave loved virtue more than they loved God Himself, shall be allowed tostand by His side. And yet, and for all this, no sooner does the eventconfront us, than we discover that we still are guided by the "moralmaxims" of our childhood. Of more avail would be a "List of chastisedvirtues. " The soul that is quick with life would find its profittherein; the cause of virtue would gain in vigour and in majesty. Letus not forget that it is from the very nonmorality of destiny that anobler morality must spring into life; for here, as everywhere, man isnever so strong with his own native strength as when he realises thathe stands entirely alone. As we consider the crowning injustice offate, it is the negation of high moral law that disturbs us; but fromthis negation there at once arises a moral law that is higher still. Hewho no longer believes in reward or punishment must do good for thesake of good. Even though a moral law seem on the eve of disappearing, we need have no cause for disquiet; its place will be speedily filledby a law that is greater still. To attribute morality to fate is but tolessen the purity of our ideal; to admit the injustice of fate is tothrow open before us the ever-widening fields of a still loftiermorality. Let us not think virtue will crumble, though God Himself seemunjust. Where shall the virtue of man find more everlasting foundationthan in the seeming injustice of God?

73. Let us not cavil, therefore, at nature's indifference to the sage. It is only because we are not yet wise enough that this indifferenceseems strange; for the first duty of wisdom is to throw into light thehumbleness of the place in the universe that is filled by man. 

Within his sphere he seems of importance, as the bee in its cell ofhoney; but it were idle to suppose that a single flower the more willblossom in the fields because the queen bee has proved herself aheroine in the hive. We need not fear that we depreciate ourselves whenwe extol the universe. Whether it be ourselves or the entire world thatwe consider great, still will there quicken within our soul the senseof the infinite, which is of the life-blood of virtue. What is an actof virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is withinourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation willnot swerve. They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouringfor the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act ofgoodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of along inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours anddays on the sunniest heights of our soul. No reward coming after theevent can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. The uprightman who perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because hissoul had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love, or glory could have given him. Were the flames to retreat before suchmen, were the waters to open and death to hesitate, what wererighteousness or heroism then? Would not the true happiness of virtuebe destroyed? virtue that is happy because it is noble and pure, thatis noble and pure because it desires no reward? There may be human joyin doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expectingnothing in return know a joy that is divine. Where we do evil ourreasons mostly are known to us, but our good deed becomes the purer forour ignorance of its motive. Would we know how to value the righteousman, we have but to question him as to the motives of hisrighteousness. He will probably be the most truly righteous who isleast ready with his answer. Some may suppose that as intellect widensmany a motive for heroism will be lost to the soul; but it should beborne in mind that the wider intellect brings with it an ideal ofheroism loftier and more disinterested still. And this much at least iscertain: he who thinks that virtue stands in need of the approval ofdestiny or of worlds, has not yet within him the veritable sense ofvirtue. Truly to act well we must do good because of our craving forgood, a more intimate knowledge of goodness being all we expect inreturn. "With no witness save his heart alone, " said St. Just. In theeyes of a God there must surely be marked distinction between the soulof the man who believes that the rays of a virtuous deed shall shinethrough furthest space, and the soul of the other who knows theyillumine his heart alone. There may be greater momentary strength inthe overambitious truth, but the strength that is brought by the humblehuman truth is far more earnest and patient. Is it wiser to be as thesoldier who imagines that each blow he strikes brings victory nearer, or as the other who knows his little account in the combat but stillfights sturdily on? The upright man would scorn to deceive hisneighbour, but is ever unduly inclined to regard some measure ofself-deception as inseparable from his ideal. 

If there were profit in virtue, then would the noblest of men becompelled to seek happiness elsewhere; and God would destroy their mainobject in life were He to reward them often. Nothing is indispensable, perhaps, or even necessary; and it may be that if the joy of doing goodfor sake of good were taken from the soul, it would find other, purerjoys; but in the meantime, it is the most beautiful joy we know, therefore let us respect it. Let us not resent the misfortunes thatsometimes befall virtue, lest we at the same time disturb the limpidessence of its happiness. The soul that has this happiness dreams nomore of reward, than others expect punishment because of theirwickedness. They only are ever clamouring for justice who know it notin their lives. 

74. There is wisdom in the Hindu saying: "Work as they work, who areambitious. Respect life, as they respect it who desire it. Be happy, asthey are happy who live for happiness alone. "

And this is indeed the central point of human wisdom--to act as thougheach deed must bear wondrous, everlasting, fruit, and yet to realisethe insignificance of a just action before the universe; to grasp thedisproportion of things, and yet to march onwards as though theproportions were established by man; to keep our eyes fixed on thegreat sphere, and ourselves to move in the little sphere with as muchconfidence and earnestness, with as much assurance and satisfaction, asthough the great sphere were contained within it. 

Is there need of illusion to keep alive our desire for good? then mustthis desire stand confessed as foreign to the nature of man. It is amistake to imagine that the heart will long cherish within it the ideasthat reason has banished; but within the heart there is much thatreason may take to itself. And at last the heart becomes the refuge towhich reason is apt to fly, ever more and more simply, each time thatthe night steals upon it; for it is to the heart as a young, clairvoyant girl, who still at times needs advice from her blind, butsmiling, mother. There comes a moment in life when moral beauty seemsmore urgent, more penetrating, than intellectual beauty; when all thatthe mind has treasured must be bathed in the greatness of soul, lest itperish in the sandy desert, forlorn as a river that seeks in vain forthe sea. 

75. But let us exaggerate nothing when dealing with wisdom, though itbe wisdom itself. The external forces, we know, will not yield to therighteous man; but still he is absolute lord of most of the innerpowers; and these are for ever spinning the web of nearly all ourhappiness and sorrow. We have said elsewhere that the sage, as hepasses by, intervenes in countless dramas. Indeed his mere presencesuffices to arrest most of the calamities that arise from error orevil. They cannot approach him, or even those who are near him. Achance meeting with creature endowed with simple and loving wisdom hasstayed the hands of men who else had committed countless acts of follyor wickedness; for in life most characters are subordinate, and it ischance alone that determines whether the track which they are to followshall be that of suffering or peace. The atmosphere around Jean-JacquesRousseau was heavy with lamentation and treachery, delirium, deceit, and cunning; whereas Jean Paul moved in the midst of loyalty andnobility, the centre of peace and love. We subdue that in others whichwe have learned to subdue in ourselves. Around the upright man there isdrawn a wide circle of peace, within which the arrows of evil sooncease to fall; nor have his fellows the power to inflict moralsuffering upon him. For indeed if our tears can flow because of ourenemies' malice, it is only because we ourselves would fain make ourenemies weep. If the shafts of envy can wound and draw blood, it isonly because we ourselves have shafts that we wish to throw; iftreachery can wring a groan from us, we must be disloyal ourselves, Only those weapons can wound the soul that it has not yet sacrificed onthe altar of Love. 

76. The dramas of virtue are played on a stage whose mysteries not eventhe wisest can fathom. It is only as the last word is spoken that thecurtain is raised for an instant; we know nothing of all that preceded, of the brightness or gloom that enwrapped it. But of one thing at leastthe just man may be certain; it will be in an act of charity, orjustice, that his destiny will meet him face to face. The blow mustinevitably find him prepared, in a state of grace, as the Christiancalls it; in other words, in a state of inner happiness. And that initself bars the door on evil destiny within us, and closes most of thegates by which external misfortune can enter. As our conception of dutyand happiness gains in dignity, so does the sway of moral sufferingbecome the more restricted and purer. And is not moral suffering themost tyrannical weapon in the armoury of destiny? Our happiness mainlydepends on the freedom that reigns within us; a freedom that widenswith every good deed, and contracts beneath acts of evil. Notmetaphorically, but literally, does Marcus Aurelius free himself eachtime he discovers a new truth in indulgence, each time that he pardons, each time he reflects. Still less of a metaphor is it to declare thatMacbeth enchains himself anew with every fresh crime. And if this betrue of the great crimes of kings and the virtues of heroes, it is noless true of the humblest faults and most hidden virtues of ordinarylife. Many a youthful Marcus Aurelius is still about us; many aMacbeth, who never stirs from his room. However imperfect ourconception of virtue, still let us cling to it; for a moment'sforgetfulness exposes us to all the malignant forces from without. Thesimplest lie to myself, buried though it may be in the silence of mysoul, may yet be as dangerous to my inner liberty as an act oftreachery on the marketplace. And from the moment that my inner libertyis threatened, destiny prowls around my external liberty as stealthilyas a beast of prey that has long been tracking its victim. 

77. Can we conceive a situation in life wherein a man who is truly wiseand noble can be made to suffer as profoundly as the man who followsevil? In this world it is far more certain that vice will be punished, than that virtue will meet with reward; yet we must bear in mind thatit is the habit of crime to shriek aloud beneath its punishment, whereas virtue rewards itself in the silence that is the walled gardenof its happiness. Evil drags horrid catastrophe behind it; but an actof virtue is only a silent offering to the profoundest laws of life;and therefore, doubtless, does the balance of mighty justice seem moreready to incline beneath deeds of darkness than beneath those of light. But if we can scarcely believe that "happiness in crime" be possible, have we more warrant for faith in the "unhappiness of virtue"? We knowthat the executioner can stretch Spinoza on the rack, and that terribledisease will spare Antoninus Pius no more than Goneril or Regan; butpain such as this belongs to the animal, not the human, side of man. Wisdom has indeed sent science, the youngest of her sisters, into therealm of destiny, with the mission to bring the zone of physicalsuffering within ever-narrowing limits; but there are inaccessibleregions within that realm, where disaster ever will rule. Some strickenones there will always be, victims to irreducible injustice; and yetwill the true wisdom, in the midst of its sorrow, only be fortifiedthereby, only gain in self-reliance and humanity all that it, may losein more mystic qualities. We become truly just only when it is finallyborne home to us that we must search within ourselves for our model ofjustice. Again, it is the injustice of destiny that restores man to hisplace in the universe. It is not well that he should for ever bepasting anxious glances about him, like the child that has strayed fromits mother's side. Nor need we believe that these disillusions mustnecessarily give rise to moral discouragement; for the truth that seemsdiscouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strongenough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the moststimulating of falsehoods. But indeed no truth can discourage, whereasmuch that passes as courage only bears the semblance thereof. The thingthat enfeebles the weak will but help to strengthen the strong. "Do youremember the day, " wrote a woman to her lover, "when we sat together bythe window that looked on to the sea, and watched the meek processionof white-sailed ships as they followed each other into harbour? . . . Ah! how that day comes back to me! . . . Do you remember that one shiphad a sail that was nearly black, and that she was the last to come in?And do you remember, too, that the hour of separation was upon us, andthat the arrival of the last boat of all was to be our signal fordeparture? We might perhaps have found cause for sadness in the gloomysail that fluttered at her mast; but we who loved each other had'accepted' life, and we only smiled as we once more recognised thekinship of our thoughts. " Yes, it is thus we should act; and though wecannot always smile as the black sail heaves in sight, yet is itpossible for us to find in our life something that shall absorb us tothe exclusion of sadness, as her love absorbed the woman whose words Ihave quoted. Complaints of injustice grow less frequent as the brainand the heart expand. It is well to remind ourselves that in thisworld, whose fruit we are, all that concerns us must necessarily bemore conformable with our existence than the most beneficent law of ourimagination. The time has arrived perhaps when man must learn to placethe centre of his joys and pride elsewhere than within himself. As thisidea takes firmer root within us, so do we become more conscious of ourhelplessness beneath its overwhelming force; yet is it at the same timeborne home to us that of this force we ourselves form part; and even aswe writhe beneath it, we are compelled to admire, as the youthfulTelemachus admired the power of his father's arm. Our own instinctiveactions awaken within us an eager curiosity, an affectionate, pleasedsurprise: why should we not train ourselves thus to regard theinstinctive actions of nature? We love to throw the dim light of ourreason on to our unconsciousness: why not let it play on what we termthe unconsciousness of the universe? We are no less deeply concernedwith the one than the other. "After he has become acquainted with thepower that is in him, " said a philosopher, "one of the highestprivileges of man is to realise his individual powerlessness. Out ofthe very disproportion between the infinite which kills us and thisnothing that we are, there arises within us a sensation that is notwithout grandeur; we feel that we would rather be crushed by a mountainthan done to death by a pebble, as in war we would rather succumbbeneath the charge of thousands than fall victim to a single arm. Andas our intellect lays bare to us the immensity of our helplessness, sodoes it rob defeat of its sting. " Who knows? We are already consciousof moments when the something that has conquered us seems nearer toourselves than the part of us that has yielded. Of all ourcharacteristics, self-esteem is the one that most readily changes itshome, for we are instinctively aware that it has never truly formedpart of us. The self-esteem of the courtier who waits on the mightyking soon finds more splendid lodging in the king's boundless power;and the disgrace that may befall him will wound his pride the less forthat it has descended from the height of a throne. Were nature tobecome less indifferent, it would no longer appear so vast. Ourunfettered sense of the infinite cannot afford to dispense with oneparticle of the infinite, with one particle of its indifference; andthere will ever remain something within our soul that would rather weepat times in a world that knows no limit, than enjoy perpetual happinessin a world that is hemmed in. 

If destiny were invariably just in her dealings with the wise, thendoubtless would the existence of such a law furnish sufficient proof ofits excellence; but as it is wholly indifferent, it is better so, andperhaps even greater; for what the actions of the soul may lose inimportance thereby does but go to swell the dignity of the universe. And loss of grandeur to the sage there is none; for he is as profoundlysensitive to the greatness of nature as to the greatness that lurkswithin man. Why harass our soul with endeavour to locate the infinite?As much of it as can be given to man will go to him who has learned towonder. 

