“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”
When Thomas
Carlyle (a sage, although somewhat morbid) lost the wife he had
tenderly loved, with whom he had lived forty years, then did his sorrow
too, with marvellous exactness, become as had been the bygone life of
his love. And therefore was this sorrow of his majestic and vast;
consoling and torturing alike in the midst of his self-reproach, his
regret, and his tenderness--as might be meditation or prayer on the
shore of a gloomy sea. In the sorrow that floods our heart we have, as
it were, a synthetic presentment of all the days that are gone; and as
these were, so shall our sorrow be poignant, or tender and gentle. If
there be in my life no noble or generous deeds that memory can bring
back to me, then, at the inevitable moment when memory melts into
tears, must these tears, too, be bereft of all that is generous or
noble. For tears in themselves have no colour, that they may the better
reflect the past life of our soul; and this reflection becomes our
chastisement or our reward. There is but one thing that never can turn
into suffering, and that is the good we have done. When we lose one we
love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when
we 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 cling
to our tears, reminiscent of virtues and happiness. For our
recollections of veritable love--which indeed is the act of virtue
containing all others--call from our eyes the same sweet, tender tears
as those most beautiful hours wherein memory was born. Sorrow is just,
above all; and even as the cast stands ready awaiting the molten
bronze, so is our whole life expectant of the hour of sorrow, for it is
then 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 as
surpass her in wisdom. For she is barbarian still, and many men tower
above her. The commonplace life still supplies her with weapons, which
today are old-fashioned and crude. Her mode of attack, in exterior
life, is as it always has been, as it was in Oedipus' days. She shoots
like a blear-eyed bow-man, aiming straight ahead of her; but if the
target be raised somewhat higher than usual, her arrows fall harmless
to earth.
“How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words.”
A curious steadfastness already lurked in their eyes; and if,
in our moments of agitation, their glance rested upon us, it would
soothe and comfort us, we knew not why, and there would be an instant
of strangest silence. We would turn round: they were watching us and
smiling gravely. There were two for whom a violent death was lying in
wait—I remember their faces well. But almost all were timid, and tried
to pass by unperceived. They were weighed down by some deadly sense of
shame, they seemed to be ever beseeching forgiveness for a fault they
knew not of, but which was near at hand. They came towards us and our
eyes met; we drew asunder, silently, and all was clear to us, though we
knew nothing.
MYSTIC MORALITY
MYSTIC MORALITY
IT is only too evident that the invisible agitations of the kingdoms
within us are arbitrarily set on foot by the thoughts we shelter. Our
myriad intuitions are the veiled queens who steer our course through
life, though we have no words in which to speak of them. How strangely
do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words! We
believe we have dived down to the most unfathomable depths, and when
we reappear on the surface, the drop of water that glistens on our
trembling finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which it came.
We believe we have discovered a grotto that is stored with bewildering
treasure; we come back to the light of day, and the gems we have
brought are false—mere pieces of glass—and yet does the treasure
shine on, unceasingly, in the darkness! There is something between
ourselves and our soul that nothing can penetrate; and there are
moments, says Emerson, ‘in which we court suffering, in the hope that
here at least we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth.’
I have said elsewhere that the souls of mankind seemed to be drawing
nearer to each other, and even if this be not a statement that can be
proved, it is none the less based upon deep-rooted, though obscure,
convictions. It is indeed difficult to advance facts in its support,
for facts are nothing but the laggards, the spies and camp followers
of the great forces we cannot see.
“Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.”
