estedness are sufficient to awaken the
admiration of calm and reflective natures, whence shall more passionate
and mobile organizations, to whom the dullness of mediocrity is insipid,
who naturally seek honor or pleasure, and who are willing to purchase
the object of their desires at any price--form their models? Such
temperaments easily free themselves from the authority of their seniors.
They do not admit their competency to decide. They accuse them of
wishing to use the world only for the profit of their own dead passions,
of striving to turn all to their own advantage, of pronouncing upon
the effects of causes which they do not understand, of desiring to
promulgate laws in spheres to which nature has denied them entrance.
They will not receive answers from their lips, but turn to others to
resolve their doubts; they question those who have drunk deeply from the
boiling springs of grief, bursting from the riven clefts in the steep
cliffs upon the top of which alone the soul seeks rest and light. They
pass in silence by the still cold gravity of those who practice the
good, without enthusiasm for the beautiful. What leisure has ardent
youth to interpret their gravity, to resolve their chill problems?
The throbbings of its impetuous heart are too rapid to allow it to
investigate the hidden sufferings, the mystic combats, the solitary
struggles, which may be detected even in the calm eye of the man who
practices only the good. Souls in continual agitation seldom interpret
aright the calm simplicity of the just, or the heroic smiles of the
stoic. For them enthusiasm and emotion are necessities. A bold image
persuades them, a metaphor leads them, tears convince them, they prefer
the conclusions of impulse, of intuition, to the fatigue of logical
argument. Thus they turn with an eager curiosity to the poets and
artists who have moved them by their images, allured them by their
metaphors, excited them by their enthusiasm. They demand from them the
explanation, the purpose of this enthusiasm, the secret of this beauty!

When distracted by heart-rending events, when tortured by intense
suffering, when feeling and enthusiasm seem to be but a heavy and
cumbersome load which may upset the life-boat if not thrown overboard
into the abyss of forgetfulness; who, when menaced with utter shipwreck
after a long struggle with peril, has not evoked the glorious shades
of those who have conquered, whose thoughts glow with noble ardor, to