's liberty and applauds all originality; but it helps
no one, troubles itself for no one, bears no one's burden; in a word, it
lacks charity, the great Christian virtue. To his mind perfection lies
in personal nobility, and not in love. His keynote is aesthetic and not
moral. He ignores sanctity, and has never so much as reflected on the
terrible problem of evil. He believes in the opportunity of the
individual, but neither in liberty nor in responsibility. He is a
stranger to the social and political aspirations of the multitude; he
has no more thought for the disinherited, the feeble, the oppressed,
than Nature has.

The profound disquiet of our era never touches Goethe; discords do not
affect the deaf. Whoso has never heard the voice of conscience, regret
and remorse, cannot even guess at the anxiety of those who have two
masters, two laws, and belong to two worlds, the world of Nature and the
world of Liberty. His choice is already made; his only world is Nature.
But it is far otherwise with humanity. For men hear indeed the prophets
of Nature, but they hear also the voice of Religion; the joy of life
attracts them, but devotion moves them also; they no longer know whether
they hate or adore the crucifix.

_Nothing New Under the Sun_

Jealousy is a terrible thing; it resembles love, but is in every way its
contrary; the jealous man desires, not the good of the loved one, but
her dependence on him and his triumph over her. Love is the
forgetfulness of Self; but jealousy is the most passionate form of
egoism, the exaltation of the despotic, vain and greedy Self, which
cannot forget and subordinate itself. The contrast is complete.

The man of fifty years, contemplating the world, finds in it certainly
some new things; but a thousand times more does he find old things
furbished up, and plagiarisms and modifications rather than
improvements. Almost everything in the world is a copy of a copy, a
reflection of a reflection; and any real success or progress is as rare
to-day as it has ever been. Let us not complain of it, for only so can
the world last. Humanity advances at a very slow pace; that is why
history continues. It may be that progress fans the torch to burn away;
perhaps progress accelerates death. A society which should change
rapidly would only arrive the sooner at its catastrophe. Yes, progress
must be the aroma of life, and not its very substance.

To renounce happiness and think only of duty; to en