Their refuge, their "firm rock," as Saint-Simon calls it, lay in
each other, and, above all, in themselves; and all that was blameless
within their soul became steadfastness in the rock. A thousand
substances go to form the foundations of this "firm rock," but all that
we hold to be blameless within us will sink to its centre and base. It
is true that our standard of conduct may often be sadly at fault; and
the vilest of men has a moment each night when he proudly surveys some
detestable thought, that seems wholly blameless to him. But I speak of
a virtue, here, that is higher than everyday virtue; and the most
ordinary man is aware what a virtue becomes, when it is ordinary virtue
no longer. Moral beauty, indeed, though it be of the rarest kind, never
passes the comprehension of the most narrow-minded of men; and no act
is so readily understood as the act that is truly sublime. We may
admire a deed profoundly, perhaps, and yet not rise to its height; but
it is imperative that we should not abide in the darkness that covers
the thing we blame. Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, is
due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by
chance. Some souls, I know, for ever are building; others have
preference for ruins; and others, still, will wander, their whole life
through, seeking shelter beneath strange roofs. And difficult as it may
be to transform the instincts that dwell in the soul, it is well that
those who build not should be made aware of the joy that the others
experience as they incessantly pile stone upon stone. Their thoughts,
and attachments, and love; their convictions, deceptions, and even
their doubts--all stand in good service; and when the passing storm has
demolished their mansion, they build once again with the ruins, a
little distance away, something less stately perhaps, but better
adapted to all the requirements of life. What regret, disillusion, or
sadness can shatter the homestead of him who, in choosing the stones
for his dwelling, Was careful to keep all the wisdom and strength that
regret, disillusion, and sadness contain? Or might we not say that it
is with the roots of the happiness we cherish within as with roots of
great trees?
“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing”
Formerly, none of them would
have dared to do so; and, even to-day, many of them hesitate and, like
misers, measure out miserly drops of the clemency and peace which they
ought to lavish and which they grudge in their dread of weakening the
last resistance, that is to say, the most useless and painful quiverings
of reluctant life refusing to give place to oncoming rest.
It is not for me to decide whether their pity might show greater daring.
It is enough to state once more that all this has no concern with death.
It happens before it and beneath it. It is not the arrival of death, but
the departure of life that is appalling. It is not death, but life that
we must act upon. It is not death that attacks life; it is life that
wrongfully resists death. Evils hasten up from every side at the
approach of death, but not at its call; and, though they gather round
it, they did not come with it. Do you accuse sleep of the fatigue that
oppresses you if you do not yield to it? All those strugglings, those
waitings, those tossings, those tragic cursings are on the side of the
slope to which we cling and not on the other side. They are, for that
matter, accidental and temporary and emanate only from our ignorance.
All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the
animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon
its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come
when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will
depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term, even
as it withdraws silently every evening, knowing that its task is done.
Once the doctor and the sick man have learnt what they have to learn,
there will be no physical nor metaphysical reason why the advent of
death should not be as salutary as that of sleep. Perhaps even, as there
will be nothing else to take into consideration, it will be possible to
surround death with profounder ecstasies and fairer dreams. In any case
and from this day, with death once acquitted of that which goes before,
it will be easier to look upon it without fear and to lighten that which
comes after.
9
Death, as we usually picture it, has two terrors looming behind it. The
first has neither face nor form and permeates the whole region of our
mind; the other is more definite, more explicit, but almost as powerful.
“We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.”
Nothing is visible, and yet all is revealed. They are afraid of
us, for that we are ever crying out to them of our knowledge, struggle
against it as we may; and when we are with them, they can see that,
in our hearts, we are oppressed by their destiny. Something there is
that we hide from most men, and we ourselves are ignorant of what
this thing may be. Strange secrets of life and death pass between two
creatures who meet for the first time; and many other secrets besides,
nameless to this day, but which at once thrust their impress upon our
bearing, our features, the look of our eyes; and even while we press
the hand of our friend, our soul will have soared perhaps beyond the
confines of this life. It may be that when two men are together, they
are unconscious of any hidden thoughts, but there are things that lie
deeper, and are far more imperious, than thought. We are not the lords
of these unfathomable gifts; and we are ever betraying the presence of
the prophet to whom speech is not given. We are never the same with
others as when we are alone; we are different, even, when we are in
the dark with them, and the look in our eyes changes as the past or
future flashes before us; and therefore it is that, though we know it
not, we are ever watchful and on our guard. When we meet those who are
not to live long, we are only conscious of the fate that is hanging
over them; we see nothing else. If they could they would deceive us,
so that they might the more readily deceive themselves. They do all in
their power to mislead us; they imagine that their eager smile, their
burning interest in life, will conceal the truth; but none the less
does the event already loom large before us, and seem indeed to be the
mainstay, nay, the very reason of their existence. Death has again
betrayed them, and they realise, in bitter sadness, that nothing is
hidden from us, that there are certain voices that cannot be still.
