{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48217/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48217","id":"gutenberg_48217","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48217","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Essays","Mysticism","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\u2014Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.\n\n\u2014Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=.\n\n\n\n\n                            The Treasure of\n                              the Humble\n\n                       _By_ Maurice Maeterlinck\n\n                     _Translated by_ Alfred Sutro\n\n                 With _Introduction by_ A. B. Walkley\n\n\n                 London: George Allen, _Ruskin House_\n\n                   156 Charing Cross Road      mcmv\n\n\n\n\n _First Edition, March 1897. Reprinted October 1897; September 1901;\n January 1903; May 1904; November 1905._\n\n\n                  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.\n                        At the Ballantyne Press\n\n\n\n\n                                =_TO_=\n\n                      _MADAME GEORGETTE LEBLANC_\n\n\n\n\n                      The Treasure of the Humble\n\n[Illustration: LOGO]\n\n\n\n\n                            CONTENTS\n\n\n  INTRODUCTION                                _Page_    ix\n\n  SILENCE                                                1\n\n  THE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL                             23\n\n  THE PRE-DESTINED                                      43\n\n  MYSTIC MORALITY                                       59\n\n  ON WOMEN                                              75\n\n  THE TRAGICAL IN DAILY LIFE                            95\n\n  THE STAR                                             121\n\n  THE INVISIBLE GOODNESS                               147\n\n  THE DEEPER LIFE                                      169\n\n  THE INNER BEAUTY                                     197\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nWITH M. Maeterlinck as a dramatist the world is pretty well acquainted.\nThis little volume presents him in the new character of a philosopher\nand an \u00e6sthetician. And it is in some sort an \u2018apology\u2019 for his\ntheatre, the one being to the other as theory to practice. Reversing\nthe course prescribed by Mr. Squeers for his pupils, M. Maeterlinck,\nhaving cleaned w-i-n-d-e-r, winder, now goes and spells it. He began\nby visualising and synthetising his ideas of life; here you shall find\nhim trying to analyse these ideas and consumed with anxiety to tell\nus the truth that is in him. It is not a truth for all markets; he is\nat no pains to conceal that. He appeals, as every mystic must, to the\nelect; M. Anatole France would say, to the _\u00e2mes bien n\u00e9es_. If we are\nnot sealed of the tribe of Plotinus, he warns us to go elsewhere. \u2018If,\nplunging thine eyes into thyself\u2014it is this same Plotinus that he is\nquoting\u2014\u2018thou dost not feel the charm of beauty, it is in vain that,\nthy disposition being such, thou shouldst seek the charm of beauty; for\nthou wouldst seek it only with that which is ugly and impure. Therefore\nit is that the discourse we hold here is not addressed to all men.\u2019 If\nwe are to follow him in his expedition to a philosophic Ultima Thule,\nwe must have the mind for that adventure. \u2018We are here,\u2019 as he tells\nus elsewhere of the \u2018stiff\u2019 but, it seems, \u2018admirable\u2019 Ruysbroeck,\n\u2018all of a sudden on the borderland of human thought and far across the\nArctic circle of the spirit. There is no ordinary cold, no ordinary\ndark there, and yet you shall find there naught but flames and light.\nBut to those who arrive without having trained their minds to these new\nperceptions, the light and the flames are as dark and as cold as though\nthey were painted.\u2019 This means that the intelligence, the reason, will\nnot suffice of themselves; we must have faith. There are passages in\nthe book which may provoke a sniff from Mr. Worldly Wiseman; but we\nmust beware of the Voltairean spirit, or this will be a closed book\nto us. \u2018We live by admiration, hope, and love,\u2019 said Wordsworth. And\nwe understand by them, M. Maeterlinck would add. I fear we are not\nall of us found worthy of the mystical frame of mind. But it is a\npsychological fact, like another; and if we can only examine it from\nthe outside, we can at least bring patience and placidity to the task.\nThe point is: has M. Maeterlinck anything to say? It will be found, I\nthink, that he has.\n\nAll men, the world has long been assured, are born Aristotelians or\nPlatonists. There cannot be a doubt about M. Maeterlinck\u2019s philosophic\nbirthright. He may say, as Paul Verlaine sang:\n\n  Moi, j\u2019allais r\u00eavant du divin Platon,\n  Sous l\u2019\u0153il clignotant des bleus becs de gaz.\n\nMore strictly, he is a Neo-Platonist. His remark about the Admirable\nRuysbroeck\u2019s idea is equally true of his own. \u2018I fancy that all those\nwho have not lived in the intimacy of Plato and of the Neo-Platonists\nof Alexandria, will not go far with this reading.\u2019 He quotes Plotinus,\n\u2018the great Plotinus, who, of all the intellects known to me, draws\nthe nearest to the divine.\u2019 He cites Porphyry and the Gnostics and\nSwedenborg. These are not exactly popular authors of the moment. But\nM. Maeterlinck, it is plain, has devoured them; his is not what Pope\ncalled \u2018index-learning.\u2019 Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) stood between two\nworlds, the old and the new; and he made the best of both. He enlarged\nthe boundaries of art by discerning in the idea of beauty an inward\nand spiritual grace not to be found in the \u2018Platonic idea.\u2019 That, too,\nis what M. Maeterlinck is striving for: a larger idea of beauty, and a\nbetter apprehension of its inward and spiritual grace.\n\nHis cardinal doctrine will, I conjecture, prove to be something like\nthis. What should be of most account for us all is not external fact,\nbut the supra-sensuous world. \u2018What we know is not interesting\u2019; the\nreally interesting things are those which we can only divine\u2014the\nveiled life of the soul, the crepuscular region of subconsciousness,\nour \u2018borderland\u2019 feelings, all that lies in the strange \u2018neutral\nzone\u2019 between the frontiers of consciousness and unconsciousness. The\nmystery of life is what makes life worth living. \u2018\u2019Twas a little being\nof mystery, like every one else,\u2019 says the old King Arkel of the dead\nM\u00e9lisande. We are such stuff as dreams are made of, might be the\n\u2018refrain\u2019 of all M. Maeterlinck\u2019s plays, and of most of these essays.\nHe is penetrated by the feeling of the mystery in all human creatures,\nwhose every act is regulated by far-off influences and obscurely rooted\nin things unexplained. Mystery is within us and around us. Of reality\nwe can only get now and then the merest glimpse. Our senses are too\ngross. Between the invisible world and our own there is doubtless an\nintimate concordance; but it escapes us. We grope among shadows towards\nthe unknown. Even the new conquests of what we vainly suppose to be\n\u2018exact\u2019 thought only deepen the mystery of life. There is, for example,\nthe Schopenhauerian theory of love. We had fancied we could at least\nchoose our loves in freedom: but \u2018we are told that a thousand centuries\ndivide us from ourselves when we choose the woman we love, and that\nthe first kiss of the betrothed is but the seal which thousands of\nhands, craving for birth, have impressed upon the lips of the mother\nthey desire.\u2019 And so with the \u2018heredity\u2019 of the men of science. \u2018We\nknow that the dead do not die. We know that it is not in our churches\nthey are to be found, but in the houses, the habits of us all.\u2019 What\nwas there in the old notion of Destiny so mysterious as this double\nthraldom of ours\u2014thraldom to the dead and to the unborn? Conclusion:\nmysticism is your only wear. In the mystics alone is certitude. \u2018If\nit be true, as has been said, that every man is a Shakespeare in his\ndreams, we have to ask ourselves whether every man, in his waking life,\nis not an inarticulate mystic, a thousandfold more transcendental\nthan those circumscribed by speech.\u2019 In silence is our only chance of\nknowing one another. And \u2018mystic truths have over ordinary truths a\nstrange privilege; they can neither age nor die.\u2019 From all this you\nsee M. Maeterlinck\u2019s train of thought. He would fix our minds upon the\nobscure, pre-conscious, what M. Faguet calls the _incunabulary_ life of\nthe soul. He finds no epithets too fine for this: the higher life, the\ntranscendental life, the divine life, the absolute life.\n\nWhatever we may think of these ideas in themselves, there is no doubt\nthat the man who expresses them sounds a new and individual note. They\nshow a reaction against the whole effort of modern literature, which\nhas been nothing if not positive, quasi-scientific, ever on the prowl\nfor \u2018documents.\u2019 And if for no other reason than that, this book, I\nsubmit, would have peculiar significance and value.\n\nBut there is at least one other reason. M. Maeterlinck puts forward\na plea, and a plea not lightly to be dismissed, for a new \u00e6sthetic\nof the drama. The mystery which he finds everywhere around us and\nwithin us he would bring into the theatre. If there is one position\nwhich the whole world supposed itself to have definitively taken up,\nit is the position that the theatre lives by action and to offer\nus an exhibition of the will. Therein, for instance, M. Ferdinand\nBruneti\u00e8re finds the _differentia_ of drama; it is the struggle of a\nwill, conscious of itself, against obstacles. Traversing this position\nM. Maeterlinck boldly asks whether a \u2018static\u2019 theatre is impossible,\na theatre of mood not of movement, a theatre where nothing material\nhappens and where everything immaterial is felt. Even as it is, the\nreal beauty and purport of a tragedy is not seldom to be found in\nthat part of its dialogue which is superficially \u2018useless.\u2019 \u2018Certain\nit is that in the ordinary drama the indispensable dialogue by no\nmeans corresponds to reality.... One may even affirm that the poem\ndraws the nearer to beauty and loftier truth in the measure that it\neliminates words that merely explain the action and replaces them by\nothers that reveal not the so-called \u201csoul-state,\u201d but I know not\nwhat intangible and unceasing striving of the soul towards its beauty\nand its truth.\u2019 The frivolous will be reminded here, perhaps, of the\nold stage direction for the miser: \u2018Leans against a wall and grows\ngenerous.\u2019 Others who remember their Xenophon will bethink them of a\ncertain discussion which Socrates had with Parrhasius on the question,\n\u2018Can the unseen be imitated?\u2019 (_Soc. Memorabilia_, iii. 10). It may be\nthat M. Maeterlinck\u2019s \u2018static\u2019 theatre is an unrealisable dream; but it\nis a seductive one, by contrast with the reality. Do not all of us who\nare condemned to spend much of our time in the playhouse occasionally\nshare M. Maeterlinck\u2019s feeling of repugnance? \u2018When I go to the\ntheatre, I feel as though I were spending a few hours in the midst of\nmy ancestors, who looked upon life as something that was primitive,\narid, and brutal; but this conception of theirs scarcely even lingers\nin my memory, and surely it is not one that I can any longer share....\nI had hoped to be shown some act of life traced back to its source and\nto its mystery by connecting links that my daily occupations afford\nme neither power nor occasion to study. I had gone thither hoping that\nthe beauty, the grandeur, and the earnestness of my humble day-by-day\nexistence would for one instant be revealed to me ... whereas,\nalmost invariably, all that I beheld was but a man who would tell me\nat wearisome length why he was jealous, why he poisoned, or why he\nkilled.\u2019 And so he would have the drama make an effort to show us \u2018how\ntruly wonderful is the mere fact of living\u2019; he would have it tackle\n\u2018presentiments, the strange impression produced by a chance meeting or\na look, a decision that the unknown side of human reason had governed,\nan intervention or a force inexplicable and yet understood, the secret\nlaws of sympathy and antipathy, elective and instinctive affinities,\nthe overwhelming influence of things unsaid.\u2019\n\nHow is it all to come about? When we ask this question we find\nourselves in the position of the lady who had been discussing the\nsubject of a future state with Dr. Johnson. \u2018She seemed desirous of\nknowing more,\u2019 says Boswell, \u2018but he left the question in obscurity.\u2019\nIt is there that M. Maeterlinck, like a true mystic, is content to\nleave most of his questions. \u2018The time has not yet come,\u2019 he says with\nan engaging candour, \u2018when we can speak lucidly of these things.\u2019 One\nthinks of Sir Thomas Browne\u2019s quaint fancy. \u2018A dialogue between two\ninfants in the womb concerning the state of this world might handsomely\nillustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse\nin Plato\u2019s den, and are but embryon philosophers.\u2019 Maybe M. Maeterlinck\nis but an embryon philosopher, one who discourses in Plato\u2019s den. But\nI think we must all recognise the native distinction of his mind, the\nfastidious delicacy of his taste, his abiding and insatiable love of\nbeauty. What he says, exquisitely enough but perhaps too liberally, of\nevery man\u2014\u2018to every man there come noble thoughts that pass across his\nheart like great white birds\u2019\u2014is certainly true of himself. Wherefore\none may venture to invite people to his book as Heraclitus welcomed\nguests to his kitchen: \u2018Enter boldly, for here also there are gods.\u2019\n\n  A. B. W.\n\n\n\n\nSILENCE\n\n\n\n\nSILENCE\n\n\n\u2018SILENCE and Secrecy!\u2019 cries Carlyle. \u2018Altars might still be raised to\nthem (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. Silence\nis the element in which great things fashion themselves together,\nthat at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the\ndaylight of Life, which they are henceforth to rule. Not William the\nSilent only, but all the considerable men I have known, and the most\nundiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they\nwere creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean perplexities, do\nthou thyself but _hold thy tongue for one day_; on the morrow how\nmuch clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have\nthese mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were\nshut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art\nof concealing Thought, but of quite stifling and suspending Thought,\nso that there is none to conceal. Speech, too, is great, but not\nthe greatest. As the Swiss inscription says: _Sprechen ist Silbern,\nSchweigen ist goldern_ (Speech is silver, Silence is golden); or, as I\nmight rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.\n\n\u2018Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in\nSilence; neither will Virtue work except in secrecy.\u2019\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIT is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication\ncan ever pass from one man to another. The lips or the tongue may\nrepresent the soul, even as a cipher or a number may represent a\npicture of Memling; but from the moment that we have _something to say\nto each other_, we are _compelled_ to hold our peace: and if at such\ntimes we do not listen to the urgent commands of silence, invisible\nthough they be, we shall have suffered an eternal loss that all the\ntreasures of human wisdom cannot make good; for we shall have let slip\nthe opportunity of listening to another soul, and of giving existence,\nbe it only for an instant, to our own; and many lives there are in\nwhich such opportunities do not present themselves twice....\n\nIt is only when life is sluggish within us that we speak: only at\nmoments when reality lies far away, and we _do not wish_ to be\nconscious of our brethren. And no sooner do we speak than something\nwarns us that the divine gates are closing. Thus it comes about that\nwe hug silence to us, and are very misers of it; and even the most\nreckless will not squander it on the first comer. There is an instinct\nof the superhuman truths within us which warns us that it is dangerous\nto be silent with one whom we do not wish to know, or do not love: for\nwords may pass between men, but let silence have had its instant of\nactivity, and it will never efface itself; and indeed the true life,\nthe only life that leaves a trace behind, is made up of silence alone.\nBethink it well, in that silence to which you must again have recourse,\nso that it may explain itself, by itself; and if it be granted to you\nto descend for one moment into your soul, into the depths where the\nangels dwell, it is not the words spoken by the creature you loved so\ndearly that you will recall, or the gestures that he made, but it is,\nabove all, the silences that you have lived together that will come\nback to you: for it is the _quality_ of those silences that alone\nrevealed the quality of your love and your souls.\n\nSo far I have considered _active_ silence only, for there is a\n_passive_ silence, which is the shadow of sleep, of death or\nnon-existence. It is the silence of lethargy, and is even less to\nbe dreaded than speech, so long as it slumbers; but beware lest a\nsudden incident awake it, for then would its brother, the great active\nsilence, at once rear himself upon his throne. Be on your guard. Two\nsouls would draw near each other: the barriers would fall asunder, the\ngates fly open, and the life of every day be replaced by a life of\ndeepest earnest, wherein all are defenceless; a life in which laughter\ndares not show itself, in which there is no obeying, in which nothing\ncan evermore be forgotten....\n\nAnd it is because we all of us know of this sombre power and its\nperilous manifestations, that we stand in so deep a dread of silence.\nWe can bear, when need must be, the silence of ourselves, that of\nisolation: but the silence of many\u2014silence multiplied\u2014and above\nall the silence of a crowd\u2014these are supernatural burdens, whose\ninexplicable weight brings dread to the mightiest soul. We spend a\ngoodly portion of our lives in seeking places where silence is not. No\nsooner have two or three men met than their one thought is to drive\naway the invisible enemy; and of how many ordinary friendships may it\nnot be said that their only foundation is the common hatred of silence!\nAnd if, all efforts notwithstanding, it contrives to steal among a\nnumber of men, disquiet will fall upon them, and their restless eyes\nwill wander in the mysterious direction of things unseen: and each man\nwill hurriedly go his way, flying before the intruder: and henceforth\nthey will avoid each other, dreading lest a similar disaster should\nagain befall them, and suspicious as to whether there be not one among\nthem who would treacherously throw open the gate to the enemy....\n\nIn the lives of most of us, it will not happen more than twice or\nthrice that silence is really understood and freely admitted. It\nis only on the most solemn occasions that the inscrutable guest is\nwelcomed; but, when such come about, there are few who do not make the\nwelcome worthy, for even in the lives of the most wretched there are\nmoments when they know how to act, even as though they knew already\nthat which is known to the gods. Remember the day on which, without\nfear in your heart, you met your first silence. The dread hour had\nsounded; silence went before your soul. You saw it rising from the\nunspeakable abysses of life, from the depths of the inner sea of\nhorror or beauty, and you did not fly.... It was at a home-coming,\non the threshold of a departure, in the midst of a great joy, at the\npillow of a death-bed, on the approach of a dire misfortune. Bethink\nyou of those moments when all the secret jewels shone forth on you,\nand the slumbering truths sprung to life, and tell me whether silence,\nthen, was not good and necessary, whether the caresses of the enemy\nyou had so persistently shunned were not truly divine? The kisses of\nthe silence of misfortune\u2014and it is above all at times of misfortune\nthat silence caresses us\u2014can never be forgotten; and therefore it\nis that those to whom they have come more often than to others are\nworthier than those others. They alone know, perhaps, how voiceless\nand unfathomable are the waters on which the fragile shell of daily\nlife reposes: they have approached nearer to God, and the steps they\nhave taken towards the light are steps that can never be lost, for the\nsoul may not rise, perhaps, but it can never sink.... \u2018Silence, the\ngreat Empire of Silence,\u2019 says Carlyle again\u2014he who understood so well\nthe empire of the life which holds us\u2014\u2018higher than the stars, deeper\nthan the Kingdom of Death!... Silence, and the great silent men!...\nScattered here and there, each in his department; silently thinking,\nsilently working; whom no morning newspaper makes mention of! They are\nthe salt of the earth. A country that has none or few of these is in a\nbad way. Like a forest which had no _roots_; which had all turned to\nleaves and boughs; which must soon wither and be no forest.\u2019\n\nBut the real silence, which is greater still and more difficult of\napproach than the material silence of which Carlyle speaks\u2014the real\nsilence is not one of those gods that can desert mankind. It surrounds\nus on every side; it is the source of the undercurrents of our life;\nand let one of us but knock, with trembling fingers, at the door of the\nabyss, it is always by the same attentive silence that this door will\nbe opened.\n\nIt is a thing that knows no limit, and before it all men are equal;\nand the silence of king or slave, in presence of death, or grief, or\nlove, reveals the same features, hides beneath its impenetrable mantle\nthe self-same treasure. For this is the essential silence of our soul,\nour most inviolable sanctuary, and its secret can never be lost; and,\nwere the first born of men to meet the last inhabitant of the earth, a\nkindred impulse would sway them, and they would be voiceless in their\ncaresses, in their terror and their tears; a kindred impulse would\nsway them, and all that could be said without falsehood would call for\nno spoken word: and, the centuries notwithstanding, there would come\nto them, at the same moment, as though one cradle had held them both,\ncomprehension of that which the tongue shall not learn to tell before\nthe world ceases....\n\nNo sooner are the lips still than the soul awakes, and sets forth on\nits labours; for silence is an element that is full of surprise, danger\nand happiness, and in these the soul possesses itself in freedom. If\nit be indeed your desire to give yourself over to another, be silent;\nand if you fear being silent with him\u2014unless this fear be the proud\nuncertainty, or hunger, of the love that yearns for prodigies\u2014fly\nfrom him, for your soul knows well how far it may go. There are men in\nwhose presence the greatest of heroes would not dare to be silent; and\neven the soul that has nothing to conceal trembles lest another should\ndiscover its secret. Some there are that have no silence, and that kill\nthe silence around them, and these are the only creatures that pass\nthrough life unperceived. To them it is not given to cross the zone of\nrevelation, the great zone of the firm and faithful light. We cannot\nconceive what sort of man is he who has never been silent. It is to us\nas though his soul were featureless. \u2018We do not know each other yet,\u2019\nwrote to me one whom I hold dear above all others, \u2018we have not yet\ndared to be silent together.