We are in
such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering
gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive
silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of
which these are but the parts--namely, to live. We fall in
love, we drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like
frightened sheep. And now you are to ask yourself if, when
all is done, you would not have been better to sit by the
fire at home, and be happy thinking. To sit still and
contemplate--to remember the faces of women without desire,
to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be
everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to
remain where and what you are--is not this to know both
wisdom and virtue, and to dwell with happiness?
*
Of those who fail, I do not speak--despair should be
sacred; but to those who even modestly succeed, the changes
of their life bring interest: a job found, a shilling
saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of pleasure
springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is not
from these, but from the villa-dweller, that we hear
complaints of the unworthiness of life.
*
I shall be reminded what a tragedy of misconception and
misconduct man at large presents: of organised injustice,
cowardly violence and treacherous crime; and of the damning
imperfections of the best. They cannot be too darkly
drawn.
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