Who can tell us of the power which events possess—whether they issue
from us, or whether we owe our being to them? Do we attract them, or
are we attracted by them? Do we mould them, or do they mould us?
“Do we not all spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come to pass?”
They do all in
their power to mislead us; they imagine that their eager smile, their
burning interest in life, will conceal the truth; but none the less
does the event already loom large before us, and seem indeed to be the
mainstay, nay, the very reason of their existence. Death has again
betrayed them, and they realise, in bitter sadness, that nothing is
hidden from us, that there are certain voices that cannot be still.
Who can tell us of the power which events possess—whether they issue
from us, or whether we owe our being to them? Do we attract them, or
are we attracted by them? Do we mould them, or do they mould us? Are
they always unerring in their course? Why do they come to us like the
bee to the hive, like the dove to the cote; and where do they find a
resting-place when we are not there to meet them? Whence is it that
they come to us; and why are they shaped in our image, as though they
were our brothers? Are their workings in the past or in the future; and
are the more powerful of them those that are no longer, or those that
are not yet? Is it to-day or to-morrow that moulds us? Do we not all
spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that
has not yet come to pass? I have noticed the same grave gestures, the
footsteps that seemed to tend towards a goal that was all too near,
the presentiments that chilled the blood, the fixed, immovable look—I
have noticed all these in the men, even, whose end was to come about
by accident, the men on whom death would suddenly seize from without.
And yet were they as eager as their brethren, who bore the seeds of
death within them. Their faces were the same. To them, too, life was
fraught with more seriousness than to those who were to live their full
span. The same careful, silent watchfulness marked their actions. They
had no time to lose; they had to be in readiness at the same hour; so
completely had this event, which no prophet could have foretold, become
the very life of their life.
It is death that is the guide of our life, and our life has no goal but
death. Our death is the mould into which our life flows: it is death
that has shaped our features. Of the dead alone should portraits be
painted, for it is only they who are truly themselves, and who, for
one instant, stand revealed even as they are.
“Happiness is rarely absent; it is we that know not of its presence”
The Angel of Sorrow can speak every
language--there is not a word but she knows; but the lips of the Angel
of Happiness are sealed, save when she tells of the savage's joys. It
is hundreds of centuries past that misfortune was cradled, but
happiness seems even now to have scarcely emerged from its infancy.
There are some men have learned to be happy; why are there none whose
great gladness has urged them to lift up their voice in the name of the
silent Archangel who has flooded their soul with light? Are we not
almost teaching happiness if we do only speak of it; invoking it, if we
let no day pass without pronouncing its name? And is it not the first
duty of those who are happy to tell of their gladness to others? All
men can learn to be happy; and the teaching of it is easy. If you live
among those who daily call blessing on life, it shall not be long ere
you will call blessing on yours. Smiles are as catching as tears; and
periods men have termed happy, were periods when there existed some who
knew of their happiness. Happiness rarely is absent; it is we that know
not of its presence. The greatest felicity avails us nothing if we know
not that we are happy; there is more joy in the smallest delight
whereof we are conscious, than in the approach of the mightiest
happiness that enters not into our soul. There are only too many who
think that what they have cannot be happiness; and therefore is it the
duty of such as are happy, to prove to the others that they only
possess 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 of
happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to us
one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, that
all 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, and
health; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am truly
able to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts that
fortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from these
gifts to fix my eyes far above happiness.