\u2019 And it was true: already did we love each\nother so deeply that we shrank from the superhuman ordeal. And each\ntime that silence fell upon us\u2014the angel of the supreme truth, the\nmessenger that brings to the heart the tidings of the unknown\u2014each\ntime did we feel that our souls were craving mercy on their knees,\nwere begging for a few hours more of innocent falsehood, a few hours\nof ignorance, a few hours of childhood.... And none the less must its\nhour come. It is the sun of love, and it ripens the fruit of the soul,\nas the sun of heaven ripens the fruits of the earth. But it is not\nwithout cause that men fear it; for none can ever tell what will be the\n_quality_ of the silence which is about to fall upon them. Though all\nwords may be akin, every silence differs from its fellow; and, with\nrare exceptions, it is an entire destiny that will be governed by the\n_quality_ of this first silence which is descending upon two souls.\nThey blend: we know not where, for the reservoirs of silence lie far\nabove the reservoirs of thought, and the strange resultant brew is\neither sinisterly bitter or profoundly sweet. Two souls, admirable both\nand of equal power, may yet give birth to a hostile silence, and wage\npitiless war against each other in the darkness; while it may be that\nthe soul of a convict shall go forth and commune in divine silence with\nthe soul of a virgin. The result can never be foretold; all this comes\nto pass in a heaven that never warns; and therefore it is that the\ntenderest of lovers will often defer to the last hour of all the solemn\nentry of the great revealer of the depths of our being....\n\nFor they too are well aware\u2014the love that is truly love brings the\nmost frivolous back to life\u2019s centre\u2014they too are well aware that all\nthat had gone before was but as children playing outside the gates, and\nthat it is now that the walls are falling and existence lying bare.\nTheir silence will be even as are the gods within them; and if in this\nfirst silence, there be not harmony, there can be no love in their\nsouls, for the silence will never change. It may rise or it may fall\nbetween two souls, but _its nature_ can never alter; and even until the\ndeath of the lovers will it retain the form, the attitude and the power\nthat were its own when, for the first time, it came into the room.\n\nAs we advance through life, it is more and more brought home to us\nthat nothing takes place that is not in accord with some curious,\npreconceived design: and of this we never breathe a word, we scarcely\ndare to let our minds dwell upon it, but of its existence, somewhere\nabove our heads, we are absolutely convinced. The most fatuous of men\nsmiles, at the first encounters, as though he were the accomplice\nof the destiny of his brethren. And in this domain, even those who\ncan speak the most profoundly realise\u2014they, perhaps, more than\nothers\u2014that words can never express the real, special relationship\nthat exists between two beings. Were I to speak to you at this\nmoment of the gravest things of all\u2014of love, death or destiny\u2014it\nis not love, death or destiny that I should touch; and, my efforts\nnotwithstanding, there would always remain between us a truth which\nhad not been spoken, which we had not even thought of speaking; and\nyet it is this truth only, voiceless though it has been, which will\nhave lived with us for an instant, and by which we shall have been\nwholly absorbed. For that truth was _our truth_ as regards death,\ndestiny or love, and it was in silence only that we could perceive it.\nAnd nothing save only the silence will have had any importance. \u2018My\nsisters,\u2019 says a child in the fairy-story, \u2018you have each of you a\nsecret thought\u2014I wish to know it.\u2019 We, too, have something that people\nwish to know, but it is hidden far above the secret thought\u2014it is\nour secret silence. But all questions are useless. When our spirit is\nalarmed, its own agitation becomes a barrier to the second life that\nlives in this secret; and, would we know what it is that lies hidden\nthere, we must cultivate silence among ourselves, for it is then only\nthat for one instant the eternal flowers unfold their petals, the\nmysterious flowers whose form and colour are ever changing in harmony\nwith the soul that is by their side. As gold and silver are weighed in\npure water, so does the soul test its weight in silence, and the words\nthat we let fall have no meaning apart from the silence that wraps them\nround. If I tell some one that I love him\u2014as I may have told a hundred\nothers\u2014my words will convey nothing to him; but the silence which will\nensue, if I do indeed love him, will make clear in what depths lie the\nroots of my love, and will in its turn give birth to a conviction, that\nshall itself be silent; and in the course of a lifetime, this silence\nand this conviction will never again be the same....\n\nIs it not silence that determines and fixes the savour of love?\nDeprived of it, love would lose its eternal essence and perfume. Who\nhas not known those silent moments which separated the lips to reunite\nthe souls? It is these that we must ever seek. There is no silence more\ndocile than the silence of love, and it is indeed the only one that\nwe may claim for ourselves alone. The other great silences, those of\ndeath, grief, or destiny, do not belong to us. They come towards us at\ntheir own hour, following in the track of events, and those whom they\ndo not meet need not reproach themselves. But we can all go forth to\nmeet the silences of love. They lie in wait for us, night and day, at\nour threshold, and are no less beautiful than their brothers. And it\nis thanks to them that those who have seldom wept may know the life of\nthe soul almost as intimately as those to whom much grief has come:\nand therefore it is that such of us as have loved deeply have learnt\nmany secrets that are unknown to others: for thousands and thousands of\nthings quiver in silence on the lips of true friendship and love, that\nare not to be found in the silence of other lips, to which friendship\nand love are unknown....\n\n\n\n\nTHE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL\n\n\n\n\nTHE AWAKENING OF THE SOUL\n\n\nA TIME will come, perhaps\u2014and many things there are that herald its\napproach\u2014a time will come perhaps when our souls will know of each\nother without the intermediary of the senses. Certain it is that there\npasses not a day but the soul adds to its ever-widening domain. It is\nvery much nearer to our visible self, and takes a far greater part\nin all our actions, than was the case two or three centuries ago. A\nspiritual epoch is perhaps upon us; an epoch to which a certain number\nof analogies are found in history. For there are periods recorded, when\nthe soul, in obedience to unknown laws, seemed to rise to the very\nsurface of humanity, whence it gave clearest evidence of its existence\nand of its power. And this existence and this power reveal themselves\nin countless ways, diverse and unforeseen. It would seem, at moments\nsuch as these, as though humanity were on the point of struggling from\nbeneath the crushing burden of matter that weighs it down. A spiritual\ninfluence is abroad that soothes and comforts; and the sternest, direst\nlaws of Nature yield here and there. Men are nearer to themselves,\nnearer to their brothers; in the look of their eyes, in the love of\ntheir hearts, there is deeper earnestness and tenderer fellowship.\nTheir understanding of women, children, animals, plants\u2014nay, of\nall things\u2014becomes more pitiful and more profound. The statues,\npaintings and writings that these men have left us may perhaps not be\nperfect, but, none the less does there dwell therein a secret power,\nan indescribable grace, held captive and imperishable for ever. A\nmysterious brotherhood and love must have shone forth from the eyes of\nthese men; and signs of a life that we cannot explain are everywhere,\nvibrating by the side of the life of every day.\n\nSuch knowledge as we possess of ancient Egypt induces us to believe\nthat she passed through one of these spiritual epochs. At a very remote\nperiod in the history of India, the soul must have drawn very near\nto the surface of life, to a point, indeed, that it has never since\ntouched; and unto this day strange phenomena owe their being to the\nrecollection, or lingering remnants, of its almost immediate presence.\nMany other similar moments there have been, when the spiritual element\nseemed to be struggling far down in the depths of humanity, like a\ndrowning man battling for life beneath the waters of a great river.\nBethink you of Persia, for instance, of Alexandria, and the two mystic\ncenturies of the Middle Ages.\n\nOn the other hand, there have been centuries in which purest intellect\nand beauty reigned supreme, though the soul lay unrevealed. Thus it\nwas far from Greece and Rome, and from the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies in France. (As regards this last, however, we may perhaps\nbe speaking only of the surface; for in its depths many mysteries lie\nconcealed\u2014we must remember Claude de Saint-Martin, Cagliostro\u2014who is\npassed over too lightly\u2014Pascalis, and many others besides.) Something\nis lacking, we know not what; barriers are stretched across the secret\npassages; the eyes of beauty are sealed. Well-nigh hopeless, indeed, is\nthe attempt to convey this in words, or to explain why the atmosphere\nof divinity and fatality that enwraps the Greek dramas does not seem\nto us to be the true atmosphere of the soul. Majestic and all-abiding\nas is the mystery that lingers on the horizon of these matchless\ntragedies, it is yet not the pitiful, brotherly mystery, quickened into\nprofound activity, that we find in other works less great and less\nbeautiful. And to come nearer to our own time\u2014though Racine may indeed\nbe the unerring poet of the woman\u2019s heart, who would dare to claim for\nhim that he has ever taken one step towards her soul? What can you\ntell me of the soul of Andromache, of Britannicus? Racine\u2019s characters\nhave no knowledge of themselves beyond the words by which they express\nthemselves, and not one of these words can pierce the dykes that keep\nback the sea. His men and women are alone, fearfully alone, on the\nsurface of a planet that no longer revolves in the heavens. If they\nwere to be silent, they would cease to be. They have no _invisible\nprinciple_, and one might almost believe that some isolating substance\nhad crept between their spirit and themselves, between the life which\nhas its roots in every created thing and that which, for one fleeting\nmoment, brushes against a passion, a grief or a hope. Truly there are\ncenturies in which the soul lies dormant and slumbers undisturbed.\n\nBut to-day it is clearly making a mighty effort. Its manifestations\nare everywhere, and they are strangely urgent, pressing, imperious\neven, as though the order had been given, and no time must be lost.\nIt must be preparing for a decisive struggle; and none can foretell\nthe issues that may be dependent on the result, be this victory or\nflight. Perhaps never to this day has it enlisted in its service such\ndiverse, irresistible forces. It is as though an invisible wall hemmed\nit in, and one knows not whether it be quivering in its death-throb\nor quickened by a new life. I will say nothing of the occult powers,\nof which signs are everywhere\u2014of magnetism, telepathy, levitation,\nthe unsuspected properties of radiating matter, and countless other\nphenomena that are battering down the door of orthodox science. These\nthings are known of all men, and can easily be verified. And truly they\nmay well be the merest bagatelle by the side of the vast upheaval that\nis actually in progress, for the soul is like a dreamer, enthralled\nby sleep, who struggles with all his might to move an arm or raise an\neyelid.\n\nOther regions there are where its action is even more effective,\nthough the crowd there is less regardful, and none but trained eyes\ncan see. Does it not seem as though the supreme cry of the soul were\nat last about to pierce the dense clouds of error that still envelop\nit in music? Do not certain pictures by foreign painters reveal the\nsacred majesty of an invisible presence, as it never has been revealed\nbefore? Are there not masterpieces in literature that are illumined\nby a flame which differs in its very essence from the strangest\nbeacon-fires that lit up the writings of bygone days? A transformation\nof silence\u2014strange and inexplicable\u2014is upon us, and the reign of\nthe _positive sublime_, absolute to this day, seems destined to be\noverthrown. I will not linger on this subject, for the time has not\nyet come for lucid discussion of these things; but I feel that a more\npressing offer of spiritual freedom has rarely been made to mankind.\nNay, there are moments when it bears the semblance of an ultimatum; and\ntherefore does it behove us to neglect nothing, but indeed with all\neagerness to accept this imperious invitation, that is like unto the\ndream that is lost for ever, unless instantaneously seized. We must be\nheedful; it is not without fit reason that our soul bestirs itself.\n\nThough it be perhaps from the table-lands of speculative thought that\nthis agitation is the most clearly to be noted, yet may there well be\nsigns of it in the most ordinary paths of life, unsuspected of any;\nfor not a flower opens on the hill-top but at length it falls into\nthe valley. Has it fallen already? I know not. But this much at least\nis abundantly proved to us, that in the work-a-day lives of the very\nhumblest of men, spiritual phenomena manifest themselves\u2014mysterious,\ndirect workings, that bring soul nearer to soul; and of all this we\ncan find no record in former times. And the reason must surely be\nthat these things were not so clearly evident then: for at every\nperiod there have been men who penetrated to the innermost recesses\nof life, to its most secret affinities: and all that they learned of\nthe heart, the soul and the spirit of their epoch has been handed\ndown to us. It may well be that similar influences were at work\neven in those times; but they could not have been as universal, as\nactive and vigorous as they are to-day, nor could they have sunk so\ndeep into the very life-springs of the race; for in that case, they\nhad surely not escaped the notice of those sages, and been passed by\nin silence. And I do not refer now to \u2018scientific spiritism,\u2019 or its\ntelepathic phenomena, to \u2018materialisation,\u2019 or other manifestations\nthat I have enumerated above: but to the incidents, the interventions,\nthat occur unceasingly in the dreariest lives of all, those of the\nmen who are the most forgetful of their eternal rights. Also must it\nbe borne in mind that we are not considering the ordinary text-book\npsychology\u2014which concerns itself only with such spiritual phenomena\nas are the most closely interwoven with the material, having indeed\nusurped the beautiful name of Psyche\u2014the psychology of which I speak\nis transcendental, and throws light on the direct relationship that\nexists between soul and soul, and on the _sensibility_ as well as the\n_extraordinary presence_ of the soul. It is a science that is in its\ninfancy; but by it shall men be taken a full step higher, and very\nspeedily shall it dismiss for ever the elementary psychology that has\nbeen dominant to this day.\n\nThis \u2018immediate\u2019 psychology is descending from the mountain tops,\nand laying siege to the humblest of valleys; and even in the most\nmediocre of writings is its presence to be felt. And indeed, than this,\nnothing could prove more clearly that the pressure of the soul has\nincreased among mankind, and that its mysterious influence is diffusing\nitself among the people. But we are now drawing near to things that\nare well-nigh unspeakable, and such examples as one can give are\nnecessarily ordinary and incomplete. The following are elementary\nand readily appreciable. In former days, if there was question, for\na moment, of a presentiment, of the strange impression produced by a\nchance meeting or a look, of a decision that the unknown side of human\nreason had governed, of an intervention, or a force, inexplicable\nand yet understood, of the secret laws of sympathy and antipathy, of\nelective and instinctive affinities, of the overwhelming influence of\nthe thing that had not been spoken\u2014in former days, these problems\nwould have been carelessly passed by, and, besides, it was but seldom\nthat they intruded themselves upon the serenity of the thinker. They\nseemed to come about by the merest chance. That they are ever pressing\nupon life, unceasingly and with prodigious force\u2014this was unsuspected\nof all\u2014and the philosopher hastened back to familiar studies of\npassion, and of incident that floated on the surface.\n\nThese spiritual phenomena, to which, in bygone days, even the greatest\nand wisest of our brothers scarcely gave a thought, are to-day being\nearnestly studied by the very smallest; and herein are we shown\nonce again that the human soul is a plant of matchless unity, whose\nbranches, when the hour is come, all burst into blossom together. The\npeasant, to whom the power of expressing that which lies in his soul\nshould suddenly be given, would at this moment pour forth ideas that\nwere not yet in the soul of Racine. And thus it is that men of a genius\nmuch inferior to that of Shakespeare or Racine have yet had revealed to\nthem glimpses of a secretly luminous life, whose outer crust, alone,\nhad come within the ken of those masters. For, however great the soul,\nit avails not that it should wander in isolation through space or time.\nUnaided, it can do but little. It is the flower of the multitude. When\nthe spiritual sea is storm-tossed, and its whole surface restless and\ntroubled, then is the moment ripe for the mighty soul to appear; but if\nit come at time of slumber, its utterance will be but of the dreams of\nsleep. Hamlet\u2014to take the most illustrious of all examples\u2014Hamlet,\nat Elsinore\u2014at every moment does he advance to the very brink of\nawakening; and yet, though his haggard face be damp with icy sweat,\nthere are words that he cannot utter, words that to-day would doubtless\nflow readily from his lips, because the soul of the passer-by, be he\ntramp or thief, would be there to help him. For, in truth, it would\nseem that already there are fewer veils that enwrap the soul; and were\nHamlet now to look into the eyes of his mother, or of Claudius, there\nwould be revealed to him the things that, then, he did not know. Is it\nthoroughly clear to you\u2014this is one of the strangest, most disquieting\nof truths\u2014is it thoroughly clear to you that, if there be evil in\nyour heart, your mere presence will probably proclaim it to-day a\nhundred times more clearly than would have been the case two or three\ncenturies ago? Is it fully borne home to you that if you have perchance\nthis morning done anything that shall have brought sadness to a single\nhuman being, the peasant, with whom you are about to talk of the rain\nor the storm, will know of it\u2014his soul will have been warned even\nbefore his hand has thrown open the door? Though you assume the face\nof a saint, a hero or a martyr, the eye of the passing child will not\ngreet you with the same unapproachable smile if there lurk within you\nan evil thought, an injustice, or a brother\u2019s tears. A hundred years\nago the soul of that child would perhaps have passed, unheeding, by the\nside of yours....\n\nTruly it is becoming difficult to cherish hatred, envy, or treachery\nin one\u2019s heart, secure from observation; for the souls even of the most\nindifferent are incessantly keeping vigil around us. Our ancestors have\nnot spoken of these things, and we realise that the life in which we\nbestir ourselves is quite other than that which they have depicted.\nHave they deceived us, or did they not know? Signs and words no longer\ncount for anything, and in mystic circles it is the mere presence that\ndecides almost all.\n\nEven the ancient \u2018will-power\u2019\u2014the logical will-power that men have\nprofessed to understand so well\u2014even this is being transformed in\nits turn, and moulded beneath the pressure of mighty, deep searching,\ninexplicable laws. The last refuges are disappearing, and men are\ndrawing closer to each other. Far above words and acts do they judge\ntheir fellows\u2014nay, far above thought\u2014for that which they see, though\nthey understand it not, lies well beyond the domain of thought. And\nthis is one of the great signs by which the spiritual periods I spoke\nof before shall be known. It is felt on all sides that the conditions\nof work-a-day life are changing, and the youngest of us already differ\nentirely in speech and action from the men of the preceding generation.\nA mass of useless conventions, habits, pretences, and intermediaries\nare being swept into the gulf; and it is by the invisible alone\nthat, though we know it not, nearly all of us judge each other. If I\nenter your room for the first time you will not pronounce the secret\nsentence that, according to the laws of practical psychology, each\nman pronounces in the presence of his fellow. In vain shall you try\nto tell me whither you have been to learn who I am, but you shall\ncome back to me, bearing the weight of unspeakable certitudes. Your\nfather, perhaps, would have judged me otherwise, and would have been\nmistaken. We can but believe that man will soon touch man, and that the\natmosphere will change. \u2018Have we,\u2019 asks Claude de Saint-Martin, the\ngreat \u2018unknown philosopher,\u2019 \u2018have we advanced one step further on the\nradiant path of enlightenment, that leads to the simplicity of men?\u2019\nLet us wait in silence: perhaps ere long we shall be conscious of \u2018the\nmurmur of the gods.\u2019\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRE-DESTINED\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRE-DESTINED\n\n\nTHEY are known to most men, and there are few mothers who have not seen\nthem. Perhaps they are as inevitable as life\u2019s sorrows; and the men\namong whom they dwell become the better for the knowledge of them, and\nthe sadder, and the more gentle.\n\nThey are strange. As children, life seems nearer to them than to other\nchildren; they appear to suspect nothing, and yet is there in their\neyes so profound a certainty that we feel they must know all, that\nthere must have been evenings when they found time to tell themselves\ntheir secret. At the moment when their brothers are still groping\ntheir way blindly in the mysterious land between birth and life, they\nhave already understood; they are erect, ready with hand and soul. In\nall haste, but wisely and with minute care, do they prepare themselves\nto live; and this very haste is a sign upon which mothers, the\ndiscreet, unsuspected confidants of all that cannot be told, can scarce\nbring themselves to look.\n\nTheir stay among us is often so short that we are unconscious of their\npresence; they go away without saying a word, and are for ever unknown\nto us. But others there are who linger for a moment, who look at us\nwith an eager smile, and seem to be on the point of confessing that\nthey know all; and then, towards their twentieth year, they leave us,\nhurriedly, muffling their footsteps, as though they had just discovered\nthat they had chosen the wrong dwelling-place, and had been about to\npass their lives among men whom they did not know.