[93] Without profaneness, and in all
sincerity, they might have thanked God for the, to them, harmless
recreation.

This I suppose possible in the case of some, but for you it is not so.
The keen susceptibilities of your excitable nature will prevent your
resting contented without sharing in the more exciting pleasures of the
ball-room; and your powers of adaptation will easily tempt you forward
to make use of at least some of those means of attracting general
admiration which seem to succeed so well with others.

"Wherever there is life there is danger;" and the danger is probably in
proportion to the degree of life. The more energy, the more feeling, the
more genius possessed by an individual, the greater also are the
temptations to which that individual is exposed. The path which is safe
and harmless for the dull and inexcitable--the mere animals of the human
race--is beset with dangers for the ardent, the enthusiastic, the
intellectual. These must pay a heavy penalty for their superiority; but
is it therefore a superiority they would resign? Besides, the very
trials and temptations to which their superior vitality subjects them
are not alone its necessary accompaniment, but also the necessary means
for forming a superior character into eminent excellence.

Self-will, love of pleasure, quick excitability, and consequent
irritability, are the marked ingredients in every strong character; its
strength must be employed against itself to produce any high moral
superiority.

There is an analogy between the metaphysical truths above spoken of and
that fact in the physical history of the world, that coal-mines are
generally placed in the neighbourhood of iron-mines. This is a provision
involved in the nature of the thing itself; and we know that, without
the furnaces thus placed within reach, the natural capabilities of the
useful ore would never be developed.

In the same way, we know that an accompanying furnace of affliction and
temptation is necessarily involved in that very strength of character
which we admire; and also, that, without this fiery furnace, the vast
capabilities of their nature, both moral and mental, could never be
fully developed.

Suffering, sorrow, and temptations are the invariable conditions of a
life of progress; and suffering, sorrow, and temptations are all of them
always in proportion to the energies and capabilities of the character.

There is another analogy in animated nature, illust