“In the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence of man”
Do we intend him to
watch and defend our house? His head becomes round and monstrous, in
order that his jaws may be more powerful, more formidable and more
tenacious. Are we taking him to the south? His hair grows shorter and
lighter, so that he may faithfully accompany us under the rays of a
hotter sun. Are we going up to the north? His feet grow larger, the
better to tread the snow; his fur thickens, in order that the cold may
not compel him to abandon us. Is he intended only for us to play with,
to amuse the leisure of our eyes, to adorn or enliven the home? He
clothes himself in a sovereign grace and elegance, he makes himself
smaller than a doll to sleep on our knees by the fireside, or even
consents, should our fancy demand it, to appear a little ridiculous to
please us.
You shall not find, in nature's immense crucible, a single living being
that has shown a like suppleness, a similar abundance of forms, the
same prodigious faculty of accommodation to our wishes. This is because,
in the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses
that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not
one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence
of man.
It will, perhaps, be said that we have been able to transform almost as
profoundly some of our domestic animals: our hens, our pigeons, our
ducks, our cats, our horses, our rabbits, for instance. Yes, perhaps;
although such transformations are not comparable with those undergone by
the dog and although the kind of service which these animals render us
remains, so to speak, invariable. In any case, whether this impression
be purely imaginary or correspond with a reality, it does not appear
that we feel in these transformations the same unfailing and preventing
good will, the same sagacious and exclusive love. For the rest, it is
quite possible that the dog, or rather the inaccessible genius of his
race, troubles scarcely at all about us and that we have merely known
how to make use of various aptitudes offered by the abundant chances of
life. It matters not: as we know nothing of the substance of things, we
must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at
least in appearance, there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged
kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.
When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
When Thomas
Carlyle (a sage, although somewhat morbid) lost the wife he had
tenderly loved, with whom he had lived forty years, then did his sorrow
too, with marvellous exactness, become as had been the bygone life of
his love. And therefore was this sorrow of his majestic and vast;
consoling and torturing alike in the midst of his self-reproach, his
regret, and his tenderness--as might be meditation or prayer on the
shore of a gloomy sea. In the sorrow that floods our heart we have, as
it were, a synthetic presentment of all the days that are gone; and as
these were, so shall our sorrow be poignant, or tender and gentle. If
there be in my life no noble or generous deeds that memory can bring
back to me, then, at the inevitable moment when memory melts into
tears, must these tears, too, be bereft of all that is generous or
noble. For tears in themselves have no colour, that they may the better
reflect the past life of our soul; and this reflection becomes our
chastisement or our reward. There is but one thing that never can turn
into suffering, and that is the good we have done. When we lose one we
love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when
we 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 cling
to our tears, reminiscent of virtues and happiness. For our
recollections of veritable love--which indeed is the act of virtue
containing all others--call from our eyes the same sweet, tender tears
as those most beautiful hours wherein memory was born. Sorrow is just,
above all; and even as the cast stands ready awaiting the molten
bronze, so is our whole life expectant of the hour of sorrow, for it is
then 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 as
surpass her in wisdom. For she is barbarian still, and many men tower
above her. The commonplace life still supplies her with weapons, which
today are old-fashioned and crude. Her mode of attack, in exterior
life, is as it always has been, as it was in Oedipus' days. She shoots
like a blear-eyed bow-man, aiming straight ahead of her; but if the
target be raised somewhat higher than usual, her arrows fall harmless
to earth.
For it is our most secret desire that governs and dominates all. If your eyes look for nothing but evil, you will always see evil triumphant; but if you have learned to let your glance rest on sincerity, simpleness, truth, you will ever discover, deep down in all things, the silent overpowering victory of that which you love.
And yet, as we look more closely into the
pages of history, do we not find that fatality distils her poison from
the victim's own wavering feebleness, his own trivial duplicity,
blindness, unreason, and vanity? And if it be true that some kind of
predestination governs every circumstance of life, it appears to be no
less true that such predestination exists in our character only; and to
modify character must surely be easy to the man of unfettered will, for
is it not constantly changing in the lives of the vast bulk of men? Is
your own character, at thirty, the same as it was when you were ten
years younger? It will be better or worse in the measure that you have
believed that disloyalty, wickedness, hatred and falsehood have
triumphed in life, or goodness, and truth, and love. And you will have
thought that you witnessed the triumph of hatred or love, of truth or
of falsehood, in exact accord with the lofty or baser idea as to the
happiness and aim of your life that will slowly have arisen within you.