\n\nThey themselves say but little, and there is a cloud that falls around\nthem at the moment when men seem on the point of touching them, or\nwhen hurt has been done them. Some days there are when they seem to\nbe of us, and among us, but a sudden evening comes and they are so\nfar away that we dare not look at them, or ask a question. It is as\nthough they were on life\u2019s further shore, and the feeling rushes in\nupon us that now, at last, the hour has come for affirming that which\nis graver, deeper, more human, more real than friendship, pity or love;\nfor saying the thing that is piteously flapping its wings at the back\nof our throat, and craving for utterance\u2014the thing that our ignorance\ncrushes, that we never have said, that we never shall say, for so many\nlives are spent in silence! And time rushes on; and who is there of us\nbut has lingered and waited till it was too late, and there was no one\nto listen to his words?\n\nWhy have they come to us\u2014why do they go so soon? Is it only that we\nmay be convinced of the utter aimlessness of life? It is a mystery that\never eludes us, and all our searchings are vain. I have often seen\nthese things happen; one day they were so near to me that I scarcely\nknew was it myself or another whom they concerned....\n\nFor it was thus that my brother died. And though he alone had heard the\nwarning whisper, be it ever so unconsciously\u2014for from his earliest\ndays he had concealed the message of disease within him\u2014yet surely\nhad the knowledge of what was to come been borne in upon us also. What\nare the signs that set apart the creatures for whom dire events lie in\nwait? Nothing is visible, and yet all is revealed. They are afraid of\nus, for that we are ever crying out to them of our knowledge, struggle\nagainst it as we may; and when we are with them, they can see that,\nin our hearts, we are oppressed by their destiny. Something there is\nthat we hide from most men, and we ourselves are ignorant of what\nthis thing may be. Strange secrets of life and death pass between two\ncreatures who meet for the first time; and many other secrets besides,\nnameless to this day, but which at once thrust their impress upon our\nbearing, our features, the look of our eyes; and even while we press\nthe hand of our friend, our soul will have soared perhaps beyond the\nconfines of this life. It may be that when two men are together, they\nare unconscious of any hidden thoughts, but there are things that lie\ndeeper, and are far more imperious, than thought. We are not the lords\nof these unfathomable gifts; and we are ever betraying the presence of\nthe prophet to whom speech is not given. We are never the same with\nothers as when we are alone; we are different, even, when we are in\nthe dark with them, and the look in our eyes changes as the past or\nfuture flashes before us; and therefore it is that, though we know it\nnot, we are ever watchful and on our guard. When we meet those who are\nnot to live long, we are only conscious of the fate that is hanging\nover them; we see nothing else. If they could they would deceive us,\nso that they might the more readily deceive themselves. They do all in\ntheir power to mislead us; they imagine that their eager smile, their\nburning interest in life, will conceal the truth; but none the less\ndoes the event already loom large before us, and seem indeed to be the\nmainstay, nay, the very reason of their existence. Death has again\nbetrayed them, and they realise, in bitter sadness, that nothing is\nhidden from us, that there are certain voices that cannot be still.\n\nWho can tell us of the power which events possess\u2014whether they issue\nfrom us, or whether we owe our being to them? Do we attract them, or\nare we attracted by them? Do we mould them, or do they mould us? Are\nthey always unerring in their course? Why do they come to us like the\nbee to the hive, like the dove to the cote; and where do they find a\nresting-place when we are not there to meet them? Whence is it that\nthey come to us; and why are they shaped in our image, as though they\nwere our brothers? Are their workings in the past or in the future; and\nare the more powerful of them those that are no longer, or those that\nare not yet? Is it to-day or to-morrow that moulds us? Do we not all\nspend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that\nhas not yet come to pass? I have noticed the same grave gestures, the\nfootsteps that seemed to tend towards a goal that was all too near,\nthe presentiments that chilled the blood, the fixed, immovable look\u2014I\nhave noticed all these in the men, even, whose end was to come about\nby accident, the men on whom death would suddenly seize from without.\nAnd yet were they as eager as their brethren, who bore the seeds of\ndeath within them. Their faces were the same. To them, too, life was\nfraught with more seriousness than to those who were to live their full\nspan. The same careful, silent watchfulness marked their actions. They\nhad no time to lose; they had to be in readiness at the same hour; so\ncompletely had this event, which no prophet could have foretold, become\nthe very life of their life.\n\nIt is death that is the guide of our life, and our life has no goal but\ndeath. Our death is the mould into which our life flows: it is death\nthat has shaped our features. Of the dead alone should portraits be\npainted, for it is only they who are truly themselves, and who, for\none instant, stand revealed even as they are. What life is there but\nbecomes radiant when the pure, cold, simple light falls on it at the\nlast hour? It is, perhaps, the same light that floats around children\u2019s\nfaces when they smile at us; and the silence that steals over us then\nis akin to that of the chamber where there will be peace for evermore.\nI have known many whom the same death was leading by the hand, and when\nmy memory dwells upon them I see a band of children, of youths and\nmaidens, who seem to be all coming forth from the same house. A strange\nfraternity already unites them: it may be that they recognise each\nother by birth-marks we cannot discover, that they furtively exchange\nsolemn signals of silence. They are the eager children of precocious\ndeath. At school we were vaguely conscious of them. They seemed to be\nat the same time seeking and avoiding each other, like people who are\nafflicted with the same infirmity. They were to be seen together, in\nremote corners of the garden, under the trees. Their mysterious smile\nflew fitfully across their lips, and there lurked a gravity beneath, a\ncurious fear lest a secret should escape. Silence would almost always\nfall upon them, when those who were to live drew near. Were they\nalready speaking of the event, or did they know that the event was\nspeaking through them, and in their despite? Were they forming a circle\nround it, and trying to keep it hidden from indifferent eyes? There\nwere times when they seemed to be looking down upon us from a lofty\ntower; and, for all that we were the stronger, we dared not molest\nthem. For truly there is nothing that can ever be really hidden; and\nwhosoever meets me knows all that I have done and shall do, all that I\nhave thought and do think\u2014nay, he knows the very day on which I shall\ndie; but the means of telling what he knows is not given to him, though\nhe speak never so softly, and whisper to his heart. We pass heedlessly\nby the side of all that our hands cannot touch; and perhaps too great\na knowledge would be ours if all that we do know were revealed to us.\nOur real life is not the life we live, and we feel that our deepest,\nnay, our most intimate thoughts are quite apart from ourselves, for we\nare other than our thoughts and our dreams. And it is only at special\nmoments\u2014it may be by merest accident\u2014that we live our own life. Will\nthe day ever dawn when we shall be what we are?... In the meanwhile, we\nfelt that they were strangers in our midst. A sensation of awe crept\ninto our life. Sometimes they would walk with us along the corridor,\nor in the courtyard, and we could scarcely keep pace with them.\nSometimes they would join us at our games, and the game would no longer\nbe the same. There were some who could not find their brethren. They\nwould wander in solitude in our midst, while we played and shouted:\nthey had no friends among those who were not about to die. And yet we\nloved them, and the deepest friendliness shone from their eyes. What\nwas there that divided us from them? What is there that divides us\nall? What is this sea of mysteries in whose depths we have our being?\nThe love that we felt was the love that seeks not to express itself,\nbecause it is not of this world. It is a love, perhaps, that cannot\nbe put to the proof; it may seem feeble, uncertain, and the smallest,\nmost ordinary friendship may appear to triumph over it\u2014but none\nthe less does its life lie deeper than our life, and none the less,\nnotwithstanding its seeming indifference, is it reserved for a time\nwhen doubt and uncertainty shall be no longer....\n\nIts voice does not make itself heard now because its moment for\nspeaking has not yet come; and it is never those whom we enfold in our\narms that we love the most deeply. For there is a side of life\u2014and it\nis the best, the purest, the noblest side\u2014which never blends with the\nordinary life, and the eyes even of lovers themselves can seldom pierce\nthrough the masonry that is built up of silence and love....\n\nOr was it that we avoided them, because, though younger than ourselves,\nthey still were our elders?... Did we know that they were not of our\nage, and did we fear them, as though they were sitting in judgment\nupon us? A curious steadfastness already lurked in their eyes; and if,\nin our moments of agitation, their glance rested upon us, it would\nsoothe and comfort us, we knew not why, and there would be an instant\nof strangest silence. We would turn round: they were watching us and\nsmiling gravely. There were two for whom a violent death was lying in\nwait\u2014I remember their faces well. But almost all were timid, and tried\nto pass by unperceived. They were weighed down by some deadly sense of\nshame, they seemed to be ever beseeching forgiveness for a fault they\nknew not of, but which was near at hand. They came towards us and our\neyes met; we drew asunder, silently, and all was clear to us, though we\nknew nothing.\n\n\n\n\nMYSTIC MORALITY\n\n\n\n\nMYSTIC MORALITY\n\n\nIT is only too evident that the invisible agitations of the kingdoms\nwithin us are arbitrarily set on foot by the thoughts we shelter. Our\nmyriad intuitions are the veiled queens who steer our course through\nlife, though we have no words in which to speak of them. How strangely\ndo we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words! We\nbelieve we have dived down to the most unfathomable depths, and when\nwe reappear on the surface, the drop of water that glistens on our\ntrembling finger-tips no longer resembles the sea from which it came.\nWe believe we have discovered a grotto that is stored with bewildering\ntreasure; we come back to the light of day, and the gems we have\nbrought are false\u2014mere pieces of glass\u2014and yet does the treasure\nshine on, unceasingly, in the darkness! There is something between\nourselves and our soul that nothing can penetrate; and there are\nmoments, says Emerson, \u2018in which we court suffering, in the hope that\nhere at least we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth.\u2019\n\nI have said elsewhere that the souls of mankind seemed to be drawing\nnearer to each other, and even if this be not a statement that can be\nproved, it is none the less based upon deep-rooted, though obscure,\nconvictions. It is indeed difficult to advance facts in its support,\nfor facts are nothing but the laggards, the spies and camp followers\nof the great forces we cannot see. But surely there are moments when\nwe seem to feel, more deeply than did our fathers before us, that we\nare not in the presence of ourselves alone. Neither those who believe\nin a God, nor those who disbelieve, are found to act in themselves as\nthough they were sure of being alone. We are watched, we are under\nstrictest supervision, and it comes from elsewhere than the indulgent\ndarknesses of each man\u2019s conscience! Perhaps the spiritual vases are\nless closely sealed now than in bygone days, perhaps more power has\ncome to the waves of the sea within us? I know not: all that we can\nstate with certainty is that we no longer attach the same importance to\na certain number of traditional faults, but this is in itself a token\nof a spiritual victory.\n\nIt would seem as though our code of morality were changing\u2014advancing\nwith timid steps towards loftier regions that cannot yet be seen. And\nthe moment has perhaps come when certain new questions should be\nasked. What would happen, let us say, if our soul were suddenly to\ntake visible shape, and were compelled to advance into the midst of\nher assembled sisters, stripped of all her veils, but laden with her\nmost secret thoughts, and dragging behind her the most mysterious,\ninexplicable acts of her life? Of what would she be ashamed? Which are\nthe things she fain would hide? Would she, like a bashful maiden, cloak\nbeneath her long hair the numberless sins of the flesh? She knows not\nof them, and those sins have never come near her. They were committed\na thousand miles from her throne; and the soul even of the prostitute\nwould pass unsuspectingly through the crowd, with the transparent smile\nof the child in her eyes. She has not interfered, she was living her\nlife where the light fell on her, and it is this life only that she can\nrecall.\n\nAre there any sins or crimes of which she could be guilty? Has she\nbetrayed, deceived, lied? Has she inflicted suffering or been the cause\nof tears? Where was she while this man delivered over his brother to\nthe enemy? Perhaps, far away from him, she was sobbing; and from that\nmoment she will have become more beautiful and more profound. She will\nfeel no shame for that which she has not done; she can remain pure in\nthe midst of terrible murder. Often, she will transform into inner\nradiance all the evil wrought before her. These things are governed\nby an invisible principle; and hence, doubtless, has arisen the\ninexplicable indulgence of the gods.\n\nAnd our indulgence, too. Strive as we may, we are bound to pardon;\nand when death, \u2018the great Conciliator,\u2019 has passed by, is there one\nof us who does not fall on his knees and silently, with every token\nof forgiveness, bend over the departing soul? When I stand before\nthe rigid body of my bitterest enemy: when I look upon the pale lips\nthat slandered me, the sightless eyes that so often brought the tears\nto mine, the cold hands that may have wrought me so much wrong\u2014do\nyou imagine that I can still think of revenge? Death has come and\natoned for all. I have no grievance against the soul of the man\nbefore me. Instinctively do I recognise that it soars high above the\ngravest faults and the cruellest wrongs (and how admirable and full of\nsignificance is this instinct!). If there linger still a regret within\nme, it is not that I am unable to inflict suffering in my turn, but it\nis perhaps that my love was not great enough and that my forgiveness\nhas come too late....\n\nOne might almost believe that these things were already understood\nby us, deep down in our soul. We do not judge our fellows by their\nacts\u2014nay, not even by their most secret thoughts; for these are not\nalways undiscernible, and we go far beyond the undiscernible. A man\nshall have committed crimes reputed to be the vilest of all, and yet\nit may be that even the blackest of these shall not have tarnished,\nfor one single moment, the breath of fragrance and ethereal purity\nthat surrounds his presence; while at the approach of a philosopher\nor martyr our soul may be steeped in unendurable gloom. It may happen\nthat a saint or hero shall choose his friend from among men whose\nfaces bear the stamp of every degraded thought; and that, by the side\nof others, whose brows are radiant with lofty and magnanimous dreams,\nhe shall not feel a \u2018human and brotherly atmosphere\u2019 about him. What\ntidings do these things bring us? And wherein lies their significance?\nAre there laws deeper than those by which deeds and thoughts are\ngoverned? What are the things we have learned and why do we always\nact in accordance with rules that none ever mention, but which are\nthe only rules that cannot err? For it may be boldly declared that,\nappearances notwithstanding, neither hero nor saint has chosen wrongly.\nThey have but obeyed, and even though the saint be deceived and sold\nby the man he has preferred, still will there abide with him something\nimperishable, something by which he shall know that he was right and\nthat he has nothing to regret. The soul will ever remember that the\nother soul was pure....\n\nWhen we venture to move the mysterious stone that covers these\nmysteries, the heavily charged air surges up from the gulf, and words\nand thoughts fall around us like poisoned flies. Even our inner life\nseems trivial by the side of these unchanging deepnesses. When the\nangels stand before you, will you glory in never having sinned; and is\nthere not an inferior innocence? When Jesus read the wretched thoughts\nof the Pharisees who surrounded the paralytic of Capernaum, are you\nsure that as He looked at them, He judged their soul\u2014and condemned\nit\u2014without beholding, far away behind their thoughts, a brightness\nthat was perhaps everlasting? And would He be a God if His condemnation\nwere irrevocable? But why does He speak as though He lingered on the\nthreshold? Will the basest thought or the noblest inspiration leave a\nmark on the diamond\u2019s surface? What god, that is indeed on the heights,\nbut must smile at our gravest faults, as we smile at the puppies on the\nhearthrug? And what god would he be who would not smile? If you become\ntruly pure, do you think you will try to conceal the petty motives of\nyour great actions from the eyes of the angels before you? And yet are\nthere not in us many things that will look pitiful indeed before the\ngods assembled on the mountain? Surely that must be, and our soul knows\nfull well that it will have to render its account. It lives in silence,\nand the hand of a great judge is ever upon it, though his sentences are\nbeyond our ken. What accounts will it have to render? Where shall we\nfind the code of morality that can enlighten us? Is there a mysterious\nmorality that holds sway in regions far beyond our thoughts? Are our\nmost secret desires only the helpless satellites of a central star,\nthat is hidden from our eyes? Does a transparent tree exist within us,\nand are all our actions and all our virtues only its ephemeral flowers\nand leaves? Indeed we know not what are the wrongs that our soul can\ncommit, nor what there can be that should make us blush before a higher\nintelligence or before another soul; and yet which of us feels that he\nis pure and does not dread the coming of the judge? And where is there\na soul that is not afraid of another soul?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere, we are no longer in the well-known valleys of human and psychic\nlife. We find ourselves at the door of the third enclosure: that of the\ndivine life of the mystics. We have to grope timidly, and make sure of\nevery footstep, as we cross the threshold. And even when the threshold\nis crossed, where shall certainty be found? Where shall we discover\nthose marvellous laws that we are perhaps constantly disobeying: laws\nof whose existence our conscience is ignorant, though our soul has been\nwarned? Whence comes the shadow of a mysterious transgression that at\ntimes creeps over our life and makes it so hard to bear? What are the\ngreat spiritual sins of which we can be guilty? Will it be our shame\nto have striven against our soul, or is there an invisible struggle\nbetween our soul and God? And is this struggle so strangely silent that\nnot even a whisper floats on the air? Is there a moment when we can\nhear the queen whose lips are sealed? She is sternly silent when events\ndo but float on the surface; but there are others perhaps that we\nscarcely heed, which have their roots deep down in eternity. Some one\nis dying, some one looks at you, or cries, some other is coming towards\nyou for the first time, or an enemy is passing by\u2014may she not perhaps\nwhisper then? And if you listened to her, while already you no longer\nlove, in the future, the friend at whom you now are smiling? But all\nthis is nothing, and is not even near to the outer lights of the abyss.\nOne cannot speak of these things\u2014the solitude is too great. \u2018In\ntruth,\u2019 says Novalis, \u2018it is only here and there that the soul bestirs\nitself; when will it move as a whole, and when will humanity begin to\nfeel with one conscience?\u2019 It is only when this takes place that some\nwill learn. We must wait in patience till this superior conscience be\ngradually, slowly, formed. Then perhaps some one will come to whom it\nwill be given to express what it is that we all feel as regards this\nside of the soul, which is like to the face of the moon, that none have\nperceived since the world began.\n\n\n\n\nON WOMEN\n\n\n\n\nON WOMEN\n\n\nIN these domains also are the laws unknown. Far above our heads, in the\nvery centre of the sky, shines the star of our destined love; and it is\nin the atmosphere of that star, and illumined by its rays, that every\npassion that stirs us will come to life, even to the end. And though we\nchoose to right or to left of us, on the heights or in the shallows;\nthough, in our struggle to break through the enchanted circle that is\ndrawn around all the acts of our life, we do violence to the instinct\nthat moves us, and try our hardest to choose against the choice of\ndestiny, yet shall the woman we elect always have come to us straight\nfrom the unvarying star. And if, like Don Juan, we take a thousand and\nthree to our embraces, still shall we find, on that evening when arms\nfall asunder and lips disunite, that it is always the same woman, good\nor bad, tender or cruel, loving or faithless, that is standing before\nus.