78. Do you know a novel of Balzac, belonging to the "Celibataires"series, called Pierrette? It is not one of Balzac's masterpieces, butit has points of much interest for us. It is the story of an orphanedBreton girl, a sweet, innocent child, who is suddenly snatched away, byher evil star, from the grandparents who adore her, and transferred tothe care of an aunt and uncle. Monsieur Rogron and his sister Sylvia. Ahard, gloomy couple, these two; retired shopkeepers, who live in adreary house in the back streets of a dreary country town. Theircelibacy weighs heavily upon them; they are miserly, and absurdly vain;morose, and instinctively full of hatred. 

The poor inoffensive girl has hardly set foot in the house before hermartyrdom begins. There are terrible questions of money and economy, ambitions to be gratified, marriages to be prevented, inheritances tobe turned aside: complications of every kind. The neighbours andfriends of the Rogrons behold the long and painful sufferings of thevictim with unruffled tranquillity, for their every natural instinctleads them to applaud the success of the stronger. And at lastPierrette dies, as unhappily as she has lived; while the others alltriumph--the Rogrons, the detestable lawyer Vinet, and all those whohad helped them; and the subsequent happiness of these wretches remainswholly untroubled. Fate would even seem to smile upon them; and Balzac, carried away in spite of himself by the reality of it all, ends hisstory, almost regretfully, with these words: "How the social villainiesof this world would thrive under our laws if there were no God!"

We need not go to fiction for tragedies of this kind; there are manyhouses in which they are matters of daily occurrence. I have borrowedthis instance from Balzac's pages because the story lay there ready tohand; the chronicle, day by day, of the triumph of injustice. The veryhighest morality is served by such instances, and a great lesson istaught; and perhaps the moralists are wrong who try to weaken thislesson by finding excuses for the iniquities of fate. Some aresatisfied that God will give innocence its due reward. Others tell usthat in this case it is not the victim who has the greatest claim uponour sympathy. And these are doubtless right, from many points of view;for little Pierrette, miserable though she was, and cruelly tormented, did yet experience joys that her tyrants never would know. In the midstof her sorrow, she remained gentle, and tender, and loving; and thereinlies greater happiness than in hiding cruelty, hatred, and selfishnessbeneath a smile. It is sad to love and be unloved, but sadder still tobe unable to love. And how great is the difference between the petty, sordid desires, the grotesque delights, of the Rogrons, and the mightylonging that filled the child's soul as she looked forward to the timewhen injustice at last should cease! Little wistful Pierrette wasperhaps no wiser than those about her; but before such as must bearunmerited suffering there stretches a wide horizon, which here andagain takes in the joys that only the loftiest know; even as thehorizon of the earth, though not seen from the mountain peak, wouldappear at times to be one with the corner-stone of heaven. Theinjustice we commit speedily reduces us to petty, material pleasures;but, as we revel in these, we envy our victim; for our tyranny hasthrown open the door to joys whereof we cannot deprive him--joys thatare wholly beyond our reach, joys that are purely spiritual. And thedoor that opens wide to the victim is sealed in the tyrant's soul; andthe sufferer breathes a purer air than he who has made him suffer. Inthe hearts of the persecuted there is radiance, where those whopersecute have only gloom; and is it not on the light within us thatthe wellbeing of happiness depends? He who brings sorrow with himstifles more happiness within himself than in the man he overwhelms. Which of us, had he to choose, but would rather be Pierrette thanRogron? The instinct of happiness within us needs no telling that hewho is morally right must be happier than he who is wrong, though thewrong be done from the height of a throne. And, even though the Rogronsbe unaware of their Injustice, it alters nothing; for, be we aware orunaware of the evil we commit, the air we breathe will still be heavilycharged. Nay, more--to him who knows he does wrong there may come, perhaps, the desire to escape from his prison; but the other will diein his cell, without even his thoughts having travelled beyond thegloomy walls that conceal from him the true destiny of man. 

79. Why seek justice where it cannot be? and where can it be, save inour soul? Its language is the natural language of the spirit of man;but this spirit must learn new words ere it can travel in the universe. Justice is the very last thing of all wherewith the universe concernsitself. It is equilibrium that absorbs its attention; and what we termjustice is truly nothing but this equilibrium transformed, as honey isnothing but a transformation of the sweetness found in the flower. Outside man there is no justice; within him injustice cannot be. Thebody may revel in ill--gotten pleasure, but virtue alone can bringcontentment to the soul. Our inner happiness is measured out to us byan incorruptible Judge and the mere endeavour to corrupt him stillfurther reduces the sum of the final, veritable happiness he lets fallinto the shining scale. It is lamentable enough that a Rogron should beable to torture a helpless child, and darken the few hours of life thechance of the world had given; but injustice there would be only if hiswickedness procured him the inner happiness and peace, the elevation ofthought and habit, that long years spent in love and meditation hadprocured for Spinoza and Marcus Aurelius. Some slight intellectualsatisfaction there may be in the doing of evil; but none the less doeseach wrongful deed clip the wings of our thoughts, till at length theycan only crawl amidst all that is fleeting and personal. To commit anact of injustice is to prove we have not yet attained the happinesswithin our grasp. And in evil--reduce things to their primal elements, and you shall find that even the wicked are seeking some measure ofpeace, a certain up-lifting of soul. They may think themselves happy, and rejoice for such dole as may come to them; but would it havesatisfied Marcus Aurelius, who knew the lofty tranquillity, the greatquickening of the soul? Show a vast lake to the child who has neverbeheld the sea, it will clap its hands and be glad, and think the seais before it; but therefore none the less does the veritable sea exist. 

It may be that a man will find happiness in the puny little victoriesthat his vanity, envy, or indifference win for him day after day. Shallwe begrudge him such happiness, we, whose eyes can see further? Shallwe strive for his consciousness of life, for the religion that pleaseshis soul, for the conception of the universe that justifies his cares?Yet out of these things are the banks made between which happinessflows; and as they are, so shall the river be, in shallowness or indepth. He may believe that there is a God, or that there is no God;that all ends in this world, or that it is prolonged into the next;that all is matter, or that all is spirit. He will believe these thingsmuch as wise men believe them; but do you think his manner of beliefcan be the same? To look fearlessly upon life; to accept the laws ofnature, not with meek resignation, but as her sons, who dare to searchand question; to have peace and confidence within our soul--these arethe beliefs that make for happiness. But to believe is not enough; alldepends on how we believe. I may believe that there is no God, that Iam self-contained, that my brief sojourn here serves no purpose; thatin the economy of this world without limit my existence counts for aslittle as the evanescent hue of a flower--I may believe all this, in adeeply religious spirit, with the infinite throbbing within me; you maybelieve in one all-powerful God, who cherishes and protects you, yetyour belief may be mean, and petty, and small. I shall be happier thanyou, and calmer, if my doubt is greater, and nobler, and more earnestthan is your faith; if it has probed more deeply into my soul, traversed wider horizons, if there are more things it has loved. And ifthe thoughts and feelings on which my doubt reposes have become vasterand purer than those that support your faith, then shall the God of mydisbelief become mightier and of supremer comfort than the God to whomyou cling. For, indeed, belief and unbelief are mere empty words; notso the loyalty, the greatness and profoundness of the reasons whereforewe believe or do not believe. 

80. We do not choose these reasons; they are rewards that have to beearned. Those we have chosen are only slaves we have happened to buy;and their life is but feeble; they hold themselves shyly aloof, everwatching for a chance to escape. But the reasons we have deserved standfaithfully by us; they are so many pensive Antigones, on whose help wemay ever rely. Nor can such reasons as these be forcibly lodged in thesoul; for indeed they must have dwelt there from earliest days, havespent their childhood there, nourished on our every thought and action;and tokens recalling a life of devotion and love must surround them onevery side. And as they throw deeper root--as the mists clear away fromour soul and reveal a still wider horizon, so does the horizon ofhappiness widen also; for it is only in the space that our thoughts andour feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom. Itdemands no material space, but finds ever too narrow the spiritualfields we throw open; wherefore we must unceasingly endeavour toenlarge its territory, until such time as, soaring up on high, it findssufficient aliment in the space which it does of itself fling open. Then it is, and then only, that happiness truly illumines the mosteternal, most human part of man; and indeed all other forms ofhappiness are merely unconscious fragments of this great happiness, which, as it reflects and looks before it, is conscious of no limitwithin itself or in all that surrounds it. 

81. This space must dwindle daily in those who follow evil, seeing thattheir thoughts and feelings must of necessity dwindle also. But the manwho has risen somewhat will soon forsake the ways of evil; for lookdeep down enough and you shall ever find its origin in straitenedfeeling and stunted thought. He does evil no longer, because histhoughts are purer and higher; and now that he is incapable of evil, his thoughts will become purer still. And thus do our thoughts andactions, having won their way into the placid heaven where no barrierrestrains the soul, become as inseparable as the wings of a bird; andwhat to the bird was only a law of equilibrium is here transformed intoa law of justice. 

82. Who can tell whether the satisfaction derived from evil can everpenetrate to the soul, unless there mingle with it a vague desire, apromise, a distant hope, of goodness or of pity?

The joy of the wretch whose victim lies in his power is perhapsunredeemed in its gloom and futility, save by the thought of mercy thatflashes across him. Evil at times would seem compelled to beg a ray oflight from virtue, to shed lustre on its triumph. Is it possible for aman to smile in his hatred and not borrow the smile of love? But thesmile will be short-lived, for here, as everywhere, there is no innerinjustice. Within the soul the high-water mark of happiness is alwayslevel with that of justice or charity--which words I use hereindifferently, for indeed what is charity or love but justice withnaught to do but count its jewels? The man who goes forth to seek hishappiness in evil does merely prove thereby that he is less happy thanthe other who watches, and disapproves. And yet his object is identicalwith that of the upright man. He too is in search of happiness, of somesort of peace and certainty. Of what avail to punish him? We do notblame the poor because their home is not a palace; it is sad enough tobe compelled to live in a hovel. He whose eyes can see the invisible, knows that in the soul of the most unjust man there is justice still:justice, with all her attributes, her stainless garments and holyactivity. He knows that the soul of the sinner is ever balancing peaceand love, and the consciousness of life, no less scrupulously than thesoul of philosopher, saint, or hero; that it watches the smiles ofearth--and sky, and is no less aware of all whereby those smiles aredestroyed, degraded, and poisoned. We are not wrong, perhaps, to beheedful of justice in the midst of a universe that heeds not at all; asthe bee is not wrong to make honey in a world that itself can makenone. But we are wrong to desire an external justice, since we knowthat it does not exist. Let that which is in us suffice. All is forever being weighed and judged in our soul. It is we who shall judgeourselves; or rather, our happiness is our judge. 

83. It may be urged that virtue is subject to defeat anddisappointment, no less than vice; but the defeats and disappointmentsof virtue bring with them no gloom or distress, for they do but tend tosoothe and enlighten our thoughts. An act of virtue may sink into thevoid, but it is then, most of all, that we learn to gauge the depths oflife and of soul; and often will it fall into these depths like aradiant stone, beside which our thoughts loom pale. With every viciousscheme that fails before the innocence of Pierrette, Madame Rogron'ssoul shrivels anew; whereas the clemency of Titus, falling on thanklesssoil, docs but induce him to lift his eyes on high, far beyond love orpardon. There is no gain in shutting out the world, though it be withwalls of righteousness. The last gesture of virtue should be that of anangel flinging open the door. We should welcome our disillusions; forwere it the will of destiny that our pardon should always transform anenemy into a brother, then should we go to our grave still unaware ofall that springs to light within us beneath the act of unwise clemency, whose unwisdom we never regret. We should die without once havingmatched all that is best in our soul against the forces that hedge lifearound. The kindly deed that is wasted, the lofty or only loyal thoughtthat falls on barren ground--these too have their value, for the lightthey throw differs far from the radiance triumphant virtue suffuses;and thus may we see many things in their differing aspect. There weresurely much joy in the thought that love must invariably triumph; butgreater joy is there still in tearing aside this illusion, am marchingstraight on to the truth. "Man has been but too prone, " said aphilosopher, whom death carried off too soon--"man has been but tooprone, through all the course of his history, to lodge his dignitywithin his errors, and to look upon truth as a thing that depreciatedhimself. It may sometimes seem less glorious than illusion, but it hasthe advantage of being true. In the whole domain of thought there isnothing loftier than truth. " And there is no bitterness herein, forindeed to the sage truth can never be bitter. He, too, has had hislongings in the past, has conceived that truth might move mountains, that a loving act might for ever soften the hearts of men; but to-dayhe has learned to prefer that this should not be so. Nor is itoverweening pride that thus has changed him; he does not think himselfmore virtuous than the universe; it is his insignificance in theuniverse that has been made clear to him. It is no longer for thespiritual fruit it bears that he tends the love of justice he has foundimplanted in his soul, but for the living flowers that spring up withinhim, and because of his deep respect for all created things. He has nocurses for the ungrateful friend, nor even for ingratitude itself. Hedoes not say, "I am better than that man, " or "I shall not fall intothat vice. " But he is taught by ingratitude that benevolence containsjoys that are greater than those that gratitude can bestow; joys thatare less personal, but more in harmony with life as a whole. He findsmore pleasure in the attempt to understand that which is, than in thestruggle to believe that which he desires. For a long time he has beenlike the beggar who was suddenly borne away from his hut and lodged ina magnificent palace. He awoke and threw uneasy glances about him, seeking, in that immense hall, for the squalid things he remembered tohave had in his tiny room. Where were the hearth, the bed, the table, stool, and basin? The humble torch of his vigils still trembled by hisside, but its light could not reach the lofty ceiling. The little wingsof flame threw their feeble flicker on to a pillar close by, which wasall that stood out from the darkness. But little by little his eyesgrew accustomed to his new abode. He wandered through room after room, and rejoiced as profoundly at all that his torch left in darkness as atall that it threw into light. At first he could have wished in hisheart that the doors had been somewhat less lofty, the staircases notquite so ample, the galleries less lost in gloom; but as he wentstraight before him, he felt all the beauty and grandeur of that whichwas yet so unlike the home of his dream. He rejoiced to discover thathere bed and table were not the centre round which all revolved, as ithad been with him in his hut. He was glad that the palace had not beenbuilt to conform with the humble habits his misery had forced upon him. He even learned to admire the things that defeated his hopes, for theyenabled his eyes to see deeper. The sage is consoled and fortified byeverything that exists, for indeed it is of the essence of wisdom toseek out all that exists, and to admit it within its circle. 