For it is our most secret desire that governs and dominates all. If
your eyes look for nothing but evil, you will always see evil
triumphant; but if you have learned to let your glance rest on
sincerity, simpleness, truth, you will ever discover, deep down in all
things, 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 the
midst of his doubt and bewilderment, his darkness and difficulties. Now
that we know all that happened it is easy enough to declare what should
have been done; but are we ourselves, at this moment, aware of what is
our 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 us
should seek out the track that our footsteps have left on the sands of
the hillock we climbed, hoping thence to discover the future? Louis
XVI. was bewildered: do we know what ought to be done? Do we know what
we best had abandon, what we best had defend? Are we wiser than he as
we waver betwixt the rights of human reason and those that circumstance
claims? And when hesitation is conscientious, does it not often possess
all the elements of duty? There is one most important lesson to be
learned from the example of this unfortunate king: and it is that when
doubt confronts us which in itself is noble and great, it is our duty
to march bravely onwards, turning neither to right nor to left of us,
going infinitely further than seems to be reasonable, practical, just.
Our lives must be spent seeking our God, for God hides; but His artifices, once they be known, seem so simple and smiling! From that moment, the merest nothing reveals His presence, and the greatness of our life depends on so little.
This is known to
nearly all men; but know it though they may, it is only when fortune or
death lashes them that they grope around the wall of life in search of
the crevices through which God may be seen. They know full well that
there are eternal crevices even in the humble walls of a hovel, and
that the smallest window cannot take away a line or a star from the
immensity of heavenly space. But it is not enough to possess a truth;
it is essential that the truth should possess us.
And yet are we in a world where the smallest events assume,
spontaneously, a beauty that ever becomes purer and loftier. There is
nothing that coalesces more readily than earth and sky; if your eyes
have rested upon the stars, before enfolding in your arms the woman you
love, your embrace will not be the same as though you had merely looked
at the walls of your room. Be sure that the day you lingered to follow
a ray of light through a crevice in the door of life, you did something
as great as though you had bandaged the wounds of your enemy, for at
that moment did you no longer have any enemies.
Our lives must be spent seeking our God, for God hides; but His
artifices, once they be known, seem so simple and smiling! From that
moment, the merest nothing reveals His presence, and the greatness of
our life depends on so little! Even thus may the verse of a poet, in
the midst of the humble incidents of ordinary days, suddenly reveal to
us something that is stupendous. No solemn word has been pronounced,
and we feel that nothing has been called forth; and yet, why has an
ineffable face beckoned to us from behind an old man’s tears, why does
a vast night, starred with angels, extend over the smile of a child,
and why, around a yes or no, murmured by a soul that sings and busies
itself with other matters, do we suddenly hold our breath for an
instant and say to ourselves, ‘Here is the house of God, and this one
of the approaches to heaven’?
It is because these poets have been more heedful than we to the
‘never-ending shadow.’ ... That is the essence of supreme poetry, that,
and that alone, and its sole aim is to keep open ‘the great road that
leads from the seen to the unseen.’ But that is life’s supreme aim,
too, and it is easier far to attain in life than in the noblest of
poems, for these have had to abandon the two great wings of silence.
Should we not invariably act in this life as though the God whom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our every action?