\n\nFor indeed we can never emerge from the little circle of light that\ndestiny traces about our footsteps; and one might almost believe that\nthe extent and the hue of this impassable ring are known even to the\nmen who are furthest from us. It is the tinge of its spiritual rays\nthat they perceive first of all, and therefore will it come about that\nthey will either smilingly hold out their hand to us or draw it back in\nfear. A superior atmosphere exists, in which we all know each other;\nand there is a mysterious truth\u2014deeper far than the material truth\u2014to\nwhich we at once have recourse, when we try to form a conception of a\nstranger. Have we not all experienced these things, which take place\nin the impenetrable regions of almost astral humanity? If you receive\na letter that has come to you from some far-away island lost in the\nheart of the ocean, from a stranger whose very existence was unknown to\nyou, are you quite sure that it is really a stranger who has written\nto you? And, as you read, do not certain deep-rooted, infallible\nconvictions\u2014to which ordinary convictions are as nothing\u2014come to you\nconcerning this soul that is thus meeting yours, in spheres known to\nthe gods alone? And, further, can you not understand that this soul,\nthat was dreaming of yours, heedless of time or space, that this soul,\ntoo, had certitudes akin to your own? Strangest recognitions take\nplace on all sides, and we cannot hide our existence. Perhaps nothing\nbrings into broader daylight the subtle bonds that interconnect all\nmankind than the little mysteries which attend the exchange of a few\nletters between two strangers. This is perhaps one of the minute\ncrevices\u2014wretchedly insignificant, no doubt, but so few there are\nthat the faintest glimmer of light must content us\u2014this is perhaps\none of the minute crevices in the door of darkness, through which we\nare allowed to peer for one instant, and so conceive to ourselves what\nmust be taking place in the grotto of treasures, undiscovered to this\nday. Look through the passive correspondence of any man, and you shall\nfind in it an astonishing unity. I know neither of the two men who have\nwritten to me this morning, yet am I already aware that my reply to\nthe one will differ in its essence from my reply to the other. I have\ncaught a glimpse of the invisible. And, in my turn, when some one,\nwhom I have never seen, writes to me, I know quite well that had he\nbeen writing to the friend who is now before me, his letter had not\nbeen exactly the same. A difference will there always be\u2014but it is\nspiritual and intangible. It is the invisible signal of the soul that\nsalutes its fellow. Doubtless must there be regions outside our ken\nwhere none are unknown; a common fatherland whither we may go and meet\neach other, and whence the return knows no hardship.\n\nAnd it is in this common fatherland also that we chose the women we\nloved, wherefore it is that we cannot have erred, nor can they have\nerred either. The kingdom of love is, before all else, the great\nkingdom of certitude, for it is within its bounds that the soul is\npossessed of the utmost leisure. There, truly, they have naught to do\nbut to recognise each other, offer deepest admiration, and ask their\nquestions\u2014tearfully, like the maid who has found the sister she had\nlost\u2014while, far away from them, arm links itself in arm and breaths\nare mingling.... At last has a moment come when they can smile and\nlive their own life\u2014for a truce has been called in the stern routine\nof daily existence\u2014and it is perhaps from the heights of this smile\nand these ineffable glances that springs the mysterious perfume that\npervades love\u2019s dreariest moments, that preserves for ever the memory\nof the time when the lips first met....\n\nOf the true, pre-destined love alone, do I speak here. When Fate\nsends forth the woman it has chosen for us\u2014sends her forth from\nthe fastnesses of the great spiritual cities in which we, all\nunconsciously, dwell, and she awaits us at the crossing of the road\nwe have to traverse when the hour is come\u2014we are warned at the first\nglance. Some there are who attempt to force the hand of Fate. Wildly\npressing down their eyelids, so as not to see that which had to be\nseen\u2014struggling with all their puny strength against the eternal\nforces\u2014they will contrive perhaps to cross the road and go towards\nanother, sent thither but not for them. But, strive as they may, they\nwill not succeed in \u2018stirring up the dead waters that lie in the great\ntarn of the future.\u2019 Nothing will happen; the pure force will not\ndescend from the heights, and those wasted hours and kisses will never\nbecome part of the real hours and kisses of their life....\n\nThere are times when destiny shuts her eyes, but she knows full well\nthat, when evening falls, we shall return to her, and that the last\nword must be hers. She may shut her eyes, but the time till she re-open\nthem is time that is lost....\n\nIt would seem that women are more largely swayed by destiny than\nourselves. They submit to its decrees with far more simplicity; nor is\nthere sincerity in the resistance they offer. They are still nearer to\nGod, and yield themselves with less reserve to the pure workings of\nthe mystery. And therefore is it, doubtless, that all the incidents in\nour life in which they take part seem to bring us nearer to what might\nalmost be the very fountain-head of destiny. It is above all when by\ntheir side that moments come, unexpectedly, when a \u2018clear presentiment\u2019\nflashes across us, a presentiment of a life that does not always seem\nparallel to the life we know of. They lead us close to the gates of\nour being. May it not be during one of those profound moments, when\nhis head is pillowed on a woman\u2019s breast, that the hero learns to know\nthe strength and steadfastness of his star? And indeed will any true\nsentiment of the future ever come to the man who has not had his\nresting-place in a woman\u2019s heart?\n\nYet again do we enter the troubled circles of the higher conscience.\nAh! how true it is that, here, too, \u2018the so-called psychology is a\nhobgoblin that has usurped, in the sanctuary itself, the place reserved\nfor the veritable images of the gods.\u2019 For it is not the surface that\nalways concerns us\u2014nay, nor is it even the deepest of hidden thoughts.\nDo you imagine that love knows only of thoughts, and acts, and words,\nand that the soul never emerges from its dungeon? Do I need to be told\nwhether she whom I take in my arms to-day is jealous or faithful, gay\nor sad, sincere or treacherous? Do you think that these wretched words\ncan attain the heights whereon our souls repose and where our destiny\nfulfils itself in silence? What care I whether she speak of rain or\njewels, of pins or feathers; what care I though she appear not to\nunderstand? Do you think that it is for a sublime word I thirst when I\nfeel that a soul is gazing into my soul? Do I not know that the most\nbeautiful of thoughts dare not raise their heads when the mysteries\nconfront them? I am ever standing at the sea-shore; and, were I Plato,\nPascal, or Michael Angelo, and the woman I loved merely telling me of\nher earrings, the words I would say and the words she would say would\nappear but the same as they floated on the waves of the fathomless\ninner sea, that each of us would be contemplating in the other. Let\nbut my very loftiest thought be weighed in the scale of life or love,\nit will not turn the balance against the three little words that the\nmaid who loves me shall have whispered of her silver bangles, her pearl\nnecklace, or her trinkets of glass....\n\nIt is we who do not understand, for that we never rise above the\nearth-level of our intellect. Let us but ascend to the first snows of\nthe mountain, and all inequalities are levelled by the purifying hand\nof the horizon that opens before us. What difference then between a\npronouncement of Marcus Aurelius and the words of the child complaining\nof the cold? Let us be humble, and learn to distinguish between\naccident and essence. Let not \u2018sticks that float\u2019 cause us to forget\nthe prodigies of the gulf. The most glorious thoughts and the most\ndegraded ideas can no more ruffle the eternal surface of our soul than,\namidst the stars of Heaven, Himalaya or precipice can alter the surface\nof the earth. A look, a kiss, and the certainty of a great invisible\npresence: all is said; and I know that she who is by my side is my\nequal....\n\nBut truly this equal is admirable, and strange; and, when love comes\nto her, even the lowest of wantons possesses that which we never have,\ninasmuch as, in her thoughts, love is always eternal. Therefore it\nis, perhaps, that, besides their primitive instincts, all women have\ncommunications with the unknown that are denied to us. Great is the\ndistance that separates the best of men from the treasures of the\nsecond boundary; and, when a solemn moment of life demands a jewel\nfrom this treasure, they no longer remember the paths that thither\nlead, and vainly offer to the imperious, undeceivable circumstance\nthe false trinkets that their intellect has fashioned. But the woman\nnever forgets the path that leads to the centre of her being; and no\nmatter whether I find her in opulence or in poverty, in ignorance or in\nfulness of knowledge, in shame or in glory, do I but whisper one word\nthat has truly come forth from the virgin depths of my soul, she will\nretrace her footsteps along the mysterious paths that she has never\nforgotten, and without a moment\u2019s hesitation will she bring back to\nme, from out her inexhaustible stores of love, a word, a look, or a\ngesture that shall be no less pure than my own. It is as though her\nsoul were ever within call; for by day and night is she prepared to\ngive answer to the loftiest appeals from another soul; and the ransom\nof the poorest is undistinguishable from the ransom of a queen....\n\nWith reverence must we draw near to them, be they lowly or arrogant,\ninattentive or lost in dreams, be they smiling still or plunged in\ntears; for they know the things that we do not know, and have a lamp\nthat we have lost. Their abiding-place is at the foot itself of the\nInevitable, whose well-worn paths are visible to them more clearly\nthan to us. And thence it is that their strange intuitions have come\nto them, their gravity at which we wonder; and we feel that, even in\ntheir most trifling actions, they are conscious of being upheld by the\nstrong, unerring hands of the gods. I said before that they drew us\nnearer to the gates of our being: verily might we believe, when we are\nwith them, that that primeval gate is opening, amidst the bewildering\nwhisper that doubtless waited on the birth of things, then when speech\nwas yet hushed, for fear lest command or forbidding should issue forth,\nunheard....\n\nShe will never cross the threshold of that gate; and she awaits us\nwithin, where are the fountain-heads. And when we come and knock from\nwithout, and she opens to our bidding, her hand will still keep hold of\nlatch and key. She will look, for one instant, at the man who has been\nsent to her, and in that brief moment she has learned all that had to\nbe learned, and the years to come have trembled to the end of time....\nWho shall tell us of what consists the first look of love, \u2018that magic\nwand made of a ray of broken light,\u2019 the ray that has issued forth\nfrom the eternal home of our being, that has transformed two souls,\nand given them twenty centuries of youth? The door may open again,\nor close; pay no heed, nor make further effort, for all is decided.\nShe knows. She will no longer concern herself with the things you do,\nor say, or even think; and if she notice them, it will be but with a\nsmile, and unconsciously will she fling from her all that does not\nhelp to confirm the certitudes of that first glance. And if you think\nyou have deceived her, and that her impression is wrong, be sure that\nit is she who is right, and you yourself who are mistaken; for you\nare more truly that which you are in her eyes than that which in your\nsoul you believe yourself to be, and this even though she may forever\nmisinterpret the meaning of a gesture, a smile or a tear....\n\nHidden treasures that have not even a name!... I would that all those\nwho have suffered at women\u2019s hands, and found them evil, would loudly\nproclaim it, and give us their reasons; and if those reasons be well\nfounded we shall be indeed surprised, and shall have advanced far\nforward in the mystery. For women are indeed the veiled sisters of all\nthe great things we do not see. They are indeed nearest of kin to the\ninfinite that is about us, and they alone can still smile at it with\nthe intimate grace of the child, to whom its father inspires no fear.\nIt is they who preserve here below the pure fragrance of our soul,\nlike some jewel from Heaven, which none know how to use; and were they\nto depart, the spirit would reign in solitude in a desert. Theirs are\nstill the divine emotions of the first days; and the sources of their\nbeing lie, deeper far than ours, in all that was illimitable. Those\nwho complain of them know not the heights whereon the true kisses are\nto be found, and verily do I pity them. And yet, how insignificant do\nwomen seem when we look at them as we pass by! We see them moving about\nin their little homes; this one is bending forward, down there another\nis sobbing, a third sings and the last sews; and there is not one of us\nwho understands.... We visit them, as one visits pleasant things; we\napproach them with caution and suspicion, and it is scarcely possible\nfor the soul to enter. We question them, mistrustfully\u2014they, who\nknow already, answer naught, and we go away, shrugging our shoulders,\nconvinced that they do not understand.... \u2018But what need for them to\nunderstand,\u2019 answers the poet, who is always right, \u2018what need for them\nto understand, those thrice happy ones who have chosen the better part,\nand who, even as a pure flame of love in this earth of ours, token of\nthe celestial fire that irradiates all things, shine forth only from\nthe pinnacles of temples and the mastheads of ships that wander? Some\nof Nature\u2019s strangest secrets are often revealed, at sacred moments,\nto these maidens who love, and ingenuously and unconsciously will they\ndeclare them. The sage follows in their footsteps to gather up the\njewels, that in their innocence and joy they scatter along the path.\nThe poet, who feels what they feel, offers homage to their love, and\ntries, in his songs, to transplant that love, that is the germ of the\nage of gold, to other times and other countries.\u2019 For what has been\nsaid of the mystics applies above all to women, since it is they who\nhave preserved the sense of the mystic in our earth to this day....\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGICAL IN DAILY LIFE\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGICAL IN DAILY LIFE\n\n\nTHERE is a tragic element in the life of every day that is far more\nreal, far more penetrating, far more akin to the true self that is\nin us than the tragedy that lies in great adventure. But, readily\nas we all may feel this, to prove it is by no means easy, inasmuch\nas this essential tragic element comprises more than that which is\nmerely material or merely psychological. It goes beyond the determined\nstruggle of man against man, and desire against desire: it goes beyond\nthe eternal conflict of duty and passion. Its province is rather to\nreveal to us how truly wonderful is the mere act of living, and to\nthrow light upon the existence of the soul, self-contained in the\nmidst of ever-restless immensities; to hush the discourse of reason\nand sentiment, so that above the tumult may be heard the solemn,\nuninterrupted whisperings of man and his destiny. It is its province\nto point out to us the uncertain, dolorous footsteps of the being, as\nhe approaches, or wanders from, his truth, his beauty, or his God.\nAnd further, to show us, and make us understand, the countless other\nthings therewith connected, of which tragic poets have but vouchsafed\nus passing glimpses. And here do we come to an essential point, for\ncould not these things, of which we have had only passing glimpses,\nbe placed in front of the others, and shown to us first of all? The\nmysterious chant of the Infinite, the ominous silence of the soul and\nof God, the murmur of Eternity on the horizon, the destiny or fatality\nthat we are conscious of within us, though by what tokens none can\ntell\u2014do not all these underlie King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet? And would\nit not be possible, by some interchanging of the r\u00f4les, to bring them\nnearer to us, and send the actors farther off? Is it beyond the mark to\nsay that the true tragic element, normal, deep-rooted, and universal,\nthat the true tragic element of life only begins at the moment when\nso-called adventures, sorrows, and dangers have disappeared? Is the\narm of happiness not longer than that of sorrow, and do not certain of\nits attributes draw nearer to the soul? Must we indeed roar like the\nAtrides, before the Eternal God will reveal Himself in our life? and\nis He never by our side at times when the air is calm, and the lamp\nburns on, unflickering? When we think of it, is it not the tranquillity\nthat is terrible, the tranquillity watched by the stars? and is it in\ntumult or in silence that the spirit of life quickens within us? Is\nit not when we are told, at the end of the story, \u2018They were happy,\u2019\nthat the great disquiet should intrude itself? What is taking place\nwhile they are happy? Are there not elements of deeper gravity and\nstability in happiness, in a single moment of repose, than in the\nwhirlwind of passion? Is it not then that we at last behold the march\nof time\u2014ay, and of many another on-stealing besides, more secret\nstill\u2014is it not then that the hours rush forward? Are not deeper\nchords set vibrating by all these things than by the dagger-stroke of\nconventional drama? Is it not at the very moment when a man believes\nhimself secure from bodily death that the strange and silent tragedy\nof the being and the immensities does indeed raise its curtain on\nthe stage? Is it while I flee before a naked sword that my existence\ntouches its most interesting point? Is life always at its sublimest in\na kiss? Are there not other moments, when one hears purer voices that\ndo not fade away so soon? Does the soul only flower on nights of storm?\nHitherto, doubtless, this belief has prevailed. It is only the life of\nviolence, the life of bygone days, that is perceived by nearly all our\ntragic writers; and truly may one say that anachronism dominates the\nstage, and that dramatic art dates back as many years as the art of\nsculpture. Far different is it with the other arts\u2014with painting and\nmusic, for instance\u2014for these have learned to select and reproduce\nthose obscurer phases of daily life that are not the less deep-rooted\nand amazing. They know that all that life has lost, as regards mere\nsuperficial ornament, has been more than counterbalanced by the depth,\nthe intimate meaning and the spiritual gravity it has acquired. The\ntrue artist no longer chooses Marius triumphing over the Cimbrians,\nor the assassination of the Duke of Guise, as fit subjects for his\nart; for he is well aware that the psychology of victory or murder is\nbut elementary and exceptional, and that the solemn voice of men and\nthings, the voice that issues forth so timidly and hesitatingly, cannot\nbe heard amidst the idle uproar of acts of violence. And therefore\nwill he place on his canvas a house lost in the heart of the country,\nan open door at the end of a passage, a face or hands at rest, and by\nthese simple images will he add to our consciousness of life, which is\na possession that it is no longer possible to lose.\n\nBut to the tragic author, as to the mediocre painter who still lingers\nover historical pictures, it is only the violence of the anecdote that\nappeals, and in his representation thereof does the entire interest of\nhis work consist. And he imagines, forsooth, that we shall delight in\nwitnessing the very same acts that brought joy to the hearts of the\nbarbarians, with whom murder, outrage and treachery were matters of\ndaily occurrence. Whereas it is far away from bloodshed, battle-cry and\nsword-thrust that the lives of most of us flow on, and men\u2019s tears are\nsilent to-day, and invisible, and almost spiritual....\n\nIndeed, when I go to a theatre, I feel as though I were spending a\nfew hours with my ancestors, who conceived life as something that was\nprimitive, arid and brutal; but this conception of theirs scarcely even\nlingers in my memory, and surely it is not one that I can share. I am\nshown a deceived husband killing his wife, a woman poisoning her lover,\na son avenging his father, a father slaughtering his children, children\nputting their father to death, murdered kings, ravished virgins,\nimprisoned citizens\u2014in a word, all the sublimity of tradition, but\nalas, how superficial and material! Blood, surface-tears and death!\nWhat can I learn from creatures who have but one fixed idea, and who\nhave no time to live, for that there is a rival, or a mistress, whom it\nbehoves them to put to death?\n\nI had hoped to be shown some act of life, traced back to its sources\nand to its mystery by connecting links, that my daily occupations\nafford me neither power nor occasion to study. I had gone thither\nhoping that the beauty, the grandeur and the earnestness of my humble\nday by day existence would, for one instant, be revealed to me, that I\nwould be shown the I know not what presence, power or God that is ever\nwith me in my room. I was yearning for one of the strange moments of a\nhigher life that flit unperceived through my dreariest hours; whereas,\nalmost invariably, all that I beheld was but a man who would tell me,\nat wearisome length, why he was jealous, why he poisoned, or why he\nkilled.\n\nI admire Othello, but he does not appear to me to live the august daily\nlife of a Hamlet, who has the time to live, inasmuch as he does not\nact. Othello is admirably jealous. But is it not perhaps an ancient\nerror to imagine that it is at the moments when this passion, or others\nof equal violence, possesses us, that we live our truest lives? I have\ngrown to believe that an old man, seated in his armchair, waiting\npatiently, with his lamp beside him; giving unconscious ear to all\nthe eternal laws that reign about his house, interpreting, without\ncomprehending, the silence of doors and windows and the quivering voice\nof the light, submitting with bent head to the presence of his soul and\nhis destiny\u2014an old man, who conceives not that all the powers of this\nworld, like so many heedful servants, are mingling and keeping vigil\nin his room, who suspects not that the very sun itself is supporting\nin space the little table against which he leans, or that every star\nin heaven and every fibre of the soul are directly concerned in the\nmovement of an eyelid that closes, or a thought that springs to\nbirth\u2014I have grown to believe that he, motionless as he is, does yet\nlive in reality a deeper, more human and more universal life than the\nlover who strangles his mistress, the captain who conquers in battle,\nor \u2018the husband who avenges his honour.\u2019\n\nI shall be told, perhaps, that a motionless life would be invisible,\nthat therefore animation must be conferred upon it, and movement,\nand that such varied movement as would be acceptable is to be found\nonly in the few passions of which use has hitherto been made. I do\nnot know whether it be true that a static theatre is impossible.\nIndeed, to me it seems to exist already. Most of the tragedies of\n\u00c6schylus are tragedies without movement. In both the \u2018Prometheus\u2019\nand the \u2018Suppliants,\u2019 events are lacking; and the entire tragedy of\nthe \u2018Ch\u0153phor\u00e6\u2019\u2014surely the most terrible drama of antiquity\u2014does\nbut cling, nightmare-like, around the tomb of Agamemnon, till murder\ndarts forth, as a lightning flash, from the accumulation of prayers,\never falling back upon themselves. Consider, from this point of view,\na few more of the finest tragedies of the ancients: \u2018The Eumenides,\u2019\n\u2018Antigone,\u2019 \u2018Electra,\u2019 \u2018\u0152dipus at Colonos.\u2019 \u2018They have admired,\u2019 said\nRacine in his preface to \u2018Berenice,\u2019 \u2018they have admired the \u201cAjax\u201d\nof Sophocles, wherein there is nothing but Ajax killing himself with\nregret for the fury into which he fell after the arms of Achilles were\ndenied him. They have admired \u201cPhiloctetes,\u201d whose entire subject\nis but the coming of Ulysses with intent to seize the arrows of\nHercules. Even the \u201c\u0152dipus,\u201d though full of recognitions, contains less\nsubject-matter than the simplest tragedy of our days.