different climates at which the
effects of mist begin, but they are always present; and therefore, in
all probability, it is meant that we should enjoy them.... We surely
need not wonder that mist and all its phenomena have been made
delightful to us, since our happiness as thinking beings must depend
on our being content to accept only partial knowledge even in those
matters which chiefly concern us. If we insist upon perfect
intelligibility and complete declaration in every moral subject, we
shall instantly fall into misery of unbelief. Our whole happiness and
power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and
live in the cloud; content to see it opening here, and closing there;
rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it, glimpses of
stable and substantial things; but yet perceiving a nobleness even in
the concealment, and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where
the untempered light might have scorched us, or the infinite clearness
wearied. And I believe that the resentment of this interference of the
mist is one of the forms of proud error which are too easily mistaken
for virtues. To be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed
unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light and find knowledge
must always be right. Yet (as in all matters before observed,)
wherever _pride_ has any share in the work, even knowledge and light
may be ill pursued. Knowledge is good, and light is good: yet man
perished in seeking knowledge, and moths perish in seeking light; and
if we, who are crushed before the moth, will not accept such mystery
as is needful to us, we shall perish in like manner. But, accepted in
humbleness, it instantly becomes an element of pleasure; and I think
that every rightly constituted mind ought to rejoice, not so much in
knowing anything clearly, as in feeling that there is infinitely more
which it cannot know. None but proud or weak men would mourn over
this, for we may always know more, if we choose, by working on; but
the pleasure is, I think, to humble people, in knowing that the
journey is endless, the treasure inexhaustible,--watching the cloud
still march before them with its summitless pillar, and being sure
that, to the end of time, and to the length of eternity, the mysteries
of its infinity will still open farther and farther, their dimness
being the sign and necessary adjunct of their inexhaustibleness. I
know there are an evil mystery, and a deathful di