But if, the better to love
you, I deem it my duty to tear off the wings from my love, your love
being wingless as yet; then shall I have added in vain to the plaints
and the tears in the valley, but brought my own love thereby not one
whit nearer the mountain. Our love should always be lodged on the
highest peak we can attain. Let our love not spring from pity when it
can be born of love; let us not forgive for charity's sake when justice
offers forgiveness; nor let us try to console there where we can
respect. Let our one never-ceasing care be to better the love that we
offer our fellows. One cup of this love that is drawn from the spring
on the mountain is worth a hundred taken from the stagnant well of
ordinary charity. And if there be one whom you no longer can love
because of the pity you feel, or the tears that he sheds; and if he
ignore to the end that you love him because you ennobled him at the
same time you ennobled yourself, it matters but little after all; for
you have done what you held to be best, and the best is not always most
useful. Should we not invariably act in this life as though the God
whom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our every
action?
72. In a terrible catastrophe that took place but a short time
ago,[Footnote: The fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris.] destiny
afforded yet another, and perhaps the most startling instance of what
it pleases men to term her injustice, her blindness, or her
irresponsibility. She seemed to have singled out for especial
chastisement the solitary external virtue that reason has left us--our
love for our fellow-man. There must have been some moderately righteous
men amongst the victims, and it seems almost certain that there was at
least one whose virtue was wholly disinterested and sincere. It is the
presence of this one truly good man that warrants our asking, in all
its simplicity, the terrible question that rises to our lips. Had he
not been there we might have tried to believe that this act of
seemingly monstrous injustice was in reality composed of particles of
sovereign justice. We might have whispered to ourselves that what they
termed charity, out yonder, was perhaps only the arrogant flower of
permanent injustice.
For what are in reality the things we call ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Virtue,’ ‘Heroism,’ ‘sublime hours,’ and ‘great moments of life,’ but the moments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have been able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the eternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless thought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; …
Is it indeed
essential that your mother should breathe her last in your arms, that
your children should perish in a shipwreck, and that you yourself
should pass by the side of death, for you at length to understand that
you have your being in an incomprehensible world where you shall be
for ever, where an unseen God, who is eternally alone, dwells with His
creatures? Must your betrothed die in a fire, or disappear before your
eyes in the green depths of the ocean, for it to be revealed to you
for an instant that the last limits of the kingdom of love transcend
perhaps the scarcely visible flames of Mira, Altair or Berenice’s
tresses? Had your eyes been open, might you not have beheld in a
kiss that which to-day you perceive in a catastrophe? Are the divine
recollections that slumber in our souls to be awakened only by the
lance-thrusts of grief? The sage needs no such violent arousing. He
sees a tear, a maiden’s gesture, a drop of water that falls; he listens
to a passing thought, presses a brother’s hand, approaches a lip, with
open eyes and open soul. He never ceases to behold that of which you
have caught but a passing glimpse; and a smile will readily tell him
all that it needed a tempest, or even the hand of death, to reveal to
you.
For what are in reality the things we call ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Virtue,’
‘Heroism,’ ‘sublime hours,’ and ‘great moments of life,’ but the
moments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have
been able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the
eternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless
thought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; or
that if they do indeed thus drop, the fall itself is so immense that
it suffices to give an august character to our life? Why wait till
the firmament shall open amid the roar of the thunderbolt? We must
watch for the happy moments when it opens in silence; and it is ever
thus opening. You seek God in your life, and you say God appears not.
But in what life are there not thousands of hours akin to the hour in
that drama where all are waiting for the divine intervention, and none
perceive it, till an invisible thought that has flitted across the
consciousness of a dying man suddenly reveals itself, and an old man
cries out, sobbing for joy and terror, ‘But God, there is God!’....
Must we always be warned, and can we only fall on our knees when some
one is there to tell us that God is passing by? If you have loved
profoundly you have needed no one to tell you that your soul was a
thing as great in itself as the world; that the stars, the flowers, the
waves of night and sea were not solitary; that it was on the threshold
of appearances that everything began, but nothing ended, and that the
very lips you kissed belonged to a creature who was loftier, much
purer, and much more beautiful than the one whom your arms enfolded.
There may be human joy in doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expecting nothing in return know a joy that is divine.
