re; they take interest
in what seems to concern the general welfare, but fail to make
themselves centres of light and love. What is worse they have the
conceit of wisdom,--they lack reverence; they are impatient, and must
have at once what they seek. But the better among us see the
insufficiency of the popular aims, and begin to yearn for something
other than a life of politics, newspapers, and financial enterprise.
They desire to know and love the best that is known, and they are
willing to be poor and obscure, if they may but gain entrance into this
higher world. "I shall ever consider myself," says Descartes, "more
obliged to those who leave me to my leisure, than I should to any who
might offer me the most honorable employments." This is the thought of
every true student and lover of wisdom; for he feels that whatever a
man's occupation may be, his business is to improve his mind and to form
his character. He desires not to be known and appreciated, but to know
and appreciate; not to _have_ more, but to _be_ more; not to have
friends, but to be the friend of man,--which he is when he is the lover
of truth. He turns from vulgar pleasures as he turns from pain, because
both pleasure and pain in fastening the soul to the body deprive it of
freedom and hinder the play of the mind.

He loves the best with single heart
And without thought what gifts it bring.

Unless one have deep faith in the good of culture he will easily become
discouraged in the work which is here urged upon him. He must be drawn
to the love of intellectual excellence by an attraction such as a poet
feels in the presence of beauty; he must believe in it as a miser
believes in gold; he must seek it as a lover seeks the beloved. Our
wants determine our pleasures, and they who have no intellectual
cravings feel not the need of exercise of mind. They are born and remain
inferior. They are content with the world which seems to be real,
forgetting the higher one, which alone is real; they are not urged to
the intellectual life by irresistible instincts. They are discouraged by
difficulties, thwarted by obstacles which lie in the path of all who
strive to move forward and to gain higher planes. It is not possible to
advance except along the road of toil, of struggle, and of suffering.
We cannot emerge even from childish ignorance and weakness without
experiencing a sense of loss. Mental work in the beginning and for a
long time is weariness, is