84. Wisdom even admits the Rogrons; for she holds life of profounderinterest than even justice or virtue; and where her attention isdisputed by a virtue lost in abstraction, and by a humble, walled-inlife, she will incline to the humble life, and not to the magnificentvirtue that holds itself proudly aloof. It is of the nature of wisdomto despise nothing; indeed, in this world there is perhaps only onething truly contemptible, and that thing is contempt itself. Thinkerstoo often are apt to despise those who go through life withoutthinking. Thought is doubtless of high value; our first endeavourshould be to think as often and as well as we can; but, for all that, it is somewhat beside the mark to believe that the possession, or lack, of a certain faculty for handling general ideas can interpose an actualbarrier between men. After all, the difference between the greatestthinker and the smallest provincial burgher is often only thedifference between a truth that can sometimes express itself and atruth that can never crystallise into form. The difference isconsiderable--a gap, but not a chasm. The higher our thoughts ascend, the vainer and the more arbitrary seems the distinction between him whois thinking always and him who thinks not yet. The little burgher isfull of prejudice and of passions at which we smile; his ideas aresmall and petty, and sometimes contemptible enough; and yet, place himside by side with the sage, before essential circumstance of life, before love, grief, death, before something that calls for trueheroism, and it shall happen more than once that the sage will turn tohis humble companion as to the guardian of a truth no less profound, noless deeply human, than his own. There are moments when the sagerealises, that his spiritual treasures are naught; that it is only afew words, or habits, that divide him from other men; there are momentswhen he even doubts the value of those words. Those are the momentswhen wisdom flowers and sends forth blossom. Thought may sometimesdeceive; and the thinker who goes astray must often retrace hisfootsteps to the spot whence those who think not have never moved away, where they still remain faithfully seated round the silent, essentialtruth. They are the guardians of the watch-fires of the tribe; theothers take lighted torches and go wandering abroad; but when the airgrows heavy and threatens the feeble flame, then is it well to turnback and draw close to the watch-fires once more. These fires seemnever to stir from the spot where they always have been; but in truththey ever are moving, keeping time with the worlds; and their flamemarks the hour of humanity on the dial of the universe. We know exactlyhow much the inert forces owe to the thinker; we forget the deepindebtedness of the thinker to inert force. In a world where all werethinkers, more than one indispensable truth might perhaps for ever belost. For indeed the thinker must never lose touch with those who donot think, as his thoughts would then quickly cease to be just orprofound. To disdain is only too easy, not so to understand; but in himwho is truly wise there passes no thought of disdain, but it will, sooner or later, evolve into full comprehension. The thought that cantravel scornfully over the heads of that great silent throng withoutrecognising its myriad brothers and sisters that are slumbering therein its midst, is only too often merely a sterile, vicious dream. We dowell to remind ourselves at times that the spiritual, no less than thephysical, atmosphere demands more nitrogen than oxygen for the air tobe breathed by man. 

85. It need not surprise us that thinkers like Balzac should have lovedto dwell on these humble lives. Eternal sameness runs through them, andyet does each century mark profoundest change in the atmosphere thatenwraps them. The sky above has altered, but these simple lives haveever the self-same gestures; and it is these unchanging gestures thattell of the altered sky. A great deed of heroism fascinates us; our eyecannot travel beyond the act itself; but insignificant thoughts anddeeds lead us on to the horizon beyond them; and is not the shiningstar of human wisdom always situate on the horizon? If we could seethese things as nature sees them, with her thoughts and feelings, weshould realise that the uniform mediocrity that runs through theselives cannot truly be mediocre, from the mere fact of its uniformity. And indeed this matters but little; we can never judge another soulabove the high-water mark of our own; and however insignificant acreature may seem to us at first, as our own soul emerges from shadow, so does the shadow lift from him. There is nothing our eyes behold thatis too small to deserve our love; and there where we cannot love, wehave only to raise our lamp till it reaches the level of love, and thenthrow its light around. Let only one ray of this light go forth everyday from our soul, we may then be content. It matters not where thelight falls. There is not a thing in this world whereupon your glanceor your thought can rest but contains within it more treasure thaneither of these can fathom; nor is there a thing so small but it has avastness within that the light that a soul can spare can, at best, butfaintly illumine. 

86. Is not the very essence of human destiny, stripped of the detailsthat bewilder us, to be found in the most ordinary lives? The mightystruggle of morality on the heights is glorious to witness; but so willa keen observer profoundly admire a magnificent tree that stands alonein a desert, and, his contemplation over, once more go back to theforest, where there are no marvellous trees, but trees in countlessabundance. The immense forest is doubtless made up of ordinary branchesand stems; but is it not vast, is it not as it should be, seeing thatit is the forest? Not by the exceptional shall the last word ever bespoken; and indeed what we call the sublime should be only a clearer, profounder insight into all that is perfectly normal. It is of service, often, to watch those on the peaks who do battle; but it is well, too, not to forget those in the valley below, who fight not at all. As wesee all that happens to these whose life knows no struggle; as werealise how much must be conquered in us before we can rightlydistinguish their narrower joys from the joy known to them who arestriving on high, then perhaps does the struggle itself appear tobecome less important; but, for all that, we love it the more. And thereward is the sweeter to us for the silence that enwraps its coming;nor is this from a desire to keep our happiness secret--such as acrafty courtier might feel who hugs fortune's favours to him--but, perhaps, because it is only when happiness thus whispers low in ourear, and no other men know, that it is not according us joys that arefilched from our brother's share. Then do we no longer say toourselves, as we look on those brothers: "How great is the distancebetween such as these and myself, " but in all simplicity do we murmurat last to ourselves: "The loftier my thoughts become, the less isthere to divide me from the humblest of my fellow-creatures, from thosewho are most plentiful on earth; and every step that I take towards anuncertain ideal, is a step that brings me the nearer to those whom Ionce despised, in the vanity and ignorance of my earliest days. "

After all, what is a humble life? It is thus we choose to term the lifethat ignores itself, that drains itself dry in the place of itsbirth--a life whose feelings and thoughts, whose desires and passions, entwine themselves around the most insignificant things. But itsuffices to look at a life for that life to seem great. A life initself can be neither great nor small; the largeness is all in the eyethat surveys it; and an existence that all men hold to be lofty andvast, is one that has long been accustomed to look loftily on itselffrom within. If you have never done this, your life must be narrow; butthe man who watches you live will discern, in the very obscurity of thecorner you fill, an element of horizon, a foothold to cling to, whencehis thoughts will rise with surer and more human strength. There is notan existence about us but at first seems colourless, dreary, lethargic:what can our soul have in common with that of an elderly spinster, aslow-witted ploughman, a miser who worships his gold? Can anyconnection exist between such as these and a deep-rooted feeling, aboundless love for humanity, an interest time cannot stale? But let aBalzac step forward and stand in the midst of them, with his eyes andears on the watch; and the emotion that lived and died in anold-fashioned country parlour shall as mightily stir our heart, shallas unerringly find its way to the deepest sources of life, as themajestic passion that ruled the life of a king and shed its triumphantlustre from the dazzling height of a throne. "There are certain littleagitations, " says Balzac in the Cure de Tours, the most admirable ofall his studies of humble life--"there are certain little agitationsthat are capable of generating as much passion within the soul as wouldsuffice to direct the most important social interests. Is it not amistake to imagine that time only flies swiftly with those whose heartsare devoured by mighty schemes, which fret and fever their life? Not anhour sped past the Abbe Troubert but was as animated, as laden with itsburden of anxious thought, as lined with pleading hope and deepdespair, as could be the most desperate hour of gambler, plotter, orlover. God alone can tell how much energy is consumed in the triumphswe achieve over men, and things, and ourselves. We may not be alwaysaware whither our steps are leading, but are only too fully consciousof the wearisomeness of the Journey. And yet--if the historian may bepermitted to lay aside, for one moment, the story he is telling, and toassume the role of the critic--as you cast your eyes on the lives ofthese old maids and these two priests, seeking to learn the cause ofthe sorrow which twisted their heartstrings, it will be revealed toyou, perhaps, that certain passions must be experienced by man forthere to develop within him the qualities that make a life noble, thatwiden its area, and stifle the egoism natural to all. "

He speaks truly. Not for its own sake, always, should we love thelight, but for the sake of what it illumines. The fire on the mountainshines brightly, but there are few men on the mountain; and moreservice may often be rendered by the torchlight, there where the crowdis. It is in the humble lives that is found the substance of greatlives; and by watching the narrowest feelings does enlargement come toour own. Nor is this from any repugnance these feelings inspire, butbecause they no longer accord with the majestic truth that controls us. It is well to have visions of a better life than that of every day, butit is the life of every day from which elements of a better life mustcome. We are told we should fix our eyes on high, far above life; butperhaps it is better still that our soul should look straight beforeit, and that the heights whereupon it should yearn to lay all its hopesand its dreams should be the mountain peaks that stand clearly out fromthe clouds that gild the horizon. 

87. This brings us back once again to external destiny; but the tearsthat external suffering wrings from us are not the only tears known toman. The sage whom we love must dwell in the midst of all humanpassions, for only on the passions known to the heart can his wisdomsafely be nourished. They are nature's artisans, sent by her to help usconstruct the palace of our consciousness--of our happiness, in otherwords; and he who rejects these workers, deeming that he is able, unaided, to raise all the stones of life, will be compelled for ever tolodge his soul in a bare and gloomy cell. The wise man learns to purifyhis passions; to stifle them can never be proof of wisdom. And, indeed, these things are all governed by the position we take as we stand onthe stairs of time. To some of us moral infirmities are so many stairstending downwards; to others they represent steps that lead us on high. The wise man perchance may do things that are done by the unwise manalso; but the latter is forced by his passions to become the abjectslave of his instincts, whereas the sage's passions will end byillumining much that was vague in his consciousness. To love madly, perhaps, is not wise; still, should he love madly, more wisdom willdoubtless come to him than if he had always loved wisely. It is notwisdom, but the most useless form of pride that can flourish in vacancyand inertia. It is not enough to know what should be done, not thoughwe can unerringly declare what saint or hero would do. Such things abook can teach in a day. It is not enough to intend to live a noblelife and then retire to a cell, there to brood over this intention. Nowisdom thus acquired can truly guide or beautify the soul; it is of aslittle avail as the counsels that others can offer. "It is in thesilence that follows the storm, " says a Hindu proverb, "and not in thesilence before it, that we should search for the budding flower. "

88. The earnest wayfarer along the paths of life does but become themore deeply convinced, as his travels extend, of the beauty, thewisdom, and truth of the simplest and humblest laws of existence. Theiruniformity, the mere fact of their being so general, such matter ofevery day, are in themselves enough to compel his admiration. Andlittle by little he holds the abnormal ever less highly, and neitherseeks nor desires it; for it is soon borne home to him, as he reflectson the vastness of nature, with her slow, monotonous movement, that theridiculous pretensions our ignorance and vanity put forth are the mosttruly abnormal of all. He no longer vexes the hours as they pass withprayer for strange or marvellous adventure; for these come only to suchas have not yet learned to have faith in life and themselves. He nolonger awaits, with folded arms, the chance for superhuman effort; forhe feels that he exists in every act that is human. He no longerrequires that death, or friendship, or love should come to him deckedout with garlands illusion has woven, or escorted by omen, coincidence, presage; but they come in their bareness and simpleness, and are alwayssure of his welcome. He believes that all that the weak, and the idle, and thoughtless consider sublime and exceptional, that the fallequivalent for the most heroic deed, can be found in the simple lifethat is bravely and wholly faced. He no longer considers himself thechosen son of the universe; but his happiness, consciousness, peace ofmind, have gained all that his pride has lost. And, this point onceattained, then will the miraculous adventures of a St. Theresa orJean-de-la-Croix, the ecstasy of the mystics, the supernaturalincidents of legendary loves, the star of an Alexander or aNapoleon--then will all these seem the merest childish illusionscompared with the healthy wisdom of a loyal, earnest man, who has nocraving to soar above his fellows so as to feel what they cannot feel, but whose heart and brain find the light that they need in theunchanging feelings of all. The truest man will never be he who desiresto be other than man. How many there are that thus waste their lives, scouring the heavens for sight of the comet that never will come; butdisdaining to look at the stars, because these can be seen by all, and, moreover, are countless in number! This craving for the extraordinaryis often the special weakness of ordinary men, who fail to perceivethat the more normal, and ordinary, and uniform events may appear tous, the more are we able to appreciate the profound happiness that thisuniformity enfolds, and the nearer are we drawn to the truth andtranquillity of the great force by which we have being. What can beless abnormal than the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the globe; andyet, what is there more vast? There is not a thought or a feeling, notan act of beauty or nobility, whereof man is capable, but can findcomplete expression in the simplest, most ordinary life; and all thatcannot be expressed therein must of necessity belong to the falsehoodsof vanity, ignorance, or sloth. 