What is an act
of virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is within
ourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation will
not swerve. They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouring
for the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act of
goodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of a
long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and
days on the sunniest heights of our soul. No reward coming after the
event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. The upright
man who perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because his
soul had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love,
or glory could have given him. Were the flames to retreat before such
men, were the waters to open and death to hesitate, what were
righteousness or heroism then? Would not the true happiness of virtue
be destroyed? virtue that is happy because it is noble and pure, that
is noble and pure because it desires no reward? There may be human joy
in doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expecting
nothing in return know a joy that is divine. Where we do evil our
reasons mostly are known to us, but our good deed becomes the purer for
our ignorance of its motive. Would we know how to value the righteous
man, we have but to question him as to the motives of his
righteousness. He will probably be the most truly righteous who is
least ready with his answer. Some may suppose that as intellect widens
many a motive for heroism will be lost to the soul; but it should be
borne in mind that the wider intellect brings with it an ideal of
heroism loftier and more disinterested still. And this much at least is
certain: he who thinks that virtue stands in need of the approval of
destiny or of worlds, has not yet within him the veritable sense of
virtue. Truly to act well we must do good because of our craving for
good, a more intimate knowledge of goodness being all we expect in
return. "With no witness save his heart alone," said St. Just. In the
eyes of a God there must surely be marked distinction between the soul
of the man who believes that the rays of a virtuous deed shall shine
through furthest space, and the soul of the other who knows they
illumine his heart alone.
He is wise who at last sees in suffering only the light that it sheds on his soul; and whose eyes never rest on the shadow it casts upon those who have sent it towards him. And wiser still is the man to whom sorrow and joy not only bring increase of consciousness, but also the knowledge that something exists superior to consciousness even. To have reached this point is to reach the summit of inward life, whence at last we look down on the flames whose light has helped our ascent.
Then, unsuspected of any, shall it be with all those
who are near the good man as it was with the penitent thief; into the
humblest soul that will thus have been saved by a look, or a word, or a
silence, shall the true happiness fall--the happiness fate cannot
touch; that brings to all men the oblivion it gave unto Socrates, and
causes each one to forget, until nightfall, that the death--giving cup
had been drained ere the sun went down.
36. The inner life, perhaps, is not what we deem it to be. There are as
many kinds of inner lives as there are of external lives. Into these
tranquil regions the smallest may enter as readily as he who is
greatest, for the gate that leads thither is not always the gate of the
intellect. It often may happen that the man of vast knowledge shall
knock at this gate in vain, reply being made from within by the man who
knows nothing. The inner life that is surest, most lasting, possessed
of the uttermost beauty, must needs be the one that consciousness
slowly erects in itself, with the aid of all that is purest in the
soul. And he is wise who has learned that this life should be nourished
on every event of the day: he to whom deceit or betrayal serves but to
enhance his wisdom: he in whom evil itself becomes fuel for the flame
of love. He is wise who at last sees in suffering only the light that
it sheds on his soul; and whose eyes never rest on the shadow it casts
upon those who have sent it towards him. And wiser still is the man to
whom sorrow and joy not only bring increase of consciousness, but also
the knowledge that something exists superior to consciousness even. To
have reached this point is to reach the summit of inward life, whence
at 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 the
less ardent valley below, where the flames spring darkly to life. And
there are existences still more obscure which yet have their places of
refuge. There are some that instinctively fashion inward lives for
themselves. There are some that, bereft of initiative or of
intelligence, never discover the path that leads into themselves, and
are never aware of all that their refuge contains; and yet will their
actions be wholly the same as the actions of those whose intellect
weighs every treasure. There are some who desire only good, though they
know not wherefore they desire it, and have no suspicion that goodness
is the one fixed star of loftiest consciousness. The inner life begins
when the soul becomes good, and not when the intellect ripens. It is
somewhat 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 may
have full knowledge of self; he may know, it may be, wherefore he shuns
goodness; and yet shall he seek in vain for the refuge, the strength,
the treasure of invisible gladness, that form the possessions of him
who can fearlessly enter his heart.
He who knows himself is wise; yet have we no sooner acquired real consciousness of our being than we learn that true wisdom is a thing that lies far deeper than consciousness. The chief gain of increased consciousness is that it unveils an ever-loftier unconsciousness, on whose heights do the sources lie of the purest wisdom.
