e, that he _loves_ Theresa because she has a genius at once for
economizing means and for seeing where they may be applied to the
service of the more common natures. He keeps the great-minded,
penetrating, providential Abbe in his pay, that this inevitable eye may
distinguish for him the more capable natures, and find out whether or
how they may be forwarded on their proper paths. Here are no sublime
professions, but a steady, modest, resolute, discriminate doing.

For suggestion of what one may really _do_, and for impelling one toward
the practicable best, I find this book worth a moonful of "Consuelos."
The latter work has, indeed, beautiful pictures; and simply as a picture
of a fresh, sweet, young life, it is charming. But in its aim at a
higher import I find it simply an arrow shot into the air, going _so_
high, but at--nothing! If one crave a moral luxury, it is here. If he
desire a lash for egoism, this, perhaps, is also here. If he is already
praying the heavens for a sufficing worth and work in life, and is
asking only the _what_ and _how_, this book, taken in connection with
its sequel, says, "Distribute your property, and begin wandering about
and 'doing good.'"

I decline. After due consideration, I have fully determined to own a
house, and provide each day a respectable dinner for my table, if the
fates agree; to secure, still in submission to the fates, such a
competency as will give me leisure for the best work I can do; to
further justice and general well-being, so far as is in me to further or
hinder, but always on the basis of the existing civilization; to cherish
sympathy and good-will in myself, and in others by cherishing them in
myself; to help another when I clearly can; and to give, when what I
give will obviously do more service toward the high ends of life, in
the hands of another than in my own. Toward carrying out these purposes
"Consuelo" has not given me a hint, not one; "Wilhelm Meister" has given
me invaluable hints. Therefore I feel no great gratitude to the one, and
am profoundly grateful to the other.

It is not the mere absence of suffering, it is not a pound of beef on
every peasant's plate, that makes life worth living. Health, happiness,
even education, however diffused, do not alone make life worth living.
Tell me the quality of a man's happiness before I can very rapturously
congratulate him upon it; tell me the quality of his suffering before I
can grieve over it without sola