every way most beneficial to him, and as he grows more and more
able to elevate and concentrate his thought, he may gradually find
that new worlds are opening before his sight.

As a preliminary training towards the satisfactory achievement of such
meditation, he will find it desirable to make a practice of
concentration in the affairs of daily life--even in the smallest of
them. If he writes a letter, let him think of nothing else but that
letter until it is finished if he reads a book, let him see to it that
his thought is never allowed to wander from his author's meaning. He
must learn to hold his mind in check, and to be master of that also,
as well as of his lower passions he must patiently labour to acquire
absolute control of his thoughts, so that he will always know exactly
what he is thinking about, and why--so that he can use his mind, and
turn it or hold it still, as a practised swordsman turns his weapon
where he will.

Yet after all, if those who so earnestly desire clairvoyance could
possess it temporarily for a day or even an hour, it is far from
certain that they would choose to retain the gift. True, it opens
before them new worlds of study, new powers of usefulness, and for
this latter reason most of us feel it worth while; but it should be
remembered that for one whose duty still calls him to live in the
world it is by no means an unmixed blessing. Upon one in whom that
vision is opened the sorrow and the misery, the evil and the greed of
the world press as an ever-present burden, until in the earlier days
of his knowledge he often feels inclined to echo the passionate
adjuration contained in those rolling lines of Schiller's:

Dien Orakel zu verkuenden, warum warfest du mich hin
In die Stadt der ewig Blinden, mit dem aufgeschloss'nen Sinn?
Frommt's, den Schleier aufzuheben, wo das nahe Schreckniss droht?
Nur der Irrthum ist das Leben; dieses Wissen ist der Tod.
Nimm, O nimm die traur'ge Klarheit mir vom Aug' den blut'gen Schein!
Schrecklich ist es deiner Wahrheit sterbliches Gefaess zu seyn!

which may perhaps be translated "Why hast thou cast me thus into the
town of the ever-blind, to proclaim thine oracle by the opened sense?
What profits it to lift the veil where the near darkness threatens?
Only ignorance is life; this knowledge is death. Take back this sad
clear-sightedness; take from mine eyes this cruel light! It is
horrible to be the mortal channel of thy truth."