\u2019\n\nWhat have we here but life that is almost motionless? In most cases,\nindeed, you will find that psychological action\u2014infinitely loftier in\nitself than mere material action, and truly, one might think, well-nigh\nindispensable\u2014that psychological action even has been suppressed, or\nat least vastly diminished, in a truly marvellous fashion, with the\nresult that the interest centres solely and entirely in the individual,\nface to face with the universe. Here we are no longer with the\nbarbarians, nor is man now fretting, himself in the midst of elementary\npassions, as though, forsooth, these were the only things worthy of\nnote: he is at rest, and we have time to observe him. It is no longer\na violent, exceptional moment of life that passes before our eyes\u2014it\nis life itself. Thousands and thousands of laws there are, mightier and\nmore venerable than those of passion; but, in common with all that is\nendowed with resistless force, these laws are silent, and discreet, and\nslow-moving; and hence it is only in the twilight that they can be seen\nand heard, in the meditation that comes to us at the tranquil moments\nof life.\n\nWhen Ulysses and Neoptolemus come to Philoctetes and demand of him the\narms of Hercules, their action is in itself as simple and ordinary as\nthat of a man of our day who goes into a house to visit an invalid,\nof a traveller who knocks at the door of an inn, or of a mother who,\nby the fireside, awaits the return of her child. Sophocles indicates\nthe character of his heroes by means of the lightest and quickest of\ntouches. But it may safely be said that the chief interest of the\ntragedy does not lie in the struggle we witness between cunning and\nloyalty, between love of country, rancour, and headstrong pride. There\nis more beyond: for it is man\u2019s loftier existence that is laid bare to\nus. The poet adds to ordinary life something, I know not what, which\nis the poet\u2019s secret: and there comes to us a sudden revelation of\nlife in its stupendous grandeur, in its submissiveness to the unknown\npowers, in its endless affinities, in its awe-inspiring misery. Let\nbut the chemist pour a few mysterious drops into a vessel that seems\nto contain the purest water, and at once masses of crystals will rise\nto the surface, thus revealing to us all that lay in abeyance there\nwhere nothing was visible before to our incomplete eyes. And even thus\nis it in \u2018Philoctetes\u2019; the primitive psychology of the three leading\ncharacters would seem to be merely the sides of the vessel containing\nthe clear water; and this itself is our ordinary life, into which the\npoet is about to let fall the revelation-bearing drops of his genius....\n\nIndeed, it is not in the actions but in the words that are found the\nbeauty and greatness of tragedies that are truly beautiful and great;\nand this not solely in the words that accompany and explain the action,\nfor there must perforce be another dialogue besides the one which is\nsuperficially necessary. And indeed the only words that count in the\nplay are those that at first seemed useless, for it is therein that the\nessence lies. Side by side with the necessary dialogue will you almost\nalways find another dialogue that seems superfluous; but examine it\ncarefully, and it will be borne home to you that this is the only one\nthat the soul can listen to profoundly, for here alone is it the soul\nthat is being addressed. You will see, too, that it is the quality and\nthe scope of this unnecessary dialogue that determine the quality\nand the immeasurable range of the work. Certain it is that, in the\nordinary drama, the indispensable dialogue by no means corresponds to\nreality; and it is just those words that are spoken by the side of the\nrigid, apparent truth, that constitute the mysterious beauty of the\nmost beautiful tragedies, inasmuch as these are words that conform to\na deeper truth, and one that lies incomparably nearer to the invisible\nsoul by which the poem is upheld. One may even affirm that a poem\ndraws the nearer to beauty and loftier truth in the measure that it\neliminates words that merely explain the action, and substitutes for\nthem others that reveal, not the so-called \u2018soul-state,\u2019 but I know\nnot what intangible and unceasing striving of the soul towards its own\nbeauty and truth. And so much the nearer, also, does it draw to the\ntrue life. To every man does it happen, in his work-a-day existence,\nthat some situation of deep seriousness has to be unravelled by means\nof words. Reflect for an instant. At moments such as those\u2014nay, at\nthe most commonplace of times\u2014is it the thing you say or the reply\nyou receive that has the most value? Are not other forces, other\nwords one cannot hear, brought into being, and do not these determine\nthe event? What I say often counts for so little; but my presence,\nthe attitude of my soul, my future and my past, that which will take\nbirth in me and that which is dead, a secret thought, the stars that\napprove, my destiny, the thousands of mysteries which surround me and\nfloat about yourself\u2014all this it is that speaks to you at that tragic\nmoment, all this it is that brings to me your answer. There is all\nthis beneath every one of my words, and each one of yours; it is this,\nabove all, that we see, it a this, above all, that we hear, ourselves\nnotwithstanding. If you have come, you, the \u2018outraged husband,\u2019 the\n\u2018deceived lover,\u2019 the \u2018forsaken wife,\u2019 intending to kill me, your arm\nwill not be stayed by my most moving entreaty; but it may be that\nthere will come towards you, at that moment, one of these unexpected\nforces; and my soul, knowing of their vigil near to me, may whisper\na secret word whereby, haply, you shall be disarmed. These are the\nspheres wherein adventures come to issue, this is the dialogue whose\necho should be heard. And it is this echo that one does hear\u2014extremely\nattenuated and variable, it is true\u2014in some of the great works\nmentioned above. But might we not try to draw nearer to the spheres\nwhere it is \u2018in reality\u2019 that everything comes to pass?\n\nIt would seem as though the endeavour were being made. Some time ago,\nwhen dealing with \u2018The Master Builder,\u2019 which is the one of Ibsen\u2019s\ndramas wherein this dialogue of the \u2018second degree\u2019 attains the deepest\ntragedy, I endeavoured, unskilfully enough, to fix its secrets. For\nindeed they are kindred handmarks traced on the same wall by the same\nsightless being, groping for the same light. \u2018What is it,\u2019 I asked,\n\u2018what is it that, in the \u201cMaster Builder,\u201d the poet has added to life,\nthereby making it appear so strange, so profound and so disquieting\nbeneath its trivial surface?\u2019 The discovery is not easy, and the old\nmaster hides from us more than one secret. It would even seem as though\nwhat he has wished to say were but little by the side of what he has\nbeen compelled to say. He has freed certain powers of the soul that\nhave never yet been free, and it may well be that these have held him\nin thrall. \u2018Look you, Hilda,\u2019 exclaims Solness, \u2018look you! There is\nsorcery in you, too, as there is in me. It is this sorcery that imposes\naction on the powers of the beyond. And we _have_ to yield to it.\nWhether we want to or not, we _must_.\u2019\n\nThere is sorcery in them, as in us all. Hilda and Solness are, I\nbelieve, the first characters in drama who feel, for an instant, that\nthey are living in the atmosphere of the soul; and the discovery of\nthis essential life that exists in them, beyond the life of every day,\ncomes fraught with terror. Hilda and Solness are two souls to whom\na flash has revealed their situation in the true life. Diverse ways\nthere are by which knowledge of our fellows may come to us. Two or\nthree men, perhaps, are seen by me almost daily. For a long time it\nis merely by their gestures that I distinguish them, by their habits,\nbe these of mind or body, by the manner in which they feel, act or\nthink. But, in the course of every friendship of some duration, there\ncomes to us a mysterious moment when we seem to perceive the exact\nrelationship of our friend to the unknown that surrounds him, when\nwe discover the attitude destiny has assumed towards him. And it is\nfrom this moment that he truly belongs to us. We have seen, once and\nfor all, the treatment held in store for him by events. We know that\nhowever such a one may seclude himself in the recesses of his dwelling,\nin dread lest his slightest movement stir up that which lies in the\ngreat reservoirs of the future, his forethought will avail him nothing,\nand the innumerable events that destiny holds in reserve will discover\nhim wherever he hide, and will knock one after another at his door. And\neven so do we know that this other will sally forth in vain in pursuit\nof adventure. He will ever return empty-handed. No sooner are our eyes\nthus opened than unerring knowledge would seem to spring to life,\nself-created, within our soul; and we know with absolute conviction\nthat the event that seems to be impending over the head of a certain\nman will nevertheless most assuredly not reach him.\n\nFrom this moment a special part of the soul reigns over the friendship\nof even the most unintelligent, the obscurest of men. Life has become,\nas it were, transposed. And when it happens that we meet one of the\nmen who are thus known to us, though we do but speak of the snow that\nis falling or the women that pass by, something there is in each of us\nwhich nods to the other, which examines and asks its questions without\nour knowledge, which interests itself in contingencies and hints at\nevents that it is impossible for us to understand....\n\nThus do I conceive it to be with Hilda and Solness; it is thus surely\nthat they regard each other. Their conversation resembles nothing\nthat we have ever heard, inasmuch as the poet has endeavoured to\nblend in one expression both the inner and the outer dialogue. A new,\nindescribable power dominates this somnambulistic drama. All that is\nsaid therein at once hides and reveals the sources of an unknown life.\nAnd if we are bewildered at times, let us not forget that our soul\noften appears to our feeble eyes to be but the maddest of forces, and\nthat there are in man many regions more fertile, more profound and more\ninteresting than those of his reason or his intelligence....\n\n\n\n\nTHE STAR\n\n\n\n\nTHE STAR\n\n\nWELL might it be said that, from century to century, a tragic poet \u2018has\nwandered through the labyrinths of destiny with the torch of poesy\nin his hand.\u2019 For in this way has each one, according to the forces\nof his hour, fixed the souls of the annals of man, and it is divine\nhistory that has thus been composed. It is in the poets alone that we\ncan follow the countless variations of the great unchanging power; and\nto follow them is indeed interesting, for at the root of the idea that\nthey have formed of this power is to be found, perhaps, the purest\nessence of a nation\u2019s soul. It is a power that has never entirely\nceased to be, yet moments there are when it scarcely seems to stir;\nand at such moments one feels that life is neither very active nor\nvery profound. Once only has it been the object of undivided worship;\nthen was it, even for the gods, an awe-inspiring mystery. And there\nis a thing that is passing strange\u2014it was the very period when the\nfeatureless divinity seemed most terrible and most incomprehensible\nthat was the most beautiful period of mankind, and the people to whom\ndestiny wore the most formidable aspect were the happiest people of all.\n\nIt would seem that a secret force must underlie this idea, or that the\nidea is itself the manifestation of a force. Does man develop in the\nmeasure that he recognises the greatness of the unknown that sways him,\nor is it the unknown that develops in proportion to the man? To-day\nthe idea of destiny would seem to be again awakening, and to go forth\nin search of it were perhaps no unprofitable quest. But where shall\nit be found? To go in search of destiny\u2014what is this but to seek all\nthe sorrows of man? There is no destiny of joy, no star that bodes of\nhappiness. The star that is so called is only a star of forbearance.\nYet is it well that we should sally forth at times in search of our\nsorrows, so that we may learn to know them and admire them; and this\neven though the great shapeless mass of destiny be not encountered at\nthe end.\n\nSeeking our sorrows, we shall be the most effectively seeking\nourselves, for truly may it be said that the value of ourselves is\nbut the value of our melancholy and our disquiet. As we progress, so\ndo they become deeper, nobler and more beautiful; and Marcus Aurelius\nis to be admired above all men, because, better than all men, has he\nunderstood how much there is of the soul in the meek resigned smile\nit must wear, at the depths of us. Thus is it, too, with the sorrows\nof humanity. They follow a road which resembles the road of our own\nsorrows; but it is longer, and surer, and must lead to fatherlands that\nthe last comers alone shall know. This road also has physical sorrow\nfor its starting-point; it has only just rounded the fear of the gods,\nand to-day it halts by a new abyss, whose depths the very best of us\nhave not yet sounded.\n\nEach century holds another sorrow dear, for each century discerns\nanother destiny. Certain it is that we no longer interest ourselves,\nas was formerly the case, in the catastrophes of passion; and the\nquality of the sorrow revealed in the most tragic masterpieces of the\npast is inferior to the quality of the sorrows of to-day. It is only\nindirectly that these tragedies affect us now; only by means of that\nwhich is brought to bear on the simple accidents of love or hatred\nthey reproduce, by the reflection and new nobility of sentiment that\nthe pain of living has created within us.\n\nThere are moments when it would seem as though we were on the\nthreshold of a new pessimism, mysterious and, perhaps, very pure.\nThe most redoubtable sages, Schopenhauer, Carlyle, the Russians, the\nScandinavians, and the good optimist Emerson, too (for than a wilful\noptimist there is nothing more discouraging), all these have passed our\nmelancholy by, unexplained. We feel that, underlying all the reasons\nthey have essayed to give us, there are many other profounder reasons,\nwhose discovery has been beyond them. The sadness of man which seemed\nbeautiful even to them, is still susceptible of infinite ennobling,\nuntil at last a creature of genius shall have uttered the final word\nof the sorrow that shall, perhaps, wholly purify....\n\nIn the meanwhile, we are in the hands of strange powers, whose\nintentions we are on the eve of divining. At the time of the great\ntragic writers of the new era, at the time of Shakespeare, Racine, and\ntheir successors, the belief prevailed that all misfortunes came from\nthe various passions of the heart. Catastrophes did not hover between\ntwo worlds: they came hence to go thither, and their point of departure\nwas known. Man was always the master. Much less was this the case at\nthe time of the Greeks, for then did fatality reign on the heights;\nbut it was inaccessible, and none dared interrogate it. To-day it is\nfatality that we challenge, and this is perhaps the distinguishing note\nof the new theatre. It is no longer the effects of disaster that arrest\nour attention; it is disaster itself, and we are eager to know its\nessence and its laws. It was the _nature_ of disaster with which the\nearliest tragic writers were, all unconsciously, preoccupied, and this\nit was that, though they knew it not, threw a solemn shadow round the\nhard and violent gestures of external death; and it is this, too, that\nhas become the rallying-point of the most recent dramas, the centre of\nlight with strange flames gleaming, about which revolve the souls of\nwomen and of men. And a step has been taken towards the mystery so that\nlife\u2019s terrors may be looked in the face.\n\nIt would be interesting to discover from what point of view our latest\ntragic writers appear to regard the disaster that forms the basis of\nall dramatic poems. They see it from a nearer point of vision than the\nGreeks, and they have penetrated deeper into the fertile darknesses of\nits inner circle. The divinity is perhaps the same; they know nothing\nof it, yet do they study it more closely. Whence does it come, whither\ndoes it go, why does it descend upon us? These were problems to which\nthe Greeks barely gave a thought. Is it written within us, or is it\nborn at the same time as ourselves? Does it of its own accord start\nforward to meet us, or is it summoned by conniving voices that we\ncherish at the depths of us? If we could but follow, from the heights\nof another world, the ways of the man over whom a great sorrow is\nimpending! And what man is there that does not laboriously, though all\nunconsciously, himself fashion the sorrow that is to be the pivot of\nhis life!\n\nThe Scotch peasants have a word that might be applied to every\nexistence. In their legends they give the name of \u2018Fey\u2019 to the frame\nof mind of a man who, notwithstanding all his efforts, notwithstanding\nall help and advice, is forced by some irresistible impulse, towards\nan inevitable catastrophe. It is thus that James I., the James of\nCatherine Douglas, was \u2018fey\u2019 when he went, notwithstanding the terrible\nomens of earth, heaven and hell, to spend the Christmas holidays in\nthe gloomy castle of Perth, where his assassin, the traitor Robert\nGraeme, lay in wait for him. Which of us, recalling the circumstances\nof the most decisive misfortune of his life, but has felt himself\nsimilarly possessed? Be it well understood that I speak here only of\nactive misfortunes, of those that might have been prevented: for there\nare passive misfortunes (such as the death of a person we adore) which\nsimply come towards us, and cannot be influenced by any movement of\nours. Bethink you of the fatal day of your life. Have we not all been\nforewarned; and though it may seem to us now that destiny might have\nbeen changed by a step we did not take, a door we did not open, a hand\nwe did not raise, which of us but has struggled vainly on the topmost\nwalls of the abyss, struggled without vigour and without hope, against\na force that was invisible and apparently without power?\n\nThe breath of air stirred by the door I opened, one evening, was for\never to extinguish my happiness, as it would have extinguished a\nflickering lamp; and now, when I think of it, I cannot tell myself that\nI did not know.... And yet, it was nothing important that had taken me\nto the threshold. I could have gone away, shrugging my shoulders: there\nwas no human reason that could force me to knock on the panel. No human\nreason, nothing but destiny....\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHerein there is still some resemblance to the fatality of \u0152dipus,\nand yet it is already different. One might say that it is this same\nfatality seen _ab intra_. Mysterious powers hold sway within us, and\nthese would seem to be in league with adventures. We all cherish\nenemies within our soul. They know what they do and what they force us\nto do, and when they lead us to the event, they let fall half-uttered\nwords of warning\u2014too few to stop us on the road\u2014but sufficient to\nmake us regret, when it is too late, that we did not listen more\nattentively to their wavering, ironical advice. What object can they\nhave, these powers that seek our destruction as though they were\nself-existing and did not perish with us, seeing that it is in us\nonly that they have life? What is it that sets in motion all the\nconfederates of the universe, who fatten on our blood?\n\nThe man for whom the hour of misfortune has sounded is caught up by\nan invisible whirlwind, and for years back have these powers been\ncombining the innumerable incidents that must bring him to the\nnecessary moment, to the exact spot where tears lie in wait for him.\nRemember all your efforts, all your presentiments, all the unavailing\noffers of help. Remember, too, the kindly circumstances that pitied\nyou, and tried to bar your passage, but you thrust them aside like so\nmany importunate beggars. And yet were they humble, timid sisters, who\ndesired but to save you, and they went away without saying a word, too\nweak and too helpless to struggle against decided things\u2014where decided\nit is known to God alone....\n\nScarcely has the disaster befallen us than we have the strange\nsensation of having obeyed an eternal law; and, in the midst of the\ngreatest sorrow, there is I know not what mysterious comfort that\nrewards us for our obedience. Never do we belong more completely to\nourselves than on the morrow of an irreparable catastrophe. It seems,\nthen, as though we had found ourselves again, as though we had won\nback a part of ourselves that was necessary and unknown. A curious\ncalm steals over us. For days past, almost without our knowledge,\nnotwithstanding that we were able to smile at faces and flowers, the\nrebel forces of our soul had been waging terrible battle on the borders\nof the abyss, and now that we are at the depths of it, all breathes\nfreely.\n\nEven thus, without respite, do these rebel forces struggle in the\nsoul of every one of us; and there are times when we may see the\nshadow of these combats wherein our soul may not intervene, but we\npay no heed, for to all save the unimportant do we shut our eyes. At\na time when my friends are about me it may happen that, in the midst\nof talk and shouts of laughter, there shall suddenly steal over the\nface of one of them something that is not of this world. A motiveless\nsilence shall instantly prevail, and for a second\u2019s space all shall be\nunconsciously looking forth with the eyes of the soul. Whereupon, the\nwords and smiles, that had disappeared like frightened frogs in a lake,\nwill again mount to the surface, more violent than before. But the\ninvisible, here as everywhere, has gathered its tribute. Something has\nunderstood that a fight was over, that a star was rising or falling and\nthat a destiny had just been decided....\n\nPerhaps it had been decided before; and who knows whether the struggle\nbe not a mere simulacrum? If I push open to-day the door of the house\nwherein I am to meet the first smiles of a sorrow that shall know no\nend, I do these things for a longer time than one imagines. Of what\navail to cultivate an ego on which we have so little influence? It is\nour star which it behoves us to watch. It is good or bad, pallid or\npuissant, and not by all the might of the sea can it be changed. Some\nthere are who may confidently play with their star as one might play\nwith a glass ball. They may throw it and hazard it where they list;\nfaithfully will it ever return to their hands. They know full well\nthat it cannot be broken. But there are many others who dare not even\nraise their eyes towards their star, without it detach itself from the\nfirmament and fall in dust at their feet....\n\nBut it is dangerous to speak of the star, dangerous even to think of\nit; for it is often the sign that it is on the point of extinction....\n\nWe find ourselves here in the abysses of night, where we await what has\nto be. There is no longer question of free will, which we have left\nthousands of leagues below: we are in a region where the will itself is\nbut destiny\u2019s ripest fruit. We must not complain; something is already\nknown to us, and we have discovered a few of the ways of fortune. We\nlie in wait like the birdcatcher studying the habits of migratory\nbirds, and when an event is signalled on the horizon we know full well\nthat it will not remain there alone, but that its brothers will flock\nin troops to the same spot. Vaguely have we learned that there are\ncertain thoughts, certain souls, that attract events; that some beings\nthere are who divert events in their flight, as there are others who\ncause them to congregate from the four quarters of the globe.