nd paralysis on the plea that no social change can
bring happiness, thus trifling with these profound things. Happiness
is part of the inner life, it is an intimate and personal paradise; it
is a flash of chance or genius which comes sweetly to life among those
who elbow each other, and it is also the sense of glory. No, it is not
in your hands, and so it is in nobody's hands. But a balanced and
heedful life is necessary to man, that he may build the isolated home
of happiness; and death is the fearful connection of the happenings
which pass away along with our profundities. External things and those
which are hidden are essentially different, but they are held together
by peace and by death.

To accomplish the majestically practical work, to shape the whole
architecture like a statue, base nothing on impossible modifications of
human nature; await nothing from pity.

Charity is a privilege, and must disappear. For the rest, you cannot
love unknown people any more than you can have pity on them. The human
intelligence is made for infinity; the heart is not. The being who
really suffers in his heart, and not merely in his mind or in words, by
the suffering of others whom he neither sees nor touches, is a nervous
abnormality, and he cannot be argued from as an example. The repulse
of reason, the stain of absurdity, torture the intelligence in a more
abundant way. Simple as it may be, social science is geometry. Do not
accept the sentimental meaning they give to the word "humanitarianism,"
and say that the preaching of fraternity and love is vain; these words
lose their meaning amid the great numbers of man. It is in this
disordered confusion of feelings and ideas that one feels the presence
of Utopia. Mutual solidarity is of the intellect--common-sense, logic,
methodical precision, order without faltering, the ruthless inevitable
perfection of light!

In my fervor, in my hunger, and from the depths of my abyss, I uttered
these words aloud amid the silence. My great reverie was blended with
song, like the Ninth Symphony.

* * * * * *

I am resting on my elbows at the window. I am looking at the night,
which is everywhere, which touches me, _me_, although I am only I, and
it is infinite night. It seems to me that there is nothing else left
me to think about. Things cling together; they will save each other,
and will do their setting in order.

But again I am seized b