89. Does this mean that the wise man should expect no more from lifethan other men; that he should love mediocrity and limit his desires;content himself with little and restrict the horizon of his happiness, because of the fear lest happiness escape him? By no means; for thewisdom is halting and sickly that can too freely renounce a legitimatehuman hope. Many desires in man may be legitimate still, notwithstanding the disapproval of reason, sometimes unduly severe. Butthe fact that our happiness does not seem extraordinary to those aboutus by no means warrants our thinking that we are not happy. The wiserwe are, the more readily do we perceive that happiness lies in ourgrasp; that it has no more enviable gift than the uneventful moments itbrings. The sage has learnt to quicken and love the silent substance oflife. In this silent substance only can faithful joys be found, forabnormal happiness never ventures to go with us to the tomb. The daythat comes and goes without special whisper of hope or happiness shouldbe as dear to us, and as welcome, as any one of its brothers. On itsway to us it has traversed the same worlds and the self-same space asthe day that finds us on a throne or enthralled by a mighty love. Thehours are less dazzling, perhaps, that its mantle conceals; but atleast we may rely more fully on their humble devotion. There are asmany eternal minutes in the week that goes by in silence, as in the onethat tomes boldly towards us with mighty shout and clamour. And indeedit is we who tell ourselves all that the hour would seem to say; forthe hour that abides with us is ever a timid and nervous guest, thatwill smile if its host be smiling, or weep if his eyes be wet. It hasbeen charged with no mission to bring happiness to us; it is we whoshould comfort the hour that has sought refuge within our soul. And heis wise who always finds words of peace that he can whisper low to hisguest on the threshold. We should let no opportunity for happinessescape us, and the simplest causes of happiness should be ever storedin our soul. It is well, at first, to know happiness as men conceiveit, so that, later, we may have good reason for preferring thehappiness of our choice. For, herein, it is not unlike what we are toldof love. To know what real love should be we must have lovedprofoundly, and that first love must have fled. It is well to knowmoments of material happiness, since they teach us where to look forloftier joys; and all that we gain, perhaps, from listening to thehours that babble aloud in their wantonness is that we are slowlylearning the language of the hours whose voice is hushed. And of thesethere are many; they come in battalions, so close on the heels of eachother that treachery and flight cannot be; wherefore it is on themalone that the sage should depend. For he will be happy whose eyes havelearned to detect the hidden smile and mysterious jewels of the myriad, nameless hours; and where are these jewels to be found, if not inourselves?

90. But there is a kind of ignoble discretion that has least in common, of all things, with the wisdom we speak of here; for we had far betterspend our energy round even fruitless happiness, than slumber by thefireside awaiting joys that never may come. Only the joys that havebeen offered to all, and none have accepted, will knock at his door whorefuses himself to stir forth. Nor is the other man wise who holds thereins too tight on his feelings, and halts them when reason commands, or experience whispers. The friend is not wise who will not confide inhis friend, remembering always that friendships may come to an end; northe lover, who draws back for fear lest he may find shipwreck in love. For here, were we twenty times unfortunate, it is still only theperishable portion of our energy for happiness that suffers; and whatis wisdom after all but this same energy for happiness cleansed of allthat is impure? To be wise we must first learn to be happy, that we mayattach ever smaller importance to what happiness may be in itself. Weshould be as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as longas is possible; for those who can finally issue forth from self by theportal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who passthrough the gate of sadness. The joy of the sage illumines his heartand his soul alike, whereas sadness most often throws light on theheart alone. One might almost compare the man who had never been happywith a traveller whose every journey had been taken by night. Moreover, there is in happiness a humility deeper and nobler, purer and wider, than sorrow can ever procure. There is a certain humility that rankswith parasitic virtues, such as sterile self-sacrifice, arbitrarychastity, blind submission, fanatic renouncement, penitence, falseshame, and many others, which have from time immemorial turned asidefrom their course the waters of human morality, and forced them into astagnant pool, around which our memory still lingers. Nor do I speak ofa cunning humility that is often mere calculation, or, taken at itsbest, a timidity that has its root in pride--a loan at usury that ourvanity of to-day extends to our vanity of to-morrow. And even the sageat times conceives it well to lower himself in his own self-esteem, andto deny superior merits that are his when comparing himself with othermen. Humility of this kind may throw a charm around our ways of life, but yet, sincere as it doubtless may be, it nevertheless attacks theloyalty due to ourselves, which we should value high above all. And itsurely implies a certain timidity of conscience; whereas the conscienceof the sage should harbour neither timidity nor shame. But by the sideof this too personal humility there exists another humility thatextends to all things, that is lofty and strong, that has fed on allthat is best in our brain and our heart and our soul. It is a humilitythat defines the limit of the hopes and adventures of men; that lessensus only to add to the grandeur of all we behold; that teaches us wherewe should look for the true importance of man, which lies not in thatwhich he is, but in that which his eyes can take in, which he strivesto accept and to grasp. It is true that sorrow will also bring us tothe realm of this humility; but it hastens us through, branching off onthe road to a mysterious gate of hope, on whose threshold we lose manydays; whereas happiness, that after the first few hours has nothingelse left to do, will lead us in silence through path after path tillwe reach the most unforeseen, inaccessible places of all. It is whenthe sage knows he possesses at last all man is allowed to possess, thathe begins to perceive that it is his manner of regarding what man maynever possess, that determines the value of such things as he truly maycall his own. And therefore must we long have sunned ourselves in therays of happiness before we can truly conceive an independent view oflife. We must be happy, not for happiness' sake, but so that we maylearn to see distinctly that which vain expectation of happiness wouldfor ever hide from our gaze. 

91. Economy avails us nothing in the region of the heart, for it isthere that men gather the harvest of life's very substance, it werebetter that nothing were done there than that things should be done byhalves; and that which we have not dared to risk is most surely lost ofall. To limit our passions is only to limit ourselves, and we are thelosers by just so much as we hoped to gain. There are certainfastnesses within our soul that lie buried so deep that love alone dareventure down; and it returns laden with undreamed-of jewels, whoselustre can only be seen as they pass from our open hand to the hand ofone we love. And indeed it would seem that so clear a light springsfrom our hands as they open thus to give, that it penetrates substancetoo opaque to yield to the mysterious rays just discovered. 

92. It avails us nothing unduly to bemoan our errors or losses. Forhappen what may to the man of simple faith, still, at the last minuteof the sorrow-laden hour, at the end of the week or year, still will hefind some cause for gladness as he turns his eyes within. Little bylittle he has learned to regret without tears. He is as a father mightbe who returns to his home in the evening, his day's work done. He mayfind his children in tears perhaps, or playing dangerous, forbiddengames; the furniture scattered, glasses broken, a lamp overturned; butshall he therefore despair? It would certainly have been better had thechildren been more obedient, had they quietly learned theirlessons---this would have been more in keeping with every moral theory;but how unreasonable the father who, in the midst of his harsh rebuke, could withhold a smile as he turned his head away! The children haveacted unwisely, perhaps, in their exuberance of life; but why shouldthis distress him? All is well, so long as he return home at night, solong as he ever keep about him the key of the guardian dwelling. As welook into ourselves, and pass in review what our heart, and brain, andsoul have attempted and carried through while we were away, the benefitlies far more in the searching glance itself than in the actualinspection. And if the hours have not once let fall their mysteriousgirdle on their way past our threshold; if the rooms be as empty as onthe day of departure, and those within have but sat with folded armsand worked not at all---still, as we enter, shall something be learnedfrom our echoing footsteps, of the extent, and the clearness, and thefidelity, of our home. 

93. No day can be uneventful, save in ourselves alone; but in the daythat seems most uneventful of all, there is still room for the loftiestdestiny; for there is far more scope for such destiny within ourselvesthan on the whole continent of Europe. Not by the extent of empire isthe range of destiny governed, but, indeed, by the depth of our soul. It is in our conception of life that real destiny is found; when atlast there is delicate balance between the insoluble questions ofheaven and the wavering response of our soul. And these questionsbecome the more tranquil as they seem to comprise more and more; and tothe sage, whatever may happen will still widen the scope of thequestions, still give deeper confidence to the reply. Speak not ofdestiny when the event that has brought you joy or sadness has stillaltered nothing in your manner of regarding the universe. All thatremains to us when love and glory are over, when adventures andpassions have faded into the past, is but a deeper and ever-deepeningsense of the infinite; and if we have not that within us, then are wedestitute indeed. And this sense of the infinite is more than a mereassemblage of thoughts, which, indeed, are but the innumerable stepsthat thither lead. There is no happiness in happiness itself, unless ithelp our comprehension of the rest, unless it help us in some measureto conceive that the very universe itself must rejoice in existence. The sage who has attained a certain height will find peace in allthings that happen; and the event that saddens him, as other men, tarries but an instant ere it goes to strengthen his deep perception oflife. He who has learned to see in all things only matter for unselfishwonder, can be deprived of no satisfaction whatever without therespring to sudden life within him, from the mere feeling that this joycan be dispensed with, a high protecting thought that enfolds him inits light. That destiny is beautiful wherein each event, though chargedwith joy or sadness, has brought reflection to us, has added somethingto our range of soul, has given us greater peace wherewith to cling tolife. And, indeed, the accident that robs us of our love, that leads usalong in triumph, or even that seats us on a throne, reveals but littleof the workings of destiny; which, indeed, lie far more in the thoughtsthat arise in our mind as we look at the men around us, at the woman welove; as we dwell on the feelings within us; as we fix our eyes on theevening sky with its crown of indifferent stars. 

94. A woman of extraordinary beauty and talent, possessed of the rarestqualities of mind and soul, was one day asked by a friend, to whom sheseemed the most perfect creature on earth: "What are your plans? Canany man be worthy of your love? Your future puzzles me. I cannotconceive a destiny that shall be lofty enough for a soul such asyours. " He knew but little of destiny. To him, as to most men, it meantthrones, triumphs, dazzling adventures: these things seemed to him thesum of a human destiny; whereby he did but prove that he knew not whatdestiny was. And, in the first place, why this disdain of to-day? Todisdain to-day is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood. Todisdain to-day is to declare oneself a stranger, and what can you hopeto do in a world where you shall ever pass as a stranger? To-day hasthis advantage over yesterday, that it exists and was made for us. Beto-day what it will, it has wider knowledge than yesterday; and by thatalone does it become more beautiful, and vaster. Why should we thinkthat the woman I speak of would have known a more brilliant destiny inVenice, Florence, or Rome? Her presence might have been sought atmagnificent festival, and her beauty have found a fitting surroundingin exquisite landscape. She might have had princes and kings, the electof the world, at her feet; and perhaps it had needed but one of hersmiles to add to a great nation's gladness, to ennoble or chasten thethought of an epoch. Whereas here all her life will be spent among fouror five people--four or five souls that know of her soul, and love her. It may be that she never shall stir from her dwelling; that of herlife, of her thoughts, and the strength that is in her, there willremain not a trace among men. It may be that her beauty, her force andher instinct for good, will be buried within her: in her heart and thehearts of the few who are near. And even then, and if this be so, thesoul of this woman doubtless shall find its own thing to do. The mightygates through which we must pass to a helpful and noteworthy life nolonger grate on their hinges with the deafening clamour of old. Theyare smaller, perhaps, than they were; less vast and imposing; but theirnumber is greater to-day, and they admit us, in silence, to paths thatextend very far. And even though the home of this woman be notbrightened by one single gleam from without, will she have failed tofulfil her destiny because her life is lived in the shade? Cannotdestiny be beautiful and complete in itself, without help from without?As the soul that has truly conquered surveys the triumphs of the past, it is glad of those only that brought with them a deeper knowledge oflife and a nobler humility; of those that lent sweeter charm to themoments when love, glory, and enthusiasm having faded away, the fruitthat a few hours of boiling passion had ripened was gathered inmeditation and silence. When the feasting is over: when charity, kindness and valorous deed all lie far behind us: what is there left tothe soul but some stray recollections, a gain of some consciousness, and a feeling that helps us to look on our place in the world with moreknowledge and less apprehension--a feeling blent with some wisdom, fromthe numberless things it has learned? When the hour for rest hassounded--as it must sound every night and at every moment ofsolitude--when the gaudy vestments of love, and glory, and power fallhelplessly round us; what is it we can take with us as we seek refugewithin ourselves, where the happiness of each day is measured by theknowledge the day has brought us, by the thoughts and the confidence ithas helped us to acquire? Is our true destiny to be found in the thingswhich take place about us, or in that which abides in our soul? "Be aman's power or glory never so great, " said a philosopher, "his soulsoon learns how to value the feelings that spring from external events;and as he perceives that no increase has come to his physicalfaculties, that these remain wholly unchanged, neither altered noradded to, then does the sense of his nothingness burst full upon him. The king who should govern the world must still, like the rest of hisbrothers, revolve in a limited circle, whose every law must be obeyed;and on his impressions and thoughts must his happiness wholly depend. "The impressions his memory retains, we might add, because they havechastened his mind; for the souls that we deal with here will retainsuch impressions only as have quickened their sense of goodness, ashave made them a little more noble. Is it impossible to find--itmatters not where, nor how great be the silence--the same undlssolvablematter that lurks in the cup of the noblest external existence? andseeing that nothing is truly our own till it faithfully follow us intothe darkness and silence, why should the thing that has sprung to lifethere be less faithful in silence and darkness? But we will pursue thisno farther, for it leads to a wisdom of over-much theory. For all thata brilliant exterior destiny is not indispensable, still should wealways regard it as wholly desirable, and pursue it as keenly as thoughwe valued it highly. It behoves the sage to knock at the door of everytemple of glory, of every dwelling where happiness, love, and activityare to be found. And if his strenuous effort and long expectationremain unrewarded, if no door fly open, still may he find, perhaps, inthe mere expectation and effort an equivalent for all the emotions andlight that he sought. "To act, " says Barres, "is to annex to ourthoughts vaster fields of experience. " It is also, perhaps, to thinkmore quickly than thought, as more completely; for we no longer thinkwith the brain alone, but with every atom of life. It is to wrap roundwith dream the profoundest sources of thought, and then to confrontthem with fact. But to act is not always to conquer. To attempt, to bepatient, and wait--these, too, may be action; as also, to hear, towatch, and be silent. 