\n\nAbove all do we know that certain ideas are fraught with extreme\ndanger; that do we but for an instant deem ourselves in safety, this\nalone suffices to draw down the thunderbolt; we know that happiness\ncreates a void, into which tears will speedily be hurled. After a time,\ntoo, we learn something of the preferences of events. It is soon borne\nhome to us that if we take a few steps along the path of life by the\nside of this one of our brothers, the ways of fortune will no longer\nbe the same, whereas, with this other, our existence will encounter\nunvarying events, coming in regular order. We feel that some beings\nthere are who protect in the unknown, others who drag us into danger\nthere; we feel that there are some who awaken the future, others who\nlull it into slumber. We suspect, further, that things at their birth\nare but feeble, that they draw their force from within us, and that,\nin every adventure, there is a brief moment when our instinct warns\nus that we are still the lords of destiny. In fine, there are some\nwho dare assert that we can learn to be happy, that, as we become\nbetter, so do we meet men of loftier mind; that a man who is good\nattracts, with irresistible force, events as good as he, and that, in\na beautiful soul, the saddest fortune is transformed into beauty....\n\nIndeed, is it not within the knowledge of us all that goodness beckons\nto goodness, and that those for whom we devote ourselves are always\nthe same; that they are always the same, those whom we betray? When\nthe same sorrow knocks at two adjoining doors, at the houses of the\njust and the unjust, will its method of action be identical in both?\nIf you are pure, will not your misfortunes be pure? To have known how\nto change the past into a few saddened smiles\u2014is this not to master\nthe future? And does it not seem that, even in the inevitable, there\nis something we can keep back? Do not great hazards lie dormant that\na too sudden movement of ours may awaken on the horizon; and would\nthis misfortune have befallen you to-day, but for the thoughts that\nthis morning kept too noisy festival in your soul? Is this all that\nour wisdom has been able to glean in the darkness? Who would dare\naffirm that in these regions there be more substantial truths? In the\nmeanwhile, let us learn how to smile, let us learn how to weep, in the\nsilence of humblest kindliness. Slowly there rises above these things\nthe shrouded face of the destiny of to-day. Of the veil that formerly\ncovered it, a minute corner has been lifted, and there, where the veil\nis not, do we recognise, to our disquiet, on the one side, _the power\nof those who live not yet_, on the other, _the power of the dead_. The\nmystery has again been shifted further from us\u2014that is all. We have\nenlarged the icy hand of destiny; and we find that, in its shadow,\nthe hands of our ancestors are clasped by the hands of our sons yet\nunborn. One act there was that we deemed the sanctuary of all our\nrights, and love remained the supreme refuge of all those on whom the\nchains of life weighed too heavily. Here, at least, in the isolation\nof this secret temple, we told ourselves that no one entered with us.\nHere, for an instant, we could breathe; here, at last, it was our soul\nthat reigned, and free was its choice in that which was the centre of\nliberty itself! But now we are told that it is not for our own sake\nthat we love. We are told that in the very temple of love we do but\nobey the unvarying orders of an invisible throng. We are told that a\nthousand centuries divide us from ourselves when we choose the woman\nwe love, and that the first kiss of the betrothed is but the seal that\nthousands of hands, craving for birth, impress upon the lips of the\nmother they desire. And, further, we know that the dead do not die. We\nknow now that it is not in our churches that they are to be found, but\nin the houses, the habits, of us all. That there is not a gesture, a\nthought, a sin, a tear, an atom of acquired consciousness that is lost\nin the depths of the earth; and that at the most insignificant of our\nacts our ancestors arise, not in their tombs where they move not, but\nin ourselves, where they always live....\n\nThus are we led by past and future. And the present, which is the\nsubstance of us, sinks to the bottom of the sea, like some tiny\nisland at which two irreconcilable oceans have been unceasingly\ngnawing. Heredity, will, destiny, all mingle noisily in our soul; but,\nnotwithstanding everything, far above everything, it is the silent star\nthat reigns. No matter with what temporary labels we may bedeck the\nmonstrous vases that contain the invisible, words can tell us scarcely\nanything of that which should be told. Heredity, nay destiny itself,\nwhat are these but a ray of this star, a ray that is lost in the\nmysterious night? And all that is might well be more mysterious still.\n\u2018We give the name of destiny to all that limits us,\u2019 says one of the\ngreat sages of our time: wherefore it behoves us to be grateful to all\nthose who tremblingly grope their way the side of the frontier. \u2018If\nwe are brutal and barbarous,\u2019 he goes on, \u2018fatality takes a form that\nis brutal and barbarous. As refinement comes to us, so do our mishaps\nbecome refined. If we rise to spiritual culture, antagonism takes\nunto itself a spiritual form.\u2019 It is perhaps true that even as our\nsoul soars aloft, so does it purify destiny, although it is also true\nthat we are menaced by the self-same sorrows that menace the savages.\nBut we have other sorrows of which they have no suspicion; and the\nspirit, as it rises, does but discover still more, at every horizon.\n\u2018We give the name of destiny to all that limits us.\u2019 Let us do our\nutmost that destiny become not too circumscribed. It is good to enlarge\none\u2019s sorrows, since thus does enlargement come to our consciousness,\nand there, there alone do we truly feel that we live. And it is also\nthe only means of fulfilling our supreme duty towards other worlds;\nsince it is probably on us alone that it is incumbent to augment the\nconsciousness of the earth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INVISIBLE GOODNESS\n\n\n\n\nTHE INVISIBLE GOODNESS\n\n\nIT is a thing, said to me one evening the sage I had chanced to meet by\nthe sea shore, whereon the waves were breaking almost noiselessly\u2014it\nis a thing that we scarcely notice, that none seem to take into\naccount, and yet do I conceive it to be one of the forces that\nsafeguard mankind. In a thousand diverse ways do the gods from whom\nwe spring reveal themselves within us, but it may well be that this\nunnoticed secret goodness, to which sufficiently direct allusion has\nnever yet been made, is the purest token of their eternal life. Whence\nit comes we know not. It is there in its simplicity, smiling on the\nthreshold of our soul; and those in whom its smiles lie deepest, or\nshine forth most frequently, may make us suffer day and night and they\nwill, yet shall it be beyond our power to cease to love them....\n\nIt is not of this world, and still are there few agitations of ours in\nwhich it takes not part. It cares not to reveal itself even in look\nor tear. Nay, it seeks concealment, for reasons one cannot divine. It\nis as though it were afraid to make use of its power. It knows that\nits most involuntary movement will cause immortal things to spring to\nlife about it; and we are miserly with immortal things. Why are we so\nfearful lest we exhaust the heaven within us? We dare not act upon the\nwhisper of the God who inspires us. We are afraid of everything that\ncannot be explained by word or gesture: and we shut our eyes to all\nthat we do, ourselves notwithstanding, in the empire where explanations\nare vain! Whence comes the timidity of the divine in man? For truly\nmight it be said that the nearer a movement of our soul approaches the\ndivine, so much the more scrupulously do we conceal it from the eyes of\nour brethren. Can it be that man is nothing but a frightened god? Or\nhas the command been laid upon us that the superior powers must not be\nbetrayed? Upon all that does not form part of this too visible world\nthere rests the tender meekness of the little ailing girl, for whom her\nmother will not send when strangers come to the house. And therefore\nit is that this secret goodness of ours has never yet passed through\nthe silent portals of our soul. It lives within us like a prisoner\nforbidden to approach the barred window of her cell. But indeed, what\nmatter though it do not approach? Enough that it be there. Hide as it\nmay, let it but raise its head, move a link of its chain or open its\nhand, and the prison is illumined, the pressure of radiance from within\nbursts open the iron barrier, and then, suddenly, there yawns a gulf\nbetween words and beings, a gulf peopled with agitated angels: silence\nfalls over all: the eyes turn away for a moment and two souls embrace\ntearfully on the threshold....\n\nIt is not a thing that comes from this earth of ours, and all\ndescriptions can be of no avail. They who would understand must have,\nin themselves too, _the same point of sensibility_. If you have\nnever in your life felt the power of _your invisible goodness_, go\nno further; it would be useless. But are there really any who have\nnot felt this power, and have the worst of us never been invisibly\ngood? I know not: of so many in this world does the aim seem to be the\ndiscouragement of the divine in their soul. And yet there needs but one\ninstant of respite for the divine to spring up again, and even the\nwickedest are not incessantly on their guard; and hence doubtless has\nit arisen that so many of the wicked are good, unseen of all, whereas\ndivers saints and sages are not invisibly good....\n\nMore than once have I been the cause of suffering, he went on, even\nas each being is the cause of suffering about him. I have caused\nsuffering because we are in a world where all is held together by\ninvisible threads, in a world where none are alone, and where the\ngentlest gesture of love or kindliness may so often wound the innocence\nby our side!\u2014I have caused suffering, too, because there are times\nwhen the best and tenderest are impelled to seek I know not what part\nof themselves in the grief of others. For, indeed, there are seeds\nthat only spring up in our soul beneath the rain of tears shed because\nof us, and none the less do these seeds produce good flowers and\nsalutary fruit. What would you? It is no law of our making, and I know\nnot whether I would dare to love the man who had made no one weep.\nFrequently, indeed, will the greatest suffering be caused by those\nwhose love is greatest, for a strange timid, tender cruelty is most\noften the anxious sister of love. On all sides does love search for the\nproofs of love, and the first proofs\u2014who is not prone to discover them\nin the tears of the beloved?\n\nEven death could not suffice to reassure the lover who dared to give\near to the unreasoning claims of love; for to the intimate cruelty of\nlove, the instant of death seems too brief; over beyond death there\nis yet room for a sea of doubts, and even in those who die together\nmay disquiet still linger as they die. Long, slowly falling tears\nare needed here. Grief is love\u2019s first food, and every love that has\nnot been fed on a little pure suffering must die like the babe that\none had tried to nourish on the nourishment of a man. Will the love\ninspired by the woman who always brought the smile to your lips be\nquite the same as the love you feel for her who at times called forth\nyour tears? Alas! needs must love weep, and often indeed is it at the\nvery moment when the sobs burst forth that love\u2019s chains are forged and\ntempered for life....\n\nThus, he continued, I have caused suffering because I loved, and also\nhave I caused suffering because I did not love\u2014but how great was the\ndifference in the two cases! In the one the slowly dropping tears of\nwell-tried love seemed already to know, at the depths of them, that\nthey were bedewing all that was ineffable in our united souls; in the\nother the poor tears knew that they were falling in solitude on a\ndesert. But it is at those very moments when the soul is all ear\u2014or,\nhaply, all soul\u2014that I have recognised the might of an invisible\ngoodness that could offer to the wretched tears of an expiring love the\ndivine illusions of a love on the eve of birth. Has there never come\nto you one of those sorrowful evenings when dejection lay heavy upon\nyour unsmiling kisses, and it at length dawned upon your soul that it\nhad been mistaken? With direst difficulty did your words ring forth in\nthe cold air of the separation that was to be final; you were about to\npart for ever, and your almost lifeless hands were outstretched for\nthe farewell of a departure that should know no return, when suddenly\nyour soul made an imperceptible movement within itself. On that instant\ndid the soul by the side of you awake on the summits of its being;\nsomething sprang to life in regions loftier far than the love of jaded\nlovers; and for all that the bodies might shrink asunder, henceforth\nwould the souls never forget that for an instant they had beheld each\nother high above mountains they had never seen, and that for a second\u2019s\nspace they had been good with a goodness they had never known until\nthat day....\n\nWhat can this be, this mysterious movement that I speak of here in\nconnection with love only, but which may well take place in the\nsmallest events of life? Is it I know not what sacrifice or inner\nembrace, is it the profoundest desire to be soul for a soul, or the\nconsciousness, ever quickening within us, of the presence of a life\nthat is invisible, but equal to our own? Is it all that is admirable\nand sorrowful in the mere act of living that, at such moments, floods\nour being\u2014is it the aspect of life, one and indivisible? I know not;\nbut in truth it is then that we feel that there lurks, somewhere, an\nunknown force; it is then that we feel that we are the treasures of an\nunknown God who loves all, that not a gesture of this God may pass\nunperceived, and that we are at length in the region of things that do\nnot betray themselves....\n\nCertain it is that, from the day of our birth to the day of our death,\nwe never emerge from this clearly defined region, but wander in God\nlike helpless sleepwalkers, or like the blind who despairingly seek the\nvery temple in which they do indeed befind themselves. We are there in\nlife, man against man, soul against soul, and day and night are spent\nunder arms. We never see each other, we never touch each other. We see\nnothing but bucklers and helmets, we touch nothing but iron and brass.\nBut let a tiny circumstance, come from the simpleness of the sky, for\none instant only cause the weapons to fall, are there not always tears\nbeneath the helmet, childlike smiles behind the buckler, and is not\nanother verity revealed?\n\nHe thought for a moment, then went on, more sadly: A woman\u2014as I\nbelieve I told you just now\u2014a woman to whom I had caused suffering\nagainst my will\u2014for the most careful of us scatter suffering around\nthem without their knowledge\u2014a woman to whom I had caused suffering\nagainst my will, revealed to me one evening the sovereign power of this\ninvisible good. To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it\nis necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better. This\nwas brought home to me that evening. I felt that I had arrived, alone,\nat that sad zone of kisses when it seems to us that we are visiting\nthe hovels of the poor, while she, who had lingered on the road, was\nstill smiling in the palace of the first days. Love, as men understand\nit, was dying between us like a child stricken with a disease come one\nknows not whence, a disease that has no pity. We said nothing. It would\nbe impossible for me to recall what my thoughts were at that earnest\nmoment. They were doubtless of no significance. I was probably thinking\nof the last face I had seen, of the quivering gleam of a lantern at\na deserted street corner; and, nevertheless, _everything took place_\nin a light a thousand times purer, a thousand times higher, than had\nthere intervened all the forces of pity and love which I command in my\nthoughts and my heart. We parted, and not a word was spoken, but at one\nand the same moment had we understood our inexpressible thought. We\nknow now that another love had sprung to life, a love that demands not\nthe words, the little attentions and smiles of ordinary love. We have\nnever met again. Perhaps centuries will elapse before we ever do meet\nagain.\n\n  \u2018Much is to learn, much to forget,\n  Through worlds I shall traverse not a few\u2019\n\nbefore we shall again find ourselves _in the same movement of the\nsoul_ as on that evening: but we can well afford to wait....\n\nAnd thus, ever since that day, have I greeted, in all places, even\nin the very bitterest of moments, the beneficent presence of this\nmarvellous power. He who has but once clearly seen it, shall never\nagain find it possible to turn away from its face. You will often\nbehold it smiling in the last retreat of hatred, in the depths of the\ncruellest tears. And yet does it not reveal itself to the eyes of the\nbody. Its nature changes from the moment that it manifests itself by\nmeans of an exterior act; and we are no longer in the truth according\nto the soul, but in a kind of falsehood as conceived by man. Goodness\nand love that are self-conscious have no influence on the soul, for\nthey have departed from the kingdoms where they have their dwelling;\nbut, do they only remain blind, they can soften Destiny itself. I have\nknown more than one man who performed every act of kindness and mercy\nwithout touching a single soul; and I have known others, who seemed to\nlive in falsehood and injustice, yet were no souls driven from them\nnor did any for an instant even believe that these men were not good.\nNay, more, even those who do not know you, who are merely told of your\nacts of goodness and deeds of love\u2014if you be not good according to the\ninvisible goodness, these, even, will feel that something is lacking,\nand they will never be touched in the depths of their being. One might\nalmost believe that there exists, somewhere, a place where all is\nweighed in the presence of the spirits, or perhaps, out yonder, the\nother side of the night, a reservoir of certitudes whither the silent\nherd of souls flock every morning to slake their thirst.\n\nPerhaps we do not yet know what the word \u2018to love\u2019 means. There are\nwithin us lives in which we love unconsciously. To love thus means\nmore than to have pity, to make inner sacrifices, to be anxious to\nhelp and give happiness; it is a thing that lies a thousand fathoms\ndeeper, where our softest, swiftest, strongest words cannot reach\nit. At moments we might believe it to be a recollection, furtive but\nexcessively keen, of the great primitive unity. There is in this love\na force that nothing can resist. Which of us\u2014an\u2019 he question himself\nthe side of the light, from which our gaze is habitually averted\u2014which\nof us but will find in himself the recollection of certain strange\nworkings of this force? Which of us, when by the side of the most\nordinary person perhaps, but has suddenly become conscious of the\nadvent of something that none had summoned? Was it the soul, or perhaps\nlife, that had turned within itself like a sleeper on the point of\nawakening? I know not; nor did you know, and no one spoke of it; but\nyou did not separate from each other as though nothing had happened.\n\nTo love thus is to love according to the soul; and there is no soul\nthat does not respond to this love. For the soul of man is a guest that\nhas gone hungry these centuries back, and never has it to be summoned\ntwice to the nuptial feast.\n\nThe souls of all our brethren are ever hovering about us, craving for a\ncaress, and only waiting for the signal. But how many beings there are\nwho all their life long have not dared make such a signal! It is the\ndisaster of our entire existence that we live thus away from our soul,\nand stand in such dread of its slightest movement. Did we but allow it\nto smile frankly in its silence and its radiance, we should be already\nliving an eternal life. We have only to think for an instant how much\nit succeeds in accomplishing during those rare moments when we knock\noff its chains\u2014for it is our custom to enchain it as though it were\ndistraught\u2014what it does in love, for instance, for there we do permit\nit at times to approach the lattices of external life. And would it not\nbe in accordance with the primal truth if all men were to feel that\nthey were face to face with each other, even as the woman feels with\nthe man she loves?\n\nThis invisible and divine goodness, of which I only speak here because\nof its being one of the surest and nearest signs of the unceasing\nactivity of our soul, this invisible and divine goodness ennobles, in\ndecisive fashion, all that it has unconsciously touched. Let him who\nhas a grievance against his fellow, descend into himself and seek out\nwhether he never has been good in the presence of that fellow. For\nmyself, I have never met any one by whose side I have felt my invisible\ngoodness bestir itself, without he has become, at that very instant,\nbetter than myself. Be good at the depths of you, and you will discover\nthat those who surround you will be good even to the same depths.\nNothing responds more infallibly to the secret cry of goodness than the\nsecret cry of goodness that is near. While you are actively good in the\ninvisible, all those who approach you will unconsciously do things that\nthey could not do by the side of any other man. Therein lies a force\nthat has no name; a spiritual rivalry that knows no resistance. It is\nas though this were the actual place where is the sensitive spot of our\nsoul; for there are souls that seem to have forgotten their existence\nand to have renounced everything that enables the being to rise; but,\nonce touched here, they all draw themselves erect; and in the divine\nplains of the secret goodness, the most humble of souls cannot endure\ndefeat.\n\nAnd yet it is possible that nothing is changing in the life one sees;\nbut is it only that which matters, and is our existence indeed confined\nto actions we can take in our hand like stones on the high road? If\nyou ask yourself, as we are told we should ask every evening, \u2018What\nof immortal have I done to-day?\u2019 Is it always on the material side\nthat we can count, weigh and measure unerringly; is it there that you\nmust begin your search? It is possible for you to cause extraordinary\ntears to flow; it is possible that you may fill a heart with unheard\nof certitudes, and give eternal life unto a soul, and no one shall\nknow of it, nor shall you even know yourself. It may be that nothing\nis changing; it may be that were it put to the test all would crumble,\nand that this goodness we speak of would yield to the smallest fear.