The word wise," said Joubert, "when used to a
child, is a word that each child understands, and that we need never
explain." Let us accept it even as the child accepts it, that it may
grow with our growth. Let us say of wisdom what Sister Hadewijck, the
mysterious enemy of Ruijsbroeck the Admirable, said of love: "Its
profoundest abyss is its most beautiful form." Wisdom requires no form;
her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no
motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne. She is Minerva who
follows us, soars to the skies with us, falls to the earth with us,
mingles her tears with our tears, and rejoices when we rejoice. Truly
wise you are not unless your wisdom be constantly changing from your
childhood on to your death. The more the word means to you, the more
beauty and depth it conveys, the wiser must you become; and each step
that 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 real
consciousness of our being than we learn that true wisdom is a thing
that lies far deeper than consciousness. The chief gain of increased
consciousness is that it unveils an ever-loftier unconsciousness, on
whose heights do the sources lie of the purest wisdom. The heritage of
unconsciousness is for all men the same; but it is situate partly
within and partly without the confines of normal consciousness. The
bulk of mankind will rarely pass over the border; but true lovers of
wisdom press on, till they open new routes that cross over the
frontier. If I love, and my love has procured me the fullest
consciousness man may attain, then will an unconsciousness light up
this love that shall be quite other than the one whereby commonplace
love is obscured. For this second unconsciousness hedges the animal
round, whereas the first draws close unto God; but needs must it lose
all trace of the second ere it become aware of itself. In
unconsciousness we ever must dwell; but are able to purify, day after
day, the unconsciousness that wraps us around.
26. We shall not become wise through worshipping reason alone; and
wisdom means more than perpetual triumph of reason over inferior
instincts. Such triumphs can help us but little if our reason be not
taught thereby to offer profoundest submission to another and different
instinct--that of the soul.
Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of love 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 sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.
But elsewhere it is rarely indeed that tragic
poets will allow a sage to appear on the scene, though it be for an
instant. They are afraid of a lofty soul; for they know that events are
no less afraid, and that a murder committed in the presence of the sage
seems quite other than the murder committed in the presence of those
whose soul still knows not itself. Had Oedipus possessed the inner
refuge that Marcus Aurelius, for instance, had been able to erect in
himself--a refuge whereto he could fly at all times--had he only
acquired some few of the certitudes open to every thinker--what could
destiny then have done? What would she have entrapped in her snares?
Would they have contained aught besides the pure light that streams
from 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. He
knows the truth of the gods, but not the truth of mankind. He ignores
the wisdom that takes misfortune to her arms and would fain give it of
her strength. Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of
love 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 sees
without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.
14. We are told that the famous tragedies show us the struggle of man
against Fate. I believe, on the contrary, that scarcely a drama exists
wherein fatality truly does reign. Search as I may, I cannot find one
which exhibits the hero in conflict with destiny pure and simple. For
indeed it is never destiny that he attacks; it is with wisdom he is
always at war. Real fatality exists only in certain external
disasters-as disease, accident, the sudden death of those we love; but
INNER FATALITY there is none. Wisdom has will power sufficient to
rectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at times
invade the narrow domain of external fatality. It is true that we must
have amassed considerable and patient treasure within us for this will
power to find the resources it needs.
15. The statue of destiny casts a huge shadow over the valley, which it
seems to enshroud in gloom; but this shadow has clearest outline for
such as look down from the mountain. We are born, it may be, with the
shadow upon us; but to many men is it granted to emerge from beneath
it; and even though infirmity or weakness keep us, till death, confined
in these sombre regions, still we can fly thence at times on the wings
of our hopes and our thoughts.
“At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.”
“They believe that nothing will happen because they have closed their doors.”
We suffer but little from suffering itself; but from the manner wherein we accept it overwhelming sorrow may spring. We are wrong in believing that it comes from without. For indeed we create it within us, out of our very substance.