If the lot of the woman we speak of had been cast in Athens, orFlorence, or Rome, there had been, in her life, certain motives ofgrandeur, occasions for beauty and happiness, that she may well nevermeet with to-day. And she is the poorer for lacking the efforts shemight have put forth, the memory of what might have been done; for inthese lies a force that is precious and vital, that often indeed willtransform many more things within us, than a thought which is morally, mentally worth many thousand such efforts and memories. And indeed itis therefore alone that we should desire a brilliant, feverish destiny;because it summons to life certain forces and feelings that wouldotherwise never emerge from the slumberous peace of an over-tranquilexistence. But from the moment we know, or even suspect, that thesefeelings lie dormant within us, we are already giving life to all thatis best in those feelings; and it is as though we were, for one briefmoment, looking down upon a glorious external destiny from heights suchdestiny shall only attain at the end of its days; as though we wereprematurely gathering the fruit of the tree, which it shall itselfstill find barren until many a storm has passed. 

95. Last night, re-reading Saint-Simon--with whom we seem to ascend alofty tower, whence our gaze rests on hundreds of human destinies, astir in the valley below--I understood what a beautiful destiny meantto the instinct of man. It would doubtless have puzzled Saint-Simonhimself to have told what it was that he loved and admired in some ofhis heroes, whom he enwraps in a sort of resigned, and almostunconscious, respect. Thousands of virtues that he esteemed highly haveceased to exist to-day, and many a quality now seems petty indeed thathe commended in some of his great ones. And yet are there, unperceivedas it were by him, four or five men in the midst of the glitteringcrowd hard by the monarch's throne, four or five earnest benevolentfaces on whom our eye still rests gladly; though Saint-Simon gives themno special attention or thought, for in his heart he looks withdisfavour on the ideas that govern their life. Fenelon is there; theDukes of Chevreuse and Beauvilliers; there is Monsieur le Dauphin. Their happiness is no greater than that of the rest of mankind. Theyachieve no marked success, they gain no resplendent victory, They liveas the others live--in the fret and expectation of the thing that wechoose to call happiness, because it has yet to come. Fenelon incursthe displeasure of the crafty, bigoted king, who, for all his pride, would resent the most trivial offence with the humbleness of humblestvanity; who was great in small things, and petty in all that wasgreat--for such was Louis XIV. Fenelon is condemned, persecuted, exiled. The Dukes of Chevreuse and Beauvilliers continue to holdimportant office at Court, but none the less deem it prudent to live ina kind of voluntary retirement. The Dauphin is not in favour with theKing; a powerful, envious clique are for ever intriguing against him, and they finally succeed in crushing his youthful military glory. Helives in the midst of disgrace, misadventure, disaster, that seemirreparable in the eyes of that vain and servile Court; for disgraceand disaster assume the proportions the manners of the day accord. Finally he dies, a few days after the death of the wife he had loved sotenderly. He dies--poisoned, perhaps, as she too; the thunderboltfalling just as the very first rays of kingly favour, whereon he hadalmost ceased to count, were stealing over his threshold. Such were thetroubles and misfortunes, the sorrows and disappointments, that wrappedthese lives round; and yet, as we look on this little group, standingfirm and silent in the midst of the feverish, intermittent glitter ofthe rest, then do these four destinies seem truly beautiful to us, andenviable. Through all their vicissitudes one common light shinesthrough them. The great soul of Fenelon illumines them all. Fenelon isfaithful to his loftiest thoughts of piety, meekness, wonder, justice, and love; and the other three are faithful to him, who was their masterand friend. And what though the mystic ideas of Fenelon be no longershared by us: what though the ideas that we cling to ourselves, anddeem the profoundest and noblest--the ideas that live at the root ofour every conviction of life, that have served as the basis of all ourmoral happiness--what though these should one day fall in ruins behindus, and only arouse a smile among such as believe that they have foundother thoughts still, which to them seem more human, and final?Thought, of itself, is possessed of no vital importance; it is thefeelings awakened within us by thought that ennoble and brighten ourlife. Thought is our aim, perhaps; but it may be with this as with manya journey we take--the place we are bound for may interest us less thanthe journey itself, the people we meet on the road, the unforeseen thatmay happen. Here, as everywhere, it is only the sincerity of humanfeeling that abides. As for a thought, we know not, it may bedeceptive; but the love, wherewith we have loved it, will surely returnto our soul; nor can a single drop of its clearness or strength beabstracted by error. Of that perfect ideal that each of us strives tobuild up in himself, the sum total of all our thoughts will help onlyto model the outline; but the elements that go to construct it, andkeep it alive, are the purified passion, unselfishness, loyalty, wherein these thoughts have had being. The extent of our love for thething which we hold to be true is of greater importance than even thetruth itself. Does not love bring more goodness to us than thought canever convey? Loyally to love a great error may well be more helpfulthan meanly to serve a great truth; for in doubt, no less than infaith, are passion and love to be found. Some doubts are as generousand passionate as the very noblest convictions. Be a thought of theloftiest, surest, or of the most profoundly uncertain, the best that ithas to offer is still the chance that it gives us of loving some onething wholly, without reserve. Whether it be to man, or a God; tocountry, to world or to error, that I truly do yield myself up, theprecious ore that shall some day be found buried deep in the ashes oflove will have sprung from the love itself, and not from the thing thatI loved. The sincerity of an attachment, its simplicity, firmness, andzeal--these leave a track behind them that time can never efface. Allpasses away and changes; it may be that all is lost, save only the glowof this ardour, fertility, and strength of our heart. 

96. "Never did man possess his soul in such peace as he, " saysSaint-Simon of one of them, who was surrounded on all sides by malice, and scheming, and snares. And further on he speaks of the "wisetranquillity" of another, and this "wise tranquillity" pervades everyone of those whom he terms the "little flock. " The "little flock, "truly, of fidelity to all that was noblest in thought; the "littleflock" of friendship, loyalty, self-respect, and inner contentment, that pass along, radiant with peace and simplicity, in the midst of thelies and ambitions, the follies and treacheries, of Versailles. Theyare not saints, in the vulgar sense of the word. They have not fled tothe depths of forest or desert, or sought egotistic shelter in narrowcells. They are sages, who remain within life and the things that arereal. It is not their piety that saves them; it is not in God alonethat their soul has found strength. To love God, and to serve Him withall one's might, will not suffice to bring peace and strength to thesoul of man. It is only by means of the knowledge and thought we havegained and developed by contact with men that we can learn how Godshould be loved; for, notwithstanding all things, the human soulremains profoundly human still. It may be taught to cherish theinvisible, but it will ever find far more actual nourishment in thevirtue or feeling that is simply and wholly human, than in the virtueor passion divine. If there come towards us a man whose soul is trulytranquil and calm, we may be certain that human virtues have given himhis tranquillity and his calmness. Were we permitted to peer into thesecret recesses of hearts that are now no more, we might discover, perhaps, that the fountain of peace whereat Fenelon slaked his thirstevery night of his exile lay rather in his loyalty to Madame Guyon inher misfortune, in his love for the slandered, persecuted Dauphin, thanin his expectation of eternal reward; rather in the irreproachablehuman conscience within him, overflowing with fidelity and tenderness, than in the hopes he cherished as a Christian. 

97. Admirable indeed is the serenity of this "little flock!" No virtue, here, to kindle dazzling fires on the mountain, but heart and soul thatare alive with flame. No heroism but that of love, of confidence andsincerity, that remember and are content to wait. Some men there arewhose virtue issues from them with a noise of clanging gates; in othersit dwells as silent as the maid who never stirs from home, who sitsthoughtfully by the fireside, always ready to welcome those who enterfrom the cold without. There is less need of heroic hours, perhaps, ina beautiful life, than of weeks that are grave, and uniform, and pure. It may be that the soul that is loyal and perfectly just is moreprecious than the one that is tender or full of devotion It will enterless wholly perhaps, and with less exaltation, into the more exuberantadventures of life; but in the events that occur every day we can trustit more fully, rely more completely upon it; and is there a man, afterall, no matter how strange and delirious and brilliant his life mayhave been, who has not spent the great bulk of his time in the midst ofmost ordinary incident? In our very sublimest hour, as we stand in themidst of the dazzling circles it throws, are we not startled to findthat the habits and thoughts of our soberest hour are whirling aroundwith the rest? We must always come back to our normal life, that isbuilt on the solid earth and primitive rock. We are not called upon tocontest each day with dishonour, despair, or death; but it isimperative, perhaps, that I should be able to tell myself, at everyhour of sadness, that there exists, somewhere, an unchangeable, unconquerable soul that has drawn near to my soul--a soul that isfaithful and silent, blind to all that it deems not conformable withthe truth. We can only have praise for heroism, and for surpassinglygenerous deeds; but more praise still--as it demands a more vigilantstrength--for the man who never allows an inferior thought to seducehim; who leads a less glorious life, perhaps, but one of more uniformworth. Let us sometimes, in our meditations, bring our desire for moralperfection to the level of daily truth, and be taught how far easier itis to confer occasional benefit than never to do any harm; to bringoccasional happiness than never be cause of tears. 

98. Their refuge, their "firm rock, " as Saint-Simon calls it, lay ineach other, and, above all, in themselves; and all that was blamelesswithin their soul became steadfastness in the rock. A thousandsubstances go to form the foundations of this "firm rock, " but all thatwe hold to be blameless within us will sink to its centre and base. Itis true that our standard of conduct may often be sadly at fault; andthe vilest of men has a moment each night when he proudly surveys somedetestable thought, that seems wholly blameless to him. But I speak ofa virtue, here, that is higher than everyday virtue; and the mostordinary man is aware what a virtue becomes, when it is ordinary virtueno longer. Moral beauty, indeed, though it be of the rarest kind, neverpasses the comprehension of the most narrow-minded of men; and no actis so readily understood as the act that is truly sublime. We mayadmire a deed profoundly, perhaps, and yet not rise to its height; butit is imperative that we should not abide in the darkness that coversthe thing we blame. Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, isdue to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed bychance. Some souls, I know, for ever are building; others havepreference for ruins; and others, still, will wander, their whole lifethrough, seeking shelter beneath strange roofs. And difficult as it maybe to transform the instincts that dwell in the soul, it is well thatthose who build not should be made aware of the joy that the othersexperience as they incessantly pile stone upon stone. Their thoughts, and attachments, and love; their convictions, deceptions, and eventheir doubts--all stand in good service; and when the passing storm hasdemolished their mansion, they build once again with the ruins, alittle distance away, something less stately perhaps, but betteradapted to all the requirements of life. What regret, disillusion, orsadness can shatter the homestead of him who, in choosing the stonesfor his dwelling, Was careful to keep all the wisdom and strength thatregret, disillusion, and sadness contain? Or might we not say that itis with the roots of the happiness we cherish within as with roots ofgreat trees? The oaks that are subject the most to the stress of thestorm thrust their roots the most staunchly and firmly, deep down ineternal soil; and the fate that unjustly pursues us is no more aware ofwhat comes to pass in our soul, than the wind is aware of what happensbelow in the earth. 