\nIt matters not. Something divine has happened; and somewhere must our\nGod have smiled. May it not be the supreme aim of life thus to bring\nto birth the inexplicable within ourselves; and do we know how much we\nadd to ourselves when we awake something of the incomprehensible that\nslumbers in every corner? Here you have awakened love which will not\nfall asleep again. The soul that your soul has regarded, that has wept\nwith you the holy tears of the solemn joy that none may behold, will\nbear you no resentment, not even in the midst of torture. It will not\neven feel the need of forgiving. So convinced is it of one knows not\nwhat, that nothing can henceforth dim or efface the smile that it wears\nwithin; for nothing can ever separate two souls which, for an instant,\n\u2018have been good together.\u2019\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEEPER LIFE\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEEPER LIFE\n\n\nIT is well that men should be reminded that the very humblest of them\nhas the power to \u2018fashion, after a divine model that he chooses not,\na great moral personality, composed in equal parts of himself and the\nideal; and that if anything lives in fullest reality, of a surety it is\nthat.\u2019\n\nEach man has to seek out his own special aptitude for a higher\nlife in the midst of the humble and inevitable reality of daily\nexistence. Than this there can be no nobler aim in life. It is only\nby the communications we have with the infinite that we are to be\ndistinguished from each other. If the hero is greater than the\nwretch who marches by his side, it is because at a certain moment of\nhis existence there has come to him a fuller consciousness of one of\nthese communications. If it is true that creation does not stop at\nman and that we are surrounded by invisible beings who are superior\nto us, their superiority can only consist in that they have, with the\ninfinite, communications whose nature we cannot even imagine.\n\nIt lies within our power to increase these communications. In the life\nof every man has there been a day when the heavens opened of their own\naccord, and it is almost always from that very instant that dates his\ntrue spiritual personality. It is doubtless at that instant that are\nformed the invisible, eternal features that we reveal, though we know\nit not, to angels and to souls. But with most men it is chance alone\nthat has caused the heavens to open; and they have not chosen the face\nwhereby the angels know them in the infinite, nor have they understood\nhow to ennoble and purify its features\u2014which do indeed but owe their\nbeing to an accidental joy or sadness, an accidental thought or fear.\n\nOur veritable birth dates from the day when, for the first time, we\nfeel at the deepest of us that there is something grave and unexpected\nin life. Some there are who realise suddenly that they are not alone\nunder the sky. To others will it be brusquely revealed, while shedding\na tear or giving a kiss, that \u2018the source of all that is good and holy\nfrom the universe up to God is hidden behind a night, full of too\ndistant stars\u2019; a third will see a divine hand stretched forth between\nhis joy and his misfortune; and yet another will have understood that\nit is the dead who are in the right. One will have had pity, another\nwill have admired or been afraid. Often does it need almost nothing,\na word, a gesture, a little thing that is not even a thought. \u2018Before,\nI loved thee as a brother, John,\u2019 says one of Shakespeare\u2019s heroes,\nadmiring the other\u2019s action, \u2018but now I do respect thee as my soul.\u2019 On\nthat day it is probable that a being will have come into the world.\n\nWe can be born thus more than once; and each birth brings us a little\nnearer to our God. But most of us are content to wait till an event,\ncharged with almost irresistible radiance, intrudes itself violently\nupon our darkness, and enlightens us, in our despite. We await I know\nnot what happy coincidence, when it may so come about that the eyes of\nour soul shall be open at the very moment that something extraordinary\ntakes place. But in everything that happens is there light; and the\ngreatness of the greatest of men has but consisted in that they had\ntrained their eyes to be open to every ray of this light. Is it indeed\nessential that your mother should breathe her last in your arms, that\nyour children should perish in a shipwreck, and that you yourself\nshould pass by the side of death, for you at length to understand that\nyou have your being in an incomprehensible world where you shall be\nfor ever, where an unseen God, who is eternally alone, dwells with His\ncreatures? Must your betrothed die in a fire, or disappear before your\neyes in the green depths of the ocean, for it to be revealed to you\nfor an instant that the last limits of the kingdom of love transcend\nperhaps the scarcely visible flames of Mira, Altair or Berenice\u2019s\ntresses? Had your eyes been open, might you not have beheld in a\nkiss that which to-day you perceive in a catastrophe? Are the divine\nrecollections that slumber in our souls to be awakened only by the\nlance-thrusts of grief? The sage needs no such violent arousing. He\nsees a tear, a maiden\u2019s gesture, a drop of water that falls; he listens\nto a passing thought, presses a brother\u2019s hand, approaches a lip, with\nopen eyes and open soul. He never ceases to behold that of which you\nhave caught but a passing glimpse; and a smile will readily tell him\nall that it needed a tempest, or even the hand of death, to reveal to\nyou.\n\nFor what are in reality the things we call \u2018Wisdom,\u2019 \u2018Virtue,\u2019\n\u2018Heroism,\u2019 \u2018sublime hours,\u2019 and \u2018great moments of life,\u2019 but the\nmoments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have\nbeen able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the\neternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless\nthought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; or\nthat if they do indeed thus drop, the fall itself is so immense that\nit suffices to give an august character to our life? Why wait till\nthe firmament shall open amid the roar of the thunderbolt? We must\nwatch for the happy moments when it opens in silence; and it is ever\nthus opening. You seek God in your life, and you say God appears not.\nBut in what life are there not thousands of hours akin to the hour in\nthat drama where all are waiting for the divine intervention, and none\nperceive it, till an invisible thought that has flitted across the\nconsciousness of a dying man suddenly reveals itself, and an old man\ncries out, sobbing for joy and terror, \u2018But God, there is God!\u2019....\n\nMust we always be warned, and can we only fall on our knees when some\none is there to tell us that God is passing by? If you have loved\nprofoundly you have needed no one to tell you that your soul was a\nthing as great in itself as the world; that the stars, the flowers, the\nwaves of night and sea were not solitary; that it was on the threshold\nof appearances that everything began, but nothing ended, and that the\nvery lips you kissed belonged to a creature who was loftier, much\npurer, and much more beautiful than the one whom your arms enfolded.\nYou have beheld that which in life cannot be seen without ecstasy. But\ncannot we live as though we always loved? It was this that the saints\nand heroes did; this and nothing more. Ah! truly too much of our life\nis spent in waiting, like the blind men in the legend who had travelled\nfar so that they might hear their God. They were seated on the steps,\nand when asked what they were doing in the courtyard of the sanctuary,\n\u2018We are waiting,\u2019 they replied, shaking their heads, \u2018and God has not\nyet said a single word.\u2019 But they had not seen that the brass doors\nof the temple were closed, and they knew not that the edifice was\nresounding with the voice of their God. Never for an instant does God\ncease to speak; but no one thinks of opening the doors. And yet, with\na little watchfulness, it were not difficult to hear the word that God\nmust speak concerning our every act.\n\nWe all live in the sublime. Where else can we live? That is the only\nplace of life. And if aught be lacking, it is not the chance of living\nin heaven, rather is it watchfulness and meditation, also perhaps a\nlittle ecstasy of soul. Though you have but a little room, do you fancy\nthat God is not there, too, and that it is impossible to live therein\na life that shall be somewhat lofty? If you complain of being alone,\nof the absence of events, of loving no one and being unloved, do you\nthink that the words are true? Do you imagine that one can possibly\nbe alone, that love can be a thing one knows, a thing one sees; that\nevents can be weighed like the gold and silver of ransom? Cannot a\nliving thought\u2014proud or humble, it matters not; so it come but from\nyour soul, it is great for you\u2014cannot a lofty desire, or simply a\nmoment of solemn watchfulness to life, enter a little room? And if you\nlove not, or are unloved, and can yet see with some depth of insight\nthat thousands of things are beautiful, that the soul is great and\nlife almost unspeakably earnest, is that not as beautiful as though\nyou loved or were loved? And if the sky itself is hidden from you,\n\u2018does not the great starry sky,\u2019 asks the poet, \u2018spread over our soul,\nin spite of all, under guise of death?\u2019 ... All that happens to us is\ndivinely great, and we are always in the centre of a great world. But\nwe must accustom ourselves to live like an angel who has just sprung\nto life, like a woman who loves, or a man on the point of death. If\nyou knew that you were going to die to-night, or merely that you\nwould have to go away and never return, would you, looking upon men\nand things for the last time, see them in the same light that you have\nhitherto seen them? Would you not love as you never yet have loved?\nIs it the virtue or evil of the appearances around you that would be\nmagnified? Would it be given you to behold the beauty or the ugliness\nof the soul? Would not everything, down to actual evil and suffering,\nbe transformed into love, overflowing with gentlest tears? Does not,\nto quote the sage, each opportunity for pardon rob departure or death\nof something of its bitterness? And yet, in the radiance or sorrow or\ndeath, is it towards truth or error that one has taken the last steps\none is allowed to take?\n\nIs it the living or the dying who can see and are in the right? Ah!\nthrice happy they who have thought, spoken, and acted so as to\nreceive the approval of those who are about to die, or to whom a\ngreat sorrow has given clearer insight! The sage, to whom none would\nhearken in life, can meet with no sweeter reward. If you have lived in\nobscure beauty, you have no cause for disquiet. At the end there must\nalways sound within the heart of man an hour of supreme justice; and\nmisfortune opens eyes that were never open before. Who knows whether at\nthis very moment your shadow be not passing over the soul of a dying\nman and be not recognised by him as the shadow of one who already knew\nthe truth? May it not be at the bedside of the last agony that is woven\nthe veritable and most precious crown of sage and hero, and of all who\nhave known how to live earnestly amid the sorrows, lofty, pure, and\ndiscreet, of life according to the soul?\n\n\u2018Death,\u2019 says Lavater, \u2018does not only beautify our inanimate form; nay,\nthe mere thought of death gives a more beautiful form to life itself.\u2019\nAnd even so does every thought, that is infinite as death, beautify our\nlife. But we must not deceive ourselves. To every man there come noble\nthoughts, that pass across his heart like great white birds. Alas! they\ndo not count; they are strangers whom we are surprised to see, whom we\ndismiss with importunate gesture. Their time is too short to touch our\nlife. Our soul will not become earnest and deep-searching, as is the\nsoul of the angels, for that we have, for one fleeting instant, beheld\nthe universe in the shadow of death or eternity, in the radiance of\njoy or the flames of beauty and love. We have all known moments such\nas these, moments that have but left worthless ashes behind. These\nthings must be habitual with us; it is of no avail that they should\ncome by chance. We must learn to live in a beauty, an earnestness, that\nshall have become part of ourselves. In life, there is no creature so\ndegraded but knows full well which is the noble and beautiful thing\nthat he should do; but this noble and beautiful thing is not strong\nenough within him. It is this invisible and abstract strength that it\nmust be our endeavour to increase, first of all. And this strength\nincreases only in those who have acquired the habit of resting, more\nfrequently than others, upon the summits where life absorbs the soul,\nupon the heights whence we see that every act and every thought are\ninfallibly bound up with something great and immortal. Look upon\nmen and things with the inner eye, with its form and desire, never\nforgetting that the shadow they throw as they pass by, upon hillock or\nwall, is but the fleeting image of a mightier shadow, which, like the\nwing of an imperishable swan, floats over every soul that draws near\nto their soul. Do not believe that thoughts such as these can be mere\nornaments, and without influence upon the lives of those who admit\nthem. It is far more important that one\u2019s life should be perceived than\nthat it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived,\nthan it transforms itself of its own accord. These thoughts of which I\nspeak make up the secret treasure of heroism; and, on the day that life\ncompels us to disclose this treasure, we are startled to find therein\nno forces other than those by which we are impelled towards perfect\nbeauty. Then it is no longer necessary that a great king should die for\nus to remember that \u2018the world does not end at the house-doors,\u2019 and\nnot an evening passes but the smallest thing suffices to ennoble the\nsoul.\n\nYet it is not by telling yourself that God is great and that you move\nin His radiance, that you will be able to live in the beauty and\nfertile depths where the heroes dwelt. You may perhaps remind yourself,\nday and night, that the hands of all the invisible powers are waving\nover your head like a tent with countless folds, and yet shall the\nleast gesture of these hands be imperceptible to you. It behoves you\nto be keenly vigilant; and better had you watch in the market-place\nthan slumber in the temple. Beauty and grandeur are everywhere; for it\nneeds but an unexpected incident to reveal them to us. This is known to\nnearly all men; but know it though they may, it is only when fortune or\ndeath lashes them that they grope around the wall of life in search of\nthe crevices through which God may be seen. They know full well that\nthere are eternal crevices even in the humble walls of a hovel, and\nthat the smallest window cannot take away a line or a star from the\nimmensity of heavenly space. But it is not enough to possess a truth;\nit is essential that the truth should possess us.\n\nAnd yet are we in a world where the smallest events assume,\nspontaneously, a beauty that ever becomes purer and loftier. There is\nnothing that coalesces more readily than earth and sky; if your eyes\nhave rested upon the stars, before enfolding in your arms the woman you\nlove, your embrace will not be the same as though you had merely looked\nat the walls of your room. Be sure that the day you lingered to follow\na ray of light through a crevice in the door of life, you did something\nas great as though you had bandaged the wounds of your enemy, for at\nthat moment did you no longer have any enemies.\n\nOur lives must be spent seeking our God, for God hides; but His\nartifices, once they be known, seem so simple and smiling! From that\nmoment, the merest nothing reveals His presence, and the greatness of\nour life depends on so little! Even thus may the verse of a poet, in\nthe midst of the humble incidents of ordinary days, suddenly reveal to\nus something that is stupendous. No solemn word has been pronounced,\nand we feel that nothing has been called forth; and yet, why has an\nineffable face beckoned to us from behind an old man\u2019s tears, why does\na vast night, starred with angels, extend over the smile of a child,\nand why, around a yes or no, murmured by a soul that sings and busies\nitself with other matters, do we suddenly hold our breath for an\ninstant and say to ourselves, \u2018Here is the house of God, and this one\nof the approaches to heaven\u2019?\n\nIt is because these poets have been more heedful than we to the\n\u2018never-ending shadow.\u2019 ... That is the essence of supreme poetry, that,\nand that alone, and its sole aim is to keep open \u2018the great road that\nleads from the seen to the unseen.\u2019 But that is life\u2019s supreme aim,\ntoo, and it is easier far to attain in life than in the noblest of\npoems, for these have had to abandon the two great wings of silence.\nNot a single day is trivial. It is essential that this idea should sink\ninto our life and take root therein. There is no question of being sad.\nSmall joys, faint smiles, and great tears, all these fill up the same\nnook in time and space. You can play in life as innocently \u2018as a child\nabout a death-bed,\u2019 and it is not the tears that are indispensable.\nSmiles as well as tears open the gates of the other world. Go or come,\nyou will find all you need in the darkness, but never forget that you\nare close to the gate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAfter this lengthy digression, I return to my starting-point, which was\nthat \u2018it is well that men should be reminded that the very humblest of\nthem has the power to fashion, after a divine model that he chooses\nnot, a great moral personality, composed in equal parts of himself\nand the ideal.\u2019 It is only in the depths of life that this \u2018great\nmoral personality\u2019 can be carved out; and only by means of incessant\n\u2018revelations of the divine\u2019 can we add to the stores of the ideal we\nrequire. To every man is it given to attain in spirit to the heights\nof virtuous life, and to know at all times what his conduct should be,\nwould he act like a hero or a saint. But more than this is needed.\nIt is essential that the spiritual atmosphere about us should be\ntransformed to such a degree that it ends by resembling the atmosphere\nof Swedenborg\u2019s beautiful countries of the age of gold, wherein the air\npermitted not a falsehood to leave the lips. An instant comes then,\nwhen the smallest ill that we fain would commit falls at our feet like\na leaden ball upon a disc of bronze; when everything changes, though we\nknow it not, into beauty, love, or truth. But this atmosphere enwraps\nthose only who have been heedful to ventilate their life sufficiently\nby at times flinging open the gates of the other world. It is when we\nare near to those gates that we see; it is when we are near to those\ngates that we love. For to love one\u2019s neighbour does not mean only\nto give oneself to him, to serve, help, and sustain others. We may\npossibly be neither good, nor noble, nor beautiful, even in the midst\nof the greatest sacrifice; and the sister of charity who dies by the\nbedside of a typhoid patient may perchance have a mean, rancorous,\nmiserable soul. To love one\u2019s neighbour in the immovable depths means\nto love in others that which is eternal; for one\u2019s neighbour, in the\ntruest sense of the term, is that which approaches the nearest to God;\nin other words, all that is best and purest in man; and it is only by\never lingering near the gates I spoke of, that you can discover the\ndivine in the soul. Then will you be able to say with the great Jean\nPaul: \u2018When I desire to love most tenderly one who is dear to me, and\nwish to forgive him everything, I have but to look at him for a few\nmoments in silence.\u2019 To learn to love, one must first learn to see. \u2018I\nlived for twenty years by my sister\u2019s side,\u2019 said a friend to me, one\nday, \u2018and _I saw her_ for the first time at the moment of our mother\u2019s\ndeath.\u2019 Here, too, it had been necessary that death should violently\nfling open an eternal gate, so that two souls might behold each other\nin a ray of the primeval light. Is there one amongst us who has not\nnear to him sisters he has never seen?\n\nHappily, even in those whose vision is most limited, there is always\nsomething that acts in silence as though they had seen. It is possible,\nperhaps, that to be good is only to be in a little light what all are\nin darkness. Therefore, doubtless, is it well that we should endeavour\nto raise our life, and should strive towards summits where ill-doing\nbecomes impossible. And therefore, too, is it well to accustom the eye\nto behold events and men in a divine atmosphere. But even that is not\nindispensable; and how small must the difference seem to the eyes of\na God! We are in a world where truth reigns at the bottom of things,\nand where it is not truth but falsehood that needs to be explained. If\nthe happiness of your brother sadden you, do not despise yourself; you\nwill not have to travel far along the road before you will come across\nsomething in yourself that will not be saddened. And even though you do\nnot travel the road, it matters little: something there was that was\nnot sad....\n\nThose who think of nothing have the same truth as those who think\nof God; the truth is a little further from the threshold, that is\nall. \u2018Even in the life that is most ordinary,\u2019 says Renan, \u2018the part\nthat is done for God is enormous. The lowest of men would rather be\njust than unjust: we all worship, we all pray, numbers of times every\nday, without knowing it.\u2019 And we are surprised when chance suddenly\nreveals to us the importance of this divine part. There are about us\nthousands and thousands of poor creatures who have nothing of beauty\nin their lives: they come, they go, in obscurity, and we believe that\nall is dead within them; and no one pays any heed. And then one day a\nsimple word, an unexpected silence, a little tear that springs from\nthe source of beauty itself, tell us that they have found the means of\nraising aloft, in the shadow of their soul, an ideal a thousand times\nmore beautiful than the most beautiful things their ears have ever\nheard, or their eyes ever seen. Oh, noble and pallid ideals of silence\nand shadow! It is you, above all, who call forth the smile of the\nangels, it is you, above all, who soar direct to God! In what myriads\nof hovels, in what dens of misery, in what prisons, perhaps, are you\nnot being cherished at this moment, cherished with the purest blood and\ntears of an unhappy soul that has never smiled; even as the bees, at\nthe time when all the flowers are dead about them, still offer to her\nwho is to be their queen a honey a thousand times more precious than\nthe honey they give to their little sisters of daily life.... Which of\nus has not met, more than once, along the paths of life, a forsaken\nsoul that has yet not lost the courage to cherish, in the darkness, a\nthought diviner and purer than all those that so many others had the\npower to choose in the light? Here, too, it is simplicity that is God\u2019s\nfavourite slave; and it is enough, perhaps, that a few sages should\nknow what has to be done, for the rest of us to act as though we knew\ntoo....\n\n\n\n\nTHE INNER BEAUTY\n\n\n\n\nTHE INNER BEAUTY\n\n\nNOTHING in the whole world is so athirst for beauty as the soul, nor\nis there anything to which beauty clings so readily. There is nothing\nin the world capable of such spontaneous up-lifting, of such speedy\nennoblement; nothing that offers more scrupulous obedience to the pure\nand noble commands it receives. There is nothing in the world that\nyields deeper submission to the empire of a thought that is loftier\nthan other thoughts. And on this earth of ours there are but few souls\nthat can withstand the dominion of the soul that has suffered itself to\nbecome beautiful.