dren. These two kinds of love
seem to us to be contrary one to the other: the one seeks itself, and
the other gives itself. Still they are both necessary to life, for in
order to give we must receive. In the accomplishment of the works of
goodness, the soul would be impoverished and would end by drying up in
a purely mechanical exercise of beneficence, had it no spring from which
to draw forth the living waters. Man must himself find joy in order to
diffuse it amongst his fellows. But mark the incomparable marvel of the
spiritual order of things! The love which gives itself is able to find
its worthiest object and its purest satisfaction in the very act of
kindness. There is joy in self-devotion; there is happiness in
self-sacrifice: the fountain furnishes its own supplies. Thus are
harmonized the two contrary tendencies of the heart of man. "It is more
blessed to give than to receive;" words these, of Jesus Christ, which,
forgotten by the Evangelists, have been recorded by the Apostle St.
Paul. And since the thought is a beautiful one, it has adorned the
strains of the poets: says Lamartine--

Dost thou happiness resign
To another? It is thine--
Larger for the largess--still![178]

And Victor Hugo, personifying Charity, makes her speak as follows:

Dear to every man that lives,
Joy I bring to him who gives,
Joy I leave with him who takes.[179]

And because this thought is profound as well as beautiful, it has been
taken up by the philosophers. "To love," said Leibnitz, "is to place
one's happiness in the happiness of another." Here is the connecting
link between Platonic love and the love which is charity. Hear how a
Christian orator comments upon these words:--"This sublime definition
has no need of explanations: it is either understood at once, or it is
not understood. The man who has loved understands it; and he who has not
loved will never understand it. He who has loved knows that a shadow in
the heart of the beloved one would darken his own: he knows that he
would reckon no means too costly--watchings, labors, privations--by
which to create a smile on the lips of the sorrowful; he knows that he
would die to redeem a forfeited life; he knows that he would be happy
in another's welfare, happy in his graces, happy in his virtues, happy
in his glory, happy in his happiness. The man who has loved knows all
this; he who has not loved knows nothing of it:--I pity him!"[180]