99. Here let us note how great is the power, how mysterious theattraction, of veritable happiness. Something of a hush comes overSaint-Simon's stirring narrative as one of the members of the "littleflock" passes through the careless, triumphant crowd, unceasingly busywith intrigue and salutation, petty love and petty triumph, amidst themarble staircases and magnificent halls of Versailles. Saint-Simon goescalmly on with his story; but for one second we seem to have comparedall this jubilant vanity and ephemeral rejoicing, this brazen-tonguedfalsehood that secretly trembles, with the serene, unvarying loftinessof those strenuous, tranquil souls. It is as though there shouldsuddenly appear in the midst of a band of children--who are pluckingflowers, it may be, stealing fruit, or playing forbidden games--apriest or an aged man, who should go on his way, letting fall not oneword of rebuke. The games are suddenly stopped; startled conscienceawakens; and unbidden thoughts of duty, reality, truth, rush in on themind; but with men no more than with children are impressions of longduration, though they spring from the priest, or the sage, or only thethought that has passed and gone on its way. But it matters not, theyhave seen; and the human soul, for all that the eyes are only toowilling to close or turn away, is nobler than most men would wish it tobe, for it often troubles their peace; and the soul is quick to declareits preference for that it has seen, and fain would abandon itsenforced and wearisome idleness. And although we may smile and makemerry as the sage disappears in the distance, he has, though he know itnot, left a clear track in the midst of our error and folly, where, haply, it still will abide for a long time to come. And when the suddenhour of tears bursts upon us, then most of all shall we see itenwrapped in light. We find again and again, in Saint-Simon's story, that sorrow no sooner invades a soul somewhat loftier than others, somewhat nearer to life perhaps, than it speedily flies for comfort toone it has thus seen pass by in the midst of the uneasy silence andalmost malevolent wonder, that in this world too often attend thefootsteps of a blameless life. It is not our wont to question happinessclosely in the days when we deem ourselves happy; but when sorrow drawsnigh, our memory flies to the peace that somewhere lies hidden: thepeace that depends not on the rays of the sun, or the kiss that hasbeen withheld, or the disapproval of kings. At such moments we go notto those who are happy, as we once were happy; for we know that thishappiness melts away before the first fretful gesture of fate. Wouldyou learn where true happiness dwells, you have only to watch themovements of those who are wretched, and seek consolation. Sorrow islike the divining-rod that used to avail the seekers of treasure or ofclear running water; for he who may have it about him unerringly makesfor the house where profoundest peace has its home. And this is so truethat we should be wise, perhaps, not to dwell with too muchsatisfaction on our own peace of mind and tranquillity, on thesincerity of our own acquiescence in the great laws of life, or relytoo complacently on the duration of our own happiness, until such timeas the instinct of those who suffer impels them to knock at our door, and their eyes can behold, shining bright on the threshold, the steady, unwavering flame of the lamp that burns on for ever. Yes; only they, itmay be, have the right to deem themselves safe to whose arms there cometo weep those whose eyes are heavy with tears. And indeed there are nota few in this world whose inner smile we can only behold when our eyeshave been cleansed by the tears that lay bare the mysterious sources ofvision; and then only do we begin to detect the presence of happinessthat springs not from the favour or gleam of an hour, but from widestacceptance of life. Here, as in much beside, desire and necessityquicken our senses. The hungry bee will discover the honey, be it hidnever so deep in the cavern; and the soul that mourns will spy out thejoy that lies hidden in its retreat, or in most impenetrable silence. 

100. Destiny begins when consciousness wakes, and bestirs itself withinman; not the passive, impoverished consciousness of most souls, but theactive consciousness that will accept the event, whatever it may be, asan imprisoned queen will accept a gift that is offered to her in hercell. If nothing should happen, your consciousness yet may createimportant event from the manner in which it regards the mere dearth ofevent; but perhaps to each man there occurs vastly more than is neededto satisfy the thirstiest, most indefatigable consciousness. I have atthis moment before me the history of a mighty and passionate soul, whomevery adventure that makes for the sorrow or gladness of man would seemto have passed by with averted head. It is of Emily Bronte I speak, than whom the first fifty years of this century produced no woman ofgreater or more incontestable genius. She has left but one book behindher, a novel, called "Wuthering Heights, " a curious title, which seemsto suggest a storm on a mountain peak. She was the daughter of anEnglish clergyman, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, who was the mostinsignificant, selfish, lethargic, pretentious creature the mind canconceive. There were only two things in life that seemed of importanceto him--the purity of his Greek profile, and solicitude for hisdigestion. As for Emily's unfortunate mother, her whole life would seemto have been spent in admiring this Greek profile and in studying thisdigestion. But there is scarcely need to dwell upon her existence, forshe died only two years after Emily's birth. It is of interest to note, however--if only to prove once again that, in ordinary life, the womanis usually superior to the man she has had to accept--that long afterthe death of the patient wife a bundle of letters was found, wherein itwas clearly revealed that she who had always been silent was fullyalive to the indifference and fatuous self-love of her vain andindolent husband. We may, it is true, be conscious of faults in othersfrom which we are ourselves not exempt; although to discover a virtue, perhaps, we must needs have a germ of it in us. Such were Emily'sparents. Around her, four sisters and one brother gravely watched themonotonous flight of the hours. The family dwelling, where Emily'swhole life was spent, was in the heart of the Yorkshire Moors, at aplace called Haworth, a gloomy, desolate village; barren, forsaken, andlonely. 

There can never have been a childhood and youth so friendless, monotonous, and dreary as that of Emily and her sisters. There came tothem none of those happy little adventures, bright gleams from theunexpected, which we broider and magnify as the years go by, and storeat last in our soul as the one inexhaustible treasure acquired by thesmiling memory of life. Each day was the same, from first tolast--lessons, meals, household duties, work beside an old aunt, andlong solitary walks that these grave little girls would take hand inhand, speaking but seldom, across the heather now gay with blossom, nowwhite beneath the snow. At home the father they scarcely saw, who waswholly indifferent, who took his meals in his room, and would come downat night to the rectory parlour and read aloud the appallingly drearydebates of the House of Commons: without, the silence of the adjoininggraveyard, the great treeless desert, and the moors that from autumn tosummer were swept by the pitiless wind from the north. 

The hazard of life--for in every life some effort is put forth byfate--the hazard of life removed Emily three or four times from thedesert she had grown to love, and to consider--as will happen to thosewho remain too long in one spot--the only place in the world where theplants, and the earth, and the sky were truly real and delightful. Butafter a few weeks' absence the light would fade from her ardent, beautiful eyes; she pined for home; and one or another of the sistersmust hasten to bring her back to the lonely vicarage. 

In 1843--she was then twenty-five--she returned once again, never moreto go forth until summoned by death. Not an event, or a smile, or awhisper of love in the whole of her life to the day of this finalreturn. Nor was her memory charged with one of those griefs ordeceptions, which enable the weaklings, or those who demand too littleof life, to imagine that passive fidelity to something that has ofitself collapsed is an act of virtue; that inactivity is justified bythe tears wherein it is bathed; and that the duty of life isaccomplished when suffering has been made to yield up all itsresignation and sorrow. 

Here, in this virgin soul, whose past was a blank, there was nothingfor memory or resignation to cling to; nothing before that lastjourney, as nothing after; unless it be mournful vigils by the side ofthe brother she nursed--the almost demented brother, whose life waswrecked by his idleness and a great unfortunate passion; who became anincurable opium-eater and drunkard. Then, shortly before hertwenty-ninth birthday, on a December afternoon, as she sat in thelittle whitewashed parlour combing her long black hair, the combslipped from the fingers that were too weak to retain it, and fell intothe fire; and death came to her, more silent even than life, and boreher away from the pale embraces of the two sisters whom fortune hadleft her. 

101. "No touch of love, no hint of fame, no hours of ease lie for youacross the knees of fate, " exclaims Miss Mary Robinson, who haschronicled this existence, in a fine outburst of sorrow. And truly, viewed from without, what life could be more dreary and colourless, more futile and icily cold, than that of Emily Bronte? But where shallwe take our stand, when we pass such a life in review, so as best todiscover its truth, to judge it, approve it, and love it? How differentit all appears as we leave the little parsonage, hidden away on themoors, and let our eyes rest on the soul of our heroine! It is rareindeed that we thus can follow the life of a soul in a body that knewno adventure; but it is less rare than might be imagined that a soulshould have life of its own, which hardly depends, if at all, onincident of week or of year. In "Wuthering Heights"--wherein this soulgives to the world its passions, desires, reflections, realisations, ideals, which is, in a word, its real history--in "Wuthering Heights"there is more adventure, more passion, more energy, more ardour, morelove, than is needed to give life or fulfilment to twenty heroicexistences, twenty destinies of gladness or sorrow. Not a single eventever paused as it passed by her threshold; yet did every event shecould claim take place in her heart, with incomparable force andbeauty, with matchless precision and detail. We say that nothing everhappened; but did not all things really happen to her much moredirectly and tangibly than unto most of us, seeing that everything thattook place about her, everything that she saw or heard, was transformedwithin her into thoughts and feelings, into indulgent love, admiration, adoration of life? What matter whether the event fall on ourneighbour's roof or our own? The rain-drops the cloud brings with itare for him who will hold out his vessel; and the gladness, the beauty, the peace, or the helpful disquiet that is found in the gesture offate, belongs only to him who has learned to reflect. Love never cameto her: there fell never once on her ear the lover's magical footfall;and, for all that, this virgin, who died in her twenty-ninth year, hasknown love, has spoken of love, has penetrated its most impenetrablesecrets to such a degree, that those who have loved the most deeplymust sometimes uneasily wonder what name they should give to thepassion they feel, when she pours forth the words, exaltation andmystery of a love beside which all else seems pallid and casual. Where, if not in her heart, has she heard the matchless words of the girl, whospeaks to her nurse of the man who is hated and harassed by all, butwhom she wholly adores? "My great miseries in this world have beenHeathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning;my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and HEremained, _I_ should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger;I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliagein the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changesthe trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocksbeneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I AMHeathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any morethan I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. . .. I donot love him because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than Iam. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. " . .. 

She has but little acquaintance with the external realities of love, and these she handles so innocently at times as almost to provoke asmile; but where can she have acquired her knowledge of those innerrealities, that are interwoven with all that is profoundest and mostillogical in passion, with all that is most unexpected, mostimpossible, and most eternally true? We feel that one must have livedfor thirty years beneath burning chains of burning kisses to learn whatshe has learned; to dare so confidently set forth, with suchminuteness, such unerring certainty, the delirium of those twopredestined lovers of "Wuthering Heights"; to mark the self-conflictingmovements of the tenderness that would make suffer and the cruelty thatwould make glad, the felicity that prayed for death and the despairthat clung to life; the repulsion that desired, the desire drunk withrepulsion--love surcharged with hatred, hatred staggering beneath itsload of love. . .. 

And yet it is known to us--for in this poor life of hers all liesopen--that she neither loved nor was loved. May it be true then thatthe last word of an existence is only a word that destiny whispers lowto what lies most hidden in our heart? Have we indeed an inner lifethat yields not in reality to the outer life; that is no lesssusceptible of experience and impression? Can we live, it matters notwhere, and love, and hate, listening for no footfall, spurning nocreature? Is the soul self-sufficient; and is it always the soul thatdecides, a certain height once gained? Is it only to those whoseconscience still slumbers that events can seem sad or sterile? Did notlove and beauty, happiness and adventure--did not all that we go insearch of along the ways of life congregate in Emily Bronte's heart?Day after day passed by, with never a joy or emotion; never a smilethat the eye could see or the hand could touch; wherefore none the lessdid her destiny find its fulfilment, for the confidence within her, theeagerness, hope, animation, all were astir; and her heart was floodedwith light, and radiant with silent gladness. Of her happiness none candoubt. Not in the soul of the best of all those whose happiness haslasted the longest, been the most active, diversified, perfect, couldmore imperishable harvest be found than in the soul Emily Bronte laysbare. If to her there came nothing of all that passes in joy and inlove, in sorrow, passion, and anguish, still did she possess all thatabides when emotion has faded away. Which of the two will know more ofthe marvellous palace--the blind man who lives there, or the other, with wide-open eyes, who perhaps only enters it once? "To live, not tolive"--we must not let mere words mislead us. It is surely possible tolive without thought, but not to think, without active life. Theessence of the joy or sorrow the event contains lies in the idea theevent gives birth to: our own idea, if we are strong; that of others, if we are weak. On your way to the grave there may come a thousandexternal events towards you, whereof not one, it may be, shall findwithin you the force that it needs to turn to moral event. Then may youtruthfully say, and then only, "I have perhaps not lived. " The intimatehappiness of our heroine, as of every human being, was in exactproportion to her morality and her sense of the universe; and theseindeed are the clearings in the forest of accidents whose area it iswell we should know when we seek to measure the happiness a life hasexperienced. Who that had gained the altitude of peace andcomprehension whereon her soul reposed would still be wrought tofeeble, bitter, unrefreshing tears by the cares and troubles anddeceptions of ordinary life? Who would not then understand why it wasthat she shed no tears, unlike so many of her sisters, who spend theirlives in plaintive wanderings from one broken joy to another? The joythat is dead weighs heavy, and bids fair to crush us, if we cause it tobe with us for ever; which is as though a wood-cutter should refuse tolay down his load of dead wood. For dead wood was not made to beeternally borne on the shoulder, but indeed to be burned, and giveforth brilliant flame. And as we behold the names that soar aloft inEmily's soul, then are we as heedless as she was of the sorrows of thedead wood. No misfortune but has its horizon, no sadness but shall knowcomfort, for the man who in the midst of his suffering, in the midst ofthe grief that must come to him as to all, has learned to espy Nature'sample gesture beneath all sorrow and suffering, and has become awarethat this gesture alone is real. "The sage, who is lord of his life, can never truly be said to suffer. " wrote an admirable woman, who hadknown much sorrow herself. "It is from the heights above that he looksdown on his life, and if to-day he should seem to suffer, it is onlybecause he has allowed his thoughts to incline towards the less perfectpart of his soul. " Emily Bronte not only breathes life into tenderness, loyalty, and love, but into hatred and wickedness also; nay, into thevery fiercest revengeful ness, the most deliberate perfidy; nor doesshe deem it incumbent upon her to pardon, for pardon implies onlyincomplete comprehension. She sees, she admits, and she loves. Sheadmits the evil as well as the good, she gives life to both; wellknowing that evil, when all is said, is only righteousness strayed fromthe path. She reveals to us--not with the moralist's arbitrary formula, but as men and years reveal the truths we have wit to grasp--the finalhelplessness of evil, brought face to face with life; the finalappeasement of all things in nature as well as in death, "which is onlythe triumph of life over one of its specialised forms. " She shows howthe dexterous lie, begotten of genius and strength, is forced to bowdown before the most ignorant, puniest truth; she shows theself-deception of hatred that sows, all unwilling, the seeds ofgladness and love in the life that it anxiously schemes to destroy. Sheis, perhaps, the first to base a plea for indulgence on the great lawof heredity; and when, at the end of her book, she goes to the villagechurchyard and visits the eternal resting-place of her heroes, thegrass grows green alike over grave of tyrant and martyr; and shewonders how "any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for thesleepers in that quiet earth. "

102. I am well aware that here we are dealing with a woman of genius;but genius only throws into bolder relief all that can, and actuallydoes, take place in the lives of all men; otherwise were it genius nolonger, but incoherence or madness. It becomes clear to us, after atime, that genius is by no means confined to the extraordinary; andthat veritable superiority is composed of elements that every dayoffers to every man. But we are not considering literature now; andindeed, not by her literary gifts, but by her inner life, was EmilyBronte comforted; for it by no means follows that moral activity waitson brilliant literary powers. Had she remained silent, nor ever graspeda pen, still had there been no diminution of the power within her, ofthe smile and the fulness of love; still had she worn the air of onewho knew whither her steps were tending; and the profound certaintythat dwelt within her still had proclaimed that she had known how tomake her peace, far up on the heights, with the great disquiet andmisery of the world. We should never have known of her--that is all. 