\n\nIn all truth might it be said that beauty is the unique aliment of our\nsoul, for in all places does it search for beauty, and it perishes not\nof hunger even in the most degraded of lives. For indeed nothing of\nbeauty can pass by and be altogether unperceived. Perhaps does it never\npass by save only in our unconsciousness, but its action is no less\npuissant in gloom of night than by light of day; the joy it procures\nmay be less tangible, but other difference there is none. Look at the\nmost ordinary of men, at a time when a little beauty has contrived to\nsteal into their darkness. They have come together, it matters not\nwhere, and for no special reason; but no sooner are they assembled than\ntheir very first thought would seem to be to close the great doors\nof life. Yet has each one of them, when alone, more than once lived\nin accord with his soul. He has loved perhaps, of a surety he has\nsuffered. Inevitably must he, too, have heard the \u2018sounds that come\nfrom the distant country of Splendour and Terror\u2019; and many an evening\nhas he bowed down in silence before laws that are deeper than the sea.\nAnd yet when these men are assembled it is with the basest of things\nthat they love to debauch themselves. They have a strange indescribable\nfear of beauty, and as their number increases so does this fear become\ngreater, resembling indeed their dread of silence or of a verity that\nis too pure. And so true is this that, were one of them to have done\nsomething heroic in the course of the day, he would ascribe wretched\nmotives to his conduct, thereby endeavouring to find excuses for it,\nand these motives would lie readily to his hand in that lower region\nwhere he and his fellows were assembled. And yet listen: a proud and\nlofty word has been spoken, a word that has in a measure undammed the\nsprings of life. For one instant has a soul dared to reveal itself,\neven such as it is in love and sorrow, such as it is in face of death\nand in the solitude that dwells around the stars of night. Disquiet\nprevails, on some faces there is astonishment, others smile. But have\nyou never felt at moments such as those how unanimous is the fervour\nwherewith every soul admires, and how unspeakably even the very\nfeeblest, from the remotest depths of its dungeon, approves the word it\nhas recognised as akin to itself? For they have all suddenly sprung to\nlife again in the primitive and normal atmosphere that is their own;\nand could you but hearken with angels\u2019 ears, I doubt not but you would\nhear mightiest applause in that kingdom of amazing radiance wherein\nthe souls do dwell. Do you not think that even the most timid of them\nwould take courage unto themselves were but similar words to be spoken\nevery evening? Do you not think that men would live purer lives? And\nyet though the word come not again, still will something momentous have\nhappened, that must leave still more momentous trace behind. Every\nevening will its sisters recognise the soul that pronounced the word,\nand henceforth, be the conversation never so trivial, its mere presence\nwill, I know not how, add thereto something of majesty. Whatever else\nbetide, there has been a change that we cannot determine. No longer\nwill such absolute power be vested in the baser side of things, and\nhenceforth, even the most terror stricken of souls will know that there\nis somewhere a place of refuge....\n\nCertain it is that the natural and primitive relationship of soul to\nsoul is a relationship of beauty. For beauty is the only language of\nour soul; none other is known to it. It has no other life, it can\nproduce nothing else, in nothing else can it take interest. And\ntherefore it is that the most oppressed, nay, the most degraded of\nsouls\u2014if it may truly be said that a soul can be degraded\u2014immediately\nhail with acclamation every thought, every word or deed, that is\ngreat and beautiful. Beauty is the only element wherewith the soul\nis organically connected, and it has no other standard of judgment.\nThis is brought home to us at every moment of our life, and is no less\nevident to the man by whom beauty may more than once have been denied\nthan to him who is ever seeking it in his heart. Should a day come when\nyou stand in profoundest need of another\u2019s sympathy, would you go to\nhim who was wont to greet the passage of beauty with a sneering smile?\nWould you go to him whose shake of the head had sullied a generous\naction or a mere impulse that was pure? Even though perhaps you had\nbeen of those who commended him, you would none the less, when it was\ntruth that knocked at your door, turn to the man who had known how to\nprostrate himself and love. In its very depths had your soul passed its\njudgment, and it is this silent and unerring judgment that will rise to\nthe surface, after thirty years perhaps, and send you towards a sister\nwho shall be more truly you than you are yourself, for that she has\nbeen nearer to beauty....\n\nThere needs but so little to encourage beauty in our soul; so little\nto awaken the slumbering angels; or perhaps is there no need of\nawakening\u2014it is enough that we lull them not to sleep. It requires\nmore effort to fall, perhaps, than to rise. Can we, without putting\nconstraint upon ourselves, confine our thoughts to everyday things at\ntimes when the sea stretches before us, and we are face to face with\nthe night? And what soul is there but knows that it is ever confronting\nthe sea, ever in presence of an eternal night? Did we but dread beauty\nless it would come about that nought else in life would be visible; for\nin reality it is beauty that underlies everything, it is beauty alone\nthat exists. There is no soul but is conscious of this, none that is\nnot in readiness; but where are those that hide not their beauty? And\nyet must one of them \u2018begin.\u2019 Why not dare to be the one to \u2018begin\u2019?\nThe others are all watching eagerly around us like little children in\nfront of a marvellous palace. They press upon the threshold, whispering\nto each other and peering through every crevice, but there is not one\nwho dares put his shoulder to the door. They are all waiting for some\ngrown-up person to come and fling it open. But hardly ever does such a\none pass by.\n\nAnd yet what is needed to become the grown-up person for whom they\nlie in wait? So little! The soul is not exacting. A thought that is\nalmost beautiful\u2014a thought that you speak not, but that you cherish\nwithin you at this moment, will irradiate you as though you were a\ntransparent vase. They will see it and their greeting to you will be\nvery different than had you been meditating how best to deceive your\nbrother. We are surprised when certain men tell us that they have never\ncome across real ugliness, that they cannot conceive that a soul can be\nbase. Yet need there be no cause for surprise. These men had \u2018begun.\u2019\nThey themselves had been the first to be beautiful, and had therefore\nattracted all the beauty that passed by, as a lighthouse attracts\nthe vessels from the four corners of the horizon. Some there are who\ncomplain of women, for instance, never dreaming that, the first time a\nman meets a woman, a single word or thought that denies the beautiful\nor profound will be enough to poison for ever _his existence_ in\nher soul. \u2018For my part,\u2019 said a sage to me one day, \u2018I have never\ncome across a single woman who did not bring to me something that was\ngreat.\u2019 He was great himself first of all; therein lay his secret.\nThere is one thing only that the soul can never forgive; it is to have\nbeen compelled to behold, or share, or pass close to an ugly action,\nword, or thought. It cannot forgive, for forgiveness here were but\nthe denial of itself. And yet with the generality of men, ingenuity,\nstrength and skill do but imply that the soul must first of all be\nbanished from their life, and that every impulse that lies too deep\nmust be carefully brushed aside. Even in love do they act thus, and\ntherefore it is that the woman, who is so much nearer the truth, can\nscarcely ever live a moment of the true life with them. It is as though\nmen dreaded the contact of their soul, and were anxious to keep its\nbeauty at immeasurable distance. Whereas, on the contrary, we should\nendeavour to move in advance of ourselves. If at this moment you think\nor say something that is too beautiful to be true in you\u2014if you have\nbut endeavoured to think or say it to-day, on the morrow it will be\ntrue. We must try to be more beautiful than ourselves; we shall never\ndistance our soul. We can never err when it is question of silent or\nhidden beauty. Besides, so long as the spring within us be limpid,\nit matters but little whether error there be or not. But do any of\nus ever dream of making the slightest unseen effort? And yet in the\ndomain where we are everything is effective, for that everything is\nwaiting. All the doors are unlocked, we have but to push them open, and\nthe palace is full of manacled queens. A single word will very often\nsuffice to clear the mountain of refuse. Why not have the courage to\nmeet a base question with a noble answer? Do you imagine it would pass\nquite unnoticed or merely arouse surprise? Do you not think it would\nbe more akin to the discourse that would naturally be held between two\nsouls? We know not where it may give encouragement, where freedom. Even\nhe who rejects your words will, in spite of himself, have taken a step\ntowards the beauty that is within him. Nothing of beauty dies without\nhaving purified something, nor can aught of beauty be lost. Let us not\nbe afraid of sowing it along the road. It may remain there for weeks or\nyears, but like the diamond it cannot dissolve, and finally there will\npass by some one whom its glitter will attract; he will pick it up and\ngo his way, rejoicing. Then why keep back a lofty, beautiful word, for\nthat you doubt whether others will understand? An instant of higher\ngoodness was impending over you; why hinder its coming, even though\nyou believe not that those about you will profit thereby? What if you\nare among men of the valley, is that sufficient reason for checking\nthe instinctive movement of your soul towards the mountain peaks? Does\ndarkness rob deep feeling of its power? Have the blind nought but\ntheir eyes wherewith to distinguish those who love them from those who\nlove them not? Can the beauty not exist that is not understood, and is\nthere not in every man something that does understand\u2014in regions far\nbeyond what he seems to understand, far beyond, too, what he believes\nhe understands? \u2018Even to the very wretchedest of all,\u2019 said to me one\nday the loftiest minded creature it has ever been my happiness to\nknow, \u2018even to the very wretchedest of all I never have the courage\nto say anything in reply that is ugly or mediocre.\u2019 I have for a long\ntime followed that man\u2019s life, and have seen the inexplicable power\nhe exercised over the most obscure, the most unapproachable, the\nblindest, even the most rebellious of souls. For no tongue can tell the\npower of a soul that strives to live in an atmosphere of beauty, and is\nactively beautiful in itself. And indeed is it not the quality of this\nactivity that renders a life either miserable or divine?\n\nIf we could but probe to the root of things it might well be discovered\nthat it is by the strength of some souls that are beautiful that others\nare sustained in life. Is it not the idea we each form of certain\nchosen ones that constitutes the only living, effective morality? But\nin this idea how much is there of the soul that is chosen, how much of\nhim who chooses? Do not these things blend very mysteriously, and does\nnot this ideal morality lie infinitely deeper than the morality of the\nmost beautiful books? A far-reaching influence exists therein whose\nlimits it is indeed difficult to define, and a fountain of strength\nwhereat we all of us drink many times a day. Would not any weakness in\none of those creatures whom you thought perfect and loved in the region\nof beauty, at once lessen your confidence in the universal greatness of\nthings, and would your admiration for them suffer?\n\nAnd again, I doubt whether anything in the world can beautify a soul\nmore spontaneously, more naturally, than the knowledge that somewhere\nin its neighbourhood there exists a pure and noble being whom it can\nunreservedly love. When the soul has veritably drawn near to such a\nbeing, beauty is no longer a lovely, lifeless thing that one exhibits\nto the stranger, for it suddenly takes unto itself an imperious\nexistence, and its activity becomes so natural as to be henceforth\nirresistible. Wherefore you will do well to think it over, for none are\nalone, and those who are good must watch.\n\nPlotinus, in the eighth book of the fifth \u2018Ennead,\u2019 after speaking\nof the beauty that is \u2018intelligible\u2019\u2014_i.e._, divine, concludes\nthus: \u2018As regards ourselves, we are beautiful when we belong to\nourselves, and ugly when we lower ourselves to our inferior nature.\nAlso are we beautiful when we know ourselves, and ugly when we have\nno such knowledge.\u2019 Bear it in mind, however, that here we are on the\nmountains, where not to know oneself means far more than mere ignorance\nof what takes place within us at moments of jealousy or love, fear or\nenvy, happiness or unhappiness. Here not to know oneself means to be\nunconscious of all the divine that throbs in man. As we wander from\nthe gods within us so does ugliness enwrap us; as we discover them, so\ndo we become more beautiful. But it is only by revealing the divine\nthat is in us that we may discover the divine in others. Needs must\none god beckon to another, and no signal is so imperceptible but they\nwill every one of them respond. It cannot be said too often that, be\nthe crevice never so small, it will yet suffice for all the waters of\nheaven to pour into our soul. Every cup is stretched out to the unknown\nspring, and we are in a region where none think of aught but beauty. If\nwe could ask of an angel what it is that our souls do in the shadow,\nI believe the angel would answer, after having looked for many years\nperhaps, and seen far more than the things the soul seems to do in the\neyes of men, \u2018They transform into beauty all the little things that\nare given to them.\u2019 Ah! we must admit that the human soul is possessed\nof singular courage! Resignedly does it labour, its whole life long,\nin the darkness whither most of us relegate it, where it is spoken to\nby none. There, never complaining, does it do all that in its power\nlies, striving to tear from out the pebbles we fling to it the nucleus\nof eternal light that peradventure they contain. And in the midst of\nits work it is ever lying in wait for the moment when it may show, to\na sister who is more tenderly cared for, or who chances to be nearer,\nthe treasures it has so toilfully amassed. But thousands of existences\nthere are that no sister visits; thousands of existences wherein life\nhas infused such timidity into the soul that it departs without saying\na word, without even once having been able to deck itself with the\nhumblest jewels of its humble crown....\n\nAnd yet, in spite of all, does it watch over everything from out its\ninvisible heaven. It warns and loves, it admires, attracts, repels. At\nevery fresh event does it rise to the surface, where it lingers till\nit be thrust down again, being looked upon as wearisome and insane.\nIt wanders to and fro, like Cassandra at the gates of the Atrides.\nIt is ever giving utterance to words of shadowy truth, but there are\nnone to listen. When we raise our eyes it yearns for a ray of sun or\nstar, that it may weave into a thought, or, haply, an impulse, which\nshall be unconscious and very pure. And if our eyes bring it nothing,\nstill will it know how to turn its pitiful disillusion into something\nineffable, that it will conceal even till its death. When we love, how\neagerly does it drink in the light from behind the closed door\u2014keen\nwith expectation, it yet wastes not a minute, and the light that steals\nthrough the apertures becomes beauty and truth to the soul. But if the\ndoor opens not (and how many lives are there wherein it does open?) it\nwill go back into its prison, and its regret will perhaps be a loftier\nverity that shall never be seen, for we are now in the region of\ntransformations whereof none may speak; and though nothing born this\nside of the door can be lost, yet does it never mingle with our life....\n\nI said just now that the soul changed into beauty the little things\nwe gave to it. It would even seem, the more we think of it, that the\nsoul has no other reason for existence, and that all its activity is\nconsumed in amassing, at the depths of us, a treasure of indescribable\nbeauty. Might not everything naturally turn into beauty, were we not\nunceasingly interrupting the arduous labours of our soul? Does not\nevil itself become precious so soon as it has gathered therefrom the\ndeep lying diamond of repentance? The acts of injustice whereof you\nhave been guilty, the tears you have caused to flow, will not these\nend too by becoming so much radiance and love in your soul? Have you\never cast your eyes into this kingdom of purifying flame that is\nwithin you? Perhaps a great wrong may have been done you to-day, the\nact itself being mean and disheartening, the mode of action of the\nbasest, and ugliness wrapped you round as your tears fell. But let\nsome years elapse, then give one look into your soul, and tell me\nwhether, beneath the recollection of that act, you see not something\nthat is already purer than thought; an indescribable, unnameable force\nthat has nought in common with the forces of this world; a mysterious\ninexhaustible spring of the other life, whereat you may drink for the\nrest of your days. And yet will you have rendered no assistance to\nthe untiring queen; other thoughts will have filled your mind, and it\nwill be without your knowledge that the act will have been purified\nin the silence of your being, and will have flown into the precious\nwaters that lie in the great reservoir of truth and beauty, which,\nunlike the shallower reservoir of true or beautiful thoughts, has an\never unruffled surface, and remains for all time out of reach of the\nbreath of life. Emerson tells us that there is not an act or event in\nour life but, sooner or later, casts off its outer shell, and bewilders\nus by its sudden flight, from the very depths of us, on high into the\nempyrean. And this is true to a far greater extent than Emerson had\nforeseen, for the further we advance in these regions, the diviner are\nthe spheres we discover.\n\nWe can form no adequate conception of what this silent activity of\nthe souls that surround us may really mean. Perhaps you have spoken a\npure word to one of your fellows by whom it has not been understood.\nYou look upon it as lost and dismiss it from your mind. But one day,\nperadventure, the word comes up again extraordinarily transformed,\nand revealing the unexpected fruit it has borne in the darkness;\nthen silence once more falls over all. But it matters not; we have\nlearned that nothing can be lost in the soul, and that even to the\nvery pettiest there come moments of splendour. It is unmistakably\nborne home to us that even the unhappiest and the most destitute of\nmen have at the depths of their being and in spite of themselves a\ntreasure of beauty that they cannot despoil. They have but to acquire\nthe habit of dipping into this treasure. It suffices not that beauty\nshould keep solitary festival in life; it has to become a festival of\nevery day. There needs no great effort to be admitted into the ranks\nof those \u2018whose eyes no longer behold earth in flower and sky in glory\nin infinitesimal fragments, but indeed in sublime masses,\u2019 and I speak\nhere of flowers and sky that are purer and more lasting than those that\nwe behold. Thousands of channels there are through which the beauty\nof our soul may sail even unto our thoughts. Above all is there the\nwonderful, central channel of love.\n\nIs it not in love that are found the purest elements of beauty that we\ncan offer to the soul? Some there are who do thus in beauty love each\nother. And to love thus means that, little by little, the sense of\nugliness is lost; that one\u2019s eyes are closed to all the littlenesses\nof life, to all but the freshness and virginity of the very humblest\nof souls. Loving thus, we have no longer even the need to forgive.\nLoving thus, we can no longer have anything to conceal, for that the\never-present soul transforms all things into beauty. It is to behold\nevil in so far only as it purifies indulgence, and teaches us no longer\nto confound the sinner with his sin. Loving thus do we raise on high\nwithin ourselves all those about us who have attained an eminence\nwhere failure has become impossible; heights whence a paltry action\nhas so far to fall that, touching earth, it is compelled to yield up\nits diamond soul. It is to transform, though all unconsciously, the\nfeeblest intention that hovers about us into illimitable movement. It\nis to summon all that is beautiful in earth, heaven or soul, to the\nbanquet of love. Loving thus, we do indeed exist before our fellows as\nwe exist before God. It means that the least gesture will call forth\nthe presence of the soul with all its treasure. No longer is there need\nof death, disaster or tears for that the soul shall appear; a smile\nsuffices. Loving thus, we perceive truth in happiness as profoundly as\nsome of the heroes perceived it in the radiance of greatest sorrow. It\nmeans that the beauty that turns into love is undistinguishable from\nthe love that turns into beauty. It means to be able no longer to\ntell where the ray of a star leaves off and the kiss of an ordinary\nthought begins. It means to have come so near to God that the angels\npossess us. Loving thus, the same soul will have been so beautified\nby us all that it will become, little by little, the \u2018unique angel\u2019\nmentioned by Swedenborg. It means that each day will reveal to us a\nnew beauty in that mysterious angel, and that we shall walk together\nin a goodness that shall ever become more and more living, loftier\nand loftier. For there exists also a lifeless beauty, made up of the\npast alone; but the veritable love renders the past useless, and its\napproach creates a boundless future of goodness, without disaster and\nwithout tears. To love thus is but to free one\u2019s soul, and to become\nas beautiful as the soul thus freed. \u2018If, in the emotion that this\nspectacle cannot fail to awaken in thee,\u2019 says the great Plotinus, when\ndealing with kindred matters\u2014and of all the intellects known to me\nthat of Plotinus draws the nearest to the divine\u2014\u2018If, in the emotion\nthat this spectacle cannot fail to awaken in thee, thou proclaimest\nnot that it is beautiful; and if, plunging thine eyes into thyself,\nthou dost not then feel the charm of beauty, it is in vain that, thy\ndisposition being such, thou shouldst seek the intelligible beauty; for\nthou wouldst seek it only with that which is ugly and impure. Therefore\nit is that the discourse we hold here is not addressed to all men. But\nif thou hast recognised beauty within thyself, see that thou rise to\nthe recollection of the intelligible beauty.\u2019\n\n\n                  Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.\n                          Edinburgh & London","title":"The Treasure of the Humble","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":33867}