There is much to be learned from this humble life, and yet were itperhaps not well to hold it forth as an example to such as alreadyincline overmuch to resignation, for these it might mislead. It is alife that would seem to have been wholly passive--and to be passive isnot good for all. She died a virgin in her twenty-ninth year: and it issad to die a virgin. Is it not the paramount duty of every human beingto offer to his destiny all that can be offered to the destiny of man?And indeed we had far better leave behind us work unfinished than lifeitself incomplete. It is good to be indifferent to vain or idlepleasures; but we have no right almost voluntarily to neglect the mostimportant chances of indispensable happiness. The soul that is unhappymay have within it cause for noble regret. To look largely on thesadness of one's life is to make essay, in the darkness, of the wingsthat shall one day enable us to soar high above this sadness. Effortwas lacking, perhaps, in Emily Bronte's life. (In her soul there waswealth of passion and freedom and daring, but in her life timidity, silence, inertness, conventions, and prejudice; the very things that inthought she despised. ) This is the history often of the too-meditativesoul. But it is difficult to pass judgment on an entire existence; andhere there were much to be said of the devotion wherewith shesacrificed the best years of her youth to an undeserving, thoughunfortunate, brother. Our remarks then, in a case such as this, must beunderstood generally only; but still, how long and how narrow is thepath that leads from the soul to life! Our thoughts of love, of justiceand loyalty, our thoughts of bold ambition--what are all these butacorns that fall from the oak in the forest? and must not thousands andtens of thousands be lost and rot in the lichen ere a single treespring to life? "She had a beautiful soul, " said, speaking of anotherwoman, the woman whose words I quoted above, "a wide intellect, andtender heart, but ere these qualities could issue forth into life theyhad perforce to traverse a straitened character. Again and again have Iwondered at this want of self-knowledge, of return to self. The man whowould wish us to see the deepest recess of his life will begin bytelling us all that he thinks and he feels, will lead as to his pointof view; we are conscious, perhaps, of much elevation of soul; then, aswe enter with him still further into his life, he tells of his conduct, his joys and his sorrows; and in these we detect not a gleam of thesoul that had shone through his thoughts and desires. When the trumpetis sounded for action, the instincts rush in, the character hastensbetween; but the soul stands aloof: the soul, which is man's veryhighest, being like the princess who elects to live on in arrogantpenury rather than soil her hands with ordinary labour. " Yes, alas, allis useless till such time as we have learned to harden our hands; totransform the gold and silver of thought into a key that shall open, not the ivory gate of our dreams, but the very door of this ourdwelling--into a cup that shall hold, not only the wondrous water ofdreams, but the living water that falls, drop by drop, on ourroof--into scales, not content vaguely to balance schemes for thefuture, but that record, with unerring accuracy, what we have doneto-day. The very loftiest ideal has taken no root within us, so long asit penetrate not every limb, so long as it palpitate not at ourfinger-tip. Some there are whose intellect profits by this return toself; with others, the character gains. The first have clearest visionfor all that concerns not themselves, that calls them not to action;but it is above all when stern reality confronts them, and time foraction has come, that the eyes of the others glow bright. One mightalmost believe in there being an intellectual consciousness, languidlyresting for ever upon an immovable throne, whence she issues commandsto the will through faithless or indolent envoys, and a moralconsciousness, incessantly stirring, afoot, at all times ready tomarch. It may be that this latter consciousness depends on theformer--indeed who shall say that she is not the former, wearied fromlong repose, wherein she has learned all that was to be learned; thathas at last determined to rise, to descend the steps of inactivity andsally forth into life? And all will be well, if only she have nottarried so long that her limbs refuse their office. Is it notpreferable sometimes to act in opposition to our thoughts than neverdare to act in accord with them? Rarely indeed is the active errorirremediable; men and things are quickly on the spot, eager to set itright; but they are helpless before the passive error that has shunnedcontact with the real. Let all this, however, by no means be construedinto meaning that the intellectual consciousness must be starved, orits growth arrested, for fear lest it outpace the moral consciousness. We need have no fear; no ideal conceived by man can be too admirablefor life to conform with it. To float the smallest act of justice orlove requires a very torrent of desire for good. For our conduct onlyto be honest we must have thoughts within us ten times loftier than ourconduct. Even to keep somewhat clear of evil bespeaks enormous cravingfor good. Of all the forces in the world there is none melts so quicklyaway as the thought that has to descend into everyday life; whereforewe must needs be heroic in thought for our deeds to pass muster, or atthe least be harmless. 

103. Let us once again, and for the last time, return to obscuredestinies. They teach us that, physical misfortune apart, there isremedy for all; and that to complain of destiny is only to expose ourown feebleness of soul. We are told in the history of Rome how acertain Julius Sabinus, a senator from Gaul, headed a revolt againstthe Emperor Vespasian, and was duly defeated. He might have soughtrefuge among the Germans, but only by leaving his young wife, Eponina, behind him, and he had not the heart to forsake her. At moments ofdisaster and sorrow we learn the true value of life; nor did JuliusSabinus welcome the idea of death. He possessed a villa, beneath whichthere stretched vast subterranean caverns, known only to him and twofreedmen. This villa he caused to be burned, and the rumour was spreadthat he had sought death by poison, and that his body was consumed bythe flames. Eponina herself was deceived, says Plutarch, whose story Ifollow, with the additions made thereto by the Comte de Champagny, thehistorian of Antoninus; and when Martialis the freedman told her of herhusband's self-slaughter, she lay for three days and three nights onthe ground, refusing all nourishment. When Sabinus heard of her grief, he took pity and caused her to know that he lived. She none the lessmourned and shed floods of tears, in the daytime, when people werenear, but when night fell she sought him below in his cavern. For sevenlong months did she thus confront the shades, every night, to be withher husband; she even attempted to help him escape; she shaved off hishair and his beard, wrapped his head round with fillets, disguised him, and then had him sent, in a bundle of clothes, to her own native city. But his stay there becoming unsafe, she soon brought him back to hiscavern; and herself divided her stay between town and the country, spending her nights with him, and from time to time going to town to beseen by her friends. She became big with child, and, by means of anunguent wherewith she anointed her body, her condition remainedunsuspected by even the women at the baths, which at that time weretaken in common. And when her confinement drew nigh she went down toher cavern, and there, with no midwife, alone, she gave birth to twosons, as a lioness throws off her cubs. She nourished her twins withher milk, she nursed them through childhood; and for nine years shestood by her husband in the gloom and the darkness. But Sabinus at lastwas discovered and taken to Rome. He surely would seem to have meritedVespasian's pardon. Eponina led forth the two sons she had reared inthe depths of the earth, and said to the Emperor, "These have I broughtinto the world and fed on my milk, that we might one day be more toimplore thy forgiveness. " Tears filled the eyes of all who were there;but Caesar stood firm, and the brave Gaul at last was reduced to demandpermission to die with her husband. "I have known more happiness withhim in the darkness, " she cried, "than thou ever shalt know, O Caesar, in the full glare of the sunshine, or in all the splendour of thymighty empire. "

Who that has a heart within him can doubt the truth of her words, orthink without longing of the darkness that so great a love illumined?Many a dreary, miserable hour must have crawled by as they crouched intheir hiding-place; but are there any, even among those who care onlyfor the pettiest pleasures of life, who would not rather love with suchdepth and fervour in what was almost a tomb, than flaunt a frigidaffection in the heat and light of the sun? Eponina's magnificent cryis the cry of all those whose hearts have been touched by love; as itis also the cry of those whose soul has discovered an interest, duty, or even a hope, in life. The flame that inspired Eponina inspires thesage also, lost in monotonous hours as she in her gloomy retreat. Loveis the unconscious sun of our soul; and it is when its beams are mostardent, and purest, that they bear most surprising resemblance to thosethat the soul, aglow with justice and truth, with beauty and majesty, has kindled within itself, and adds to, incessantly. Is not thehappiness that accident brought to the heart of Eponina within reach ofevery heart, so the will to possess it be there? Is not all that wassweetest in this love of hers--the devotion of self, the transformationof regret into happiness, of pleasure renounced into joy that abides inthe heart for ever; the interest awakened each day by the feeblestglimmer of light, so it fall on a thing one admires; the immersion inradiance, in happiness susceptible of infinite expansion, for one hasonly to worship the more--are not all these, and a thousand otherforces no less helpful, no less consoling, to be found in the intensestlife of our soul, of our heart, of our thoughts? And was Eponina's loveother than a sudden lightning flash from this life of the soul, come toher, all unconscious and unprepared? Love does not always reflect;often indeed does it need no reflection, no search into self, to enjoywhat is best in thought; but, none the less, all that is best in loveis closely akin to all that is best in thought. Suffering seemed everradiant in aspect to Eponina, because of her love; but cannot thisthing that love brings about, all unknowing, by fortunate accident, bealso achieved by thought, meditation, by the habit of looking beyondour immediate trouble, and being more joyous than fate would seem todemand? To Eponina there came not a sorrow but kindled yet one moretorch in the gloom of her cavern; and does not the sadness that forcesthe soul back into itself, to the retreat it has made, kindle deepconsolation there? And, as the noble Eponina has taken us back to thedays of persecution, may we not liken such sorrow to the paganexecutioner who, suddenly touched by grace, or perhaps admiration, inthe very midst of the torture that he was inflicting, flung himselfdown headlong at the feet of his victim, speaking words of tenderestsympathy; who demanded to share her suffering, and finally besought, ina kiss, to be told the way to her heaven. 

104. Go where we will, the plentiful river of life flows on, beneaththe canopy of heaven. It flows between prison walls, where the sunnever gleams on its waters; as it flows by the palace steps, where allis gladness and glory. Not our concern the depth of this river, or itswidth, or the strength of its current, as it streams on for ever, pertaining to all; but of deepest importance to us is the size and thepurity of the cup that we plunge in its waters. For whatever of life weabsorb must needs take the form of this cup, as this, too, has takenthe form of our thoughts and our feelings; being modelled, indeed, onthe breast of our intimate destiny as the breast of a goddess onceserved for the cup of the sculptor of old. Every man has the cup of hisfashioning, and most often the cup he has learned to desire. When wemurmur at fate, let our grievance be only that she grafted not in ourheart the wish for, or thought of, a cup more ample and perfect. Forindeed in the wish alone does inequality lie, but this inequalityvanishes the moment it has been perceived. Does the thought that ourwish might be nobler not at once bring nobility with it; does not thebreast of our destiny throb to this new aspiration, thereby expandingthe docile cup of the ideal--the cup whose metal is pliable, still tothe cold stern hour of death? No cause for complaint has he who haslearned that his feelings are lacking in generous ardour, or the otherwho nurses within him a hope for a little more happiness, a little morebeauty, a little more justice. For here all things come to pass in theway that they tell us it happens with the felicity of the elect, ofwhom each one is robed in gladness, and wears the garment befitting hisstature. Nor can he desire a happiness more perfect than the happinesswhich he possesses, without the desire wherewith he desired at oncebringing fulfilment with it. If I envy with noble envy the happiness ofthose who are able to plunge a heavier cup, and more radiant than mine, there where the great river is brightest, I have, though I know it not, my excellent share of all that they draw from the river, and my lipsrepose by the side of their lips on the rim of the shining cup. 

105. It may be remembered perhaps that, before these digressions, wespoke of a woman whose friend asked her, wonderingly, "Can any man beworthy of your love?" The same question might have been asked of EmilyBronte, as indeed of many others; and in this world there are thousandsof souls, of loftiest intention, that do yet forfeit the best years oflove in constant self-interrogation as to the future of theiraffections. Nay, more--in the empire of destiny it is to the image oflove that the great mass of complaints and regrets come flocking; theimage of love around which hover sluggish desire, extravagant hope, andfears engendered of vanity. At root of all this is much pride, andcounterfeit poetry, and falsehood. The soul that is misunderstood ismost often the one that has made the least effort to gain someknowledge of self. The feeblest ideal, the one that is narrowest, straitest, most often will thrive on deception and fear, on exactionand petty contempt. We dread above all lest any should slight, or passby unnoticed, the virtues and thoughts, the spiritual beauty, thatexist only in our imagination. It is with merits of this nature as itis with our material welfare--hope clings most persistently to thatwhich we probably never shall have the strength to acquire. The cheatthrough whose mind some momentary thought of amendment has passed, isamazed that we offer not instant, surpassing homage to the feeling ofhonour that has, for brief space, found shelter within him. But if weare truly pure, and sincere, and unselfish; if our thoughts soar aloftof themselves, in all simpleness, high above vanity or instinctiveselfishness, then are we far less concerned than those who are near usshould understand, should approve, or admire. Epictetus, MarcusAurelius, Antoninus Pius are not known to have ever complained that mencould not understand them. They hugged no belief to themselves thatsomething extraordinary, incomprehensible, lay buried within them; theyheld, on the contrary, that whatever was best in their virtue was thatwhich it needed no effort for all men to grasp and admit. But there aresome morbid virtues that are passed by unnoticed, and not withoutreason--for there will almost always be some superior reason for thepowerlessness of a feeling--morbid virtues to which we often ascribefar too great an importance; and that virtue will surely be morbid thatwe rate over highly and hold to deserve the respectful attention ofothers. In a morbid virtue there is often more harm than there is in ahealthy vice; in any event it is farther removed from truth; and thereis but little to hope for when we are divided from truth. As our idealbecomes loftier so does it become more real; and the nobler our soul, the less does it dread that it meet not a soul of its stature; for itmust have drawn near unto truth, in whose neighbourhood all things musttake of its greatness. When Dante had gained the third sphere, andstood in the midst of the heavenly lights, all shining with uniformsplendour, he saw that around him naught moved, and wondered was hestanding motionless there, or indeed drawing nearer unto the seat ofGod? So he cast his eyes upon Beatrice; and she seemed more beautifulto him; wherefore he knew that he was approaching his goal. And so canwe too count the steps that we take on the highway of truth, by theincrease of love that comes for all that goes with us in life; theincrease of love and of glad curiosity, of respect and of deepadmiration. 

106. Men, as a rule, sally forth from their homes seeking beauty andjoy, truth and love; and are glad to be able to say to their children, on their return, that they have met nothing. To be for ever complainingargues much pride; and those who accuse love and life are the ones whoimagine that these should bestow something more than they can acquirefor themselves. Love, it is true, like all else, claims the highestpossible ideal; but every ideal that conforms not with some strenuousinward, reality is nothing but falsehood--sterile and futile, obsequious falsehood. Two or three ideals, that lie out of our reach, will suffice to paralyse life. It is wrong to believe that loftiness ofsoul is governed by the loftiness of desire or dream. The dreams of theweak will be often more numerous, lovelier, than are those of thestrong; for these dreams absorb all their energy, all their activity. The perpetual craving for loftiness does not count in our moraladvancement if it be not the shadow thrown by the life we have lived, by the firm and experienced will that has come in close kinship withman. Then, indeed, as one places a rod at the foot of the steeple totell of its height by the shadow, so may we lead forth this craving ofours to the midst of the plain that is lit by the sun of externalreality, that thus we may tell what relation exists between the shadowthrown by the hour and the dome of eternity. 

107. It is well that a noble heart should await a great love; betterstill that this heart, all expectant, should cease not from loving; andthat, as it loves, it should scarcely be conscious of its desire formore exquisite love. In love as in life, expectation avails us butlittle; through loving we learn to love; and it is the so-calleddisillusions of pettier love that will, the most simply and faithfully, feed the immovable flame of the mightier love that shall come, it maybe, to illumine the rest of our life. 

We treat disillusions often with scantiest justice. We conceive them ofsorrowful countenance, pale and discouraged; whereas they are reallythe very first smiles of truth. Why should disillusion distress you, ifyou are a man of honest intention, if you strive to be just, and ofservice; if you seek to be happy and wise? Would you rather live on inthe world of your dreams and your errors than in the world that isreal? Only too often does many a promising nature waste its mostprecious hours in the struggle of beautiful dream against inevitablelaw, whose beauty is only perceived when every vestige of strength hasbeen sapped by the exquisite dream. If love has deceived you, do youthink that it would have been better for you all your life to regardlove as something it is not, and never can be? Would such an illusionnot warp your most significant actions; would it not for many days hidefrom you some part of the truth that you seek? Or if you imagine thatgreatness lay in your grasp, and disillusion has taken you back to yourplace in the second rank; have you the right, for the rest of yourlife, to curse the envoy of truth? For, after all, was it not truthyour illusion was seeking, assuming it to have been sincere? We shouldtry to regard disillusions as mysterious, faithful friends, ascouncillors none can corrupt, And should there be one more cruel thanthe rest, that for an instant prostrates you, do not murmur to yourselfthrough your tears that life is less beautiful than you had dreamed itto be, but rather that in your dream there must have been somethinglacking, since real life has failed to approve. And indeed themuch-vaunted strength of the strenuous soul is built up of disillusionsonly, that this soul has cheerfully welcomed. Every deception and lovedisappointed, every hope that has crumbled to dust, is possessed of astrength of its own that it adds to the strength of your truth; and themore disillusions there are that fall to the earth at your feet, themore surely and nobly will great reality shine on you--even as the raysof the sun are beheld the more clearly in winter, as they piercethrough the leafless branches of the trees of the forest. 

108. And if it be a great love that you seek, how can you believe thata soul shall be met with of beauty as great as you dream it to be, ifyou seek it with nothing but dreams? Have you the right to expect thatdefinite words and positive actions shall offer themselves in exchangefor mere formless desire, and yearning, and vision? Yet thus it is mostof us act. And if some fortunate chance at last accords our desire, andplaces us in presence of the being who is all we had dreamed her tobe--are we entitled to hope that our idle and wandering cravings shalllong be in unison with her vigorous, established reality? Our idealwill never be met with in life unless we have first achieved it withinus to the fullest extent in our power. Do you hope to discover and winfor yourself a loyal, profound, inexhaustible soul, loving and quickwith life, faithful and powerful, unconstrained, free: generous, brave, and benevolent--if you know less well than this soul what all thesequalities mean? And how should you know, if you have not loved them andlived in their midst, as this soul has loved and lived? Most exactingof all things, unskilful, thick-sighted, is the moral beauty, perfection, or goodness that is still in the shape of desire. If it beyour one hope to meet with an ideal soul, would it not be well that youyourself should endeavour to draw nigh to your own ideal? Be sure thatby no other means will you ever obtain your desire. And as you approachthis ideal it will dawn on you more and more clearly how fortunate andwisely ordained it has been that the ideal should ever be differentfrom what our vague hopes were expecting. So too when the ideal takesshape, as it comes into contact with life, will it soften, expand, andlose its rigidity, incessantly growing more noble. And then will youreadily perceive, in the creature you love, all that which is eternallytrue in yourself, and solidly righteous, and essentially beautiful; foronly the good in our heart can advise us of the goodness that hides byour side. Then, at last, will the imperfections of others no longerseem of importance to you, for they will no longer be able to woundyour vanity, selfishness, and ignorance; imperfections, that is, whichhave ceased to resemble your own; for it is the evil that lies inourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells withinothers. 

109. Let us have the same confidence in love that we have in life; forconfidence is of our essence; and the thought that works the most harmin all things is the one that inclines us to look with mistrust onreality. I have known more than one life that love broke asunder; butif it had not been love, these lives would no doubt have been broken noless by friendship or apathy, by doubt, hesitation, indifference, inaction. For that only which in itself is fragile can be rent in theheart by love; and where all is broken that the heart contains, thenmust all have been far too frail. There exists not a creature but mustmore than once have believed that his life was crushed; but they whoselife has indeed been shattered, and has fallen to ruin, owe theirmisfortune often to some strange vanity of the very ruin. Fortunate andunfortunate hazards there must of necessity be in love as in all therest of our destiny. It may so come about that one whose spirit andheart are abounding with tenderness, energy, and the noblest of humandesires, shall meet, on his first setting forth, all unsought, the soulthat shall satisfy each single craving of love in the ecstasy ofpermanent joy; the soul that shall content the loftiest yearning noless than the lowliest: the vastest, the mightiest no less than thedaintiest, sweetest: the most eternal no less than the most evanescent. He, it may be, shall instantly find the heart whereto he can give--theheart which will ever receive--all that is best in himself. It mayhappen that he shall at once have attained the soul that perchance isunique; the soul that is satisfied always, and always filled withdesire; the soul that can ever receive many thousand times more than isgiven, and that never fails to return many thousand times more than itreceives. For the love that the years cannot alter is built up ofexchanges like these, of sweet inequality; and naught do we ever trulypossess but that which we give in our love; and whatever our lovebestows, we are no longer alone to enjoy. 

110. Destinies sometimes are met with that thus are perfectly happy;and each man, it may be, is entitled to hope that such may one day behis; yet must his hope be never permitted to fasten chains on his life. All he can do is to make preparation one day to deserve such a love;and he will be most patient and tranquil who incessantly strives tothis end. It might so have happened that he whom we spoke of just nowshould, day after day, from youth to old age, have passed by the sideof the wall behind which his happiness lay waiting, enwrapped in toosecret a silence. But if happiness lie yonder side of the wall, mustdespair and disaster of necessity dwell on the other? Is not somethingof happiness to be found in our thus being able to pass by the side ofour happiness? Is it not better to feel that a mere slenderchance--transparent, one almost might call it--is all that extendsbetween us and the exquisite love that we dream of, than to be dividedfor ever therefrom by all that is worthless within us, undeserving, inhuman, abnormal? Happy is he who can gather the flower, and bear itaway in his bosom; yet have we no cause to pity the other who walksuntil nightfall, steeped in the glorious perfume of the flower no eyescan behold. Must the life be a failure, useless and valueless, that isnot as completely happy as it possibly might have been? It is youyourself would have brought what was best in the love you regret; andif, as we said, the soul at the end possess only what it has given, does not something already belong to us when we are incessantly seekingfor chances of giving? Ah yes--I declare that the joy of a perfect, abiding love is the greatest this world contains; and yet, if you findnot this love, naught will be lost of all you have done to deserve it, for this will go to deepen the peace of your heart, and render stillbraver and purer the calm of the rest of your days. 

111. And, besides, we always can love. If our own love be admirable, most of the joys of admirable love will be ours. In the most perfectlove, the lovers' happiness will not be exactly the same, be theirunion never so close; for the better of the two needs must love with alove that is deeper; and the one that loves with a deeper love must besurely the happier. Let your task be to render yourself worthy oflove--and this even more for your own happiness than for that ofanother. For be sure that when love is unequal, and the hours comeclouded with sorrow, it is not the wiser of the two who will suffer themost--not the one that shows more generosity, justice, more high-mindedpassion. The one who is better will rarely become the victim deservingour pity. For, indeed, to be truly a victim it must be our own faults, our injustice, wrongdoing, beneath which we suffer. However imperfectyou be, you still may suffice for the love of a marvellous being; butfor your love, if you are not perfect, that being will never suffice. If fortune one day should lead to your dwelling the woman adorned witheach gift of heart and of intellect--such a woman as history tells of, a heroine of glory, happiness, love--you will still be all unaware ifyou have not learned, yourself, to detect and to love these gifts inactual life; and what is actual life to each man but the life that helives himself? All that is loyal within you will flower in the loyaltyof the woman you love; whatever of truth there abides in your soul willbe soothed by the truth that is hers; and her strength of character canbe only enjoyed by that which is strong in you. And when a virtue ofthe being we love finds not, on the threshold of our heart, a virtuethat resembles it somewhat, then is it all unaware to whom it shallgive the gladness it brings. 

112. And whatever the fate your affections may meet with, do you neverlose courage; above all, do not think that, love's happiness havingpassed by you, you will never, right up to the end, know the great joyof human life. For though happiness appear in the form of a torrent, ora river that flows underground, of a whirlpool or tranquil lake, itssource still is ever the same that lies deep down in our heart; and theunhappiest man of all men can conceive an idea of great joy. It is truethat in love there is ecstasy that he doubtless never will know; butthis ecstasy would leave deep melancholy only in the earnest andfaithful heart, if there were not in veritable love something morestable than ecstasy, more profound and more steadfast; and all that inlove is profoundest, most stable and steadfast, is profoundest in noblelives too--is most stable and steadfast in them. Not to all men is itgiven to be hero or genius, victorious, admirable always, or even to besimply happy in exterior things; but it lies in the power of the leastfavoured among us to be loyal, and gentle, and just, to be generous andbrotherly; he that has least gifts of all can learn to look on hisfellows without envy or hatred, without malice or futile regret; theoutcast can take his strange, silent part (which is not always that ofleast service) in the gladness of those who are near him; he that hasbarely a talent can still learn to forgive an offence with an evernobler forgiveness, can find more excuses for error, more admirationfor human word and deed; and the man there are none to love can love, and reverence, love. And, acting thus, he too will have drawn near thesource whither happy ones flock--oftener far than one thinks, and inthe most ardent hours of happiness even--the source over which theybend, to make sure that they truly are happy. Far down, at the root oflove's joys--as at the root of the humble life of the upright man fromwhom fate has withheld her smile--it is confidence, sincerity, generosity, tenderness, that alone are truly fixed and unchangeable. Love throws more lustre still on these points of light, and thereforemust love be sought. For the greatest advantage of love is that itreveals to us many a peaceful and gentle truth. The greatest advantageof love is that it gives us occasion to love and admire in one person, sole and unique, what we should have had neither knowledge nor strengthto love and admire in the many; and that thus it expands our heart forthe time to come, And at the root of the most marvellous love therenever is more than the simplest felicity, an adoration, a tendernesswithin the understanding of all, a security, faith, and fidelity allcan acquire an intensely human admiration, devotion--and all these theeager, unfortunate heart could know too, in its sorrowful life, had itonly a little less impatience and bitterness, a little more initiativeand energy. 

THE END