ul from the unrest of
happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to us
one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, that
all men regarded with envy; and if he were very simply to say to us,
"All is mine that you pray for each day: I have riches, and youth, and
health; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am truly
able to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts that
fortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from these
gifts to fix my eyes far above happiness. If my marvellous travels and
victories, my strength and my love, have brought me the peace and the
gladness I sought, it is only because they have taught me that it is
not in them that the veritable gladness and peace can be found. It was
in myself they existed, before all these triumphs; and still in myself
are they now, after all my achievement; and I know full well that had
but a little more wisdom been mine, I might have enjoyed all I now
enjoy without the aid of so much good fortune. I know that today I am
happier still than I was yesterday, because I have learned at last that
I stand in no need of good fortune in order to free my soul, to bring
peace to my thoughts, to enlighten my heart."

53. Of this the sage is fully aware, though no superhuman happiness may
have descended upon him. The upright man knows it too, though he be
less wise than the sage, and his consciousness less fully developed;
for an act of goodness or justice brings with it a kind of inarticulate
consciousness that often becomes more effective, more faithful, more
loving, than the consciousness that springs into being from the very
deepest thought. Acts of this nature bring, above all, a special
knowledge of happiness. Strive as we may, our loftiest thoughts are
always uncertain, unstable; but the light of a goodly deed shines
steadily on, and is lasting. There are times when deep thought is no
more than merely fictitious consciousness; but an act of charity, the
heroic duty fulfilled--these are true consciousness; in other words,
happiness in action. The happiness of Marcus Aurelius, who condones a
mortal affront; of Washington, giving up power when he feared that his
glory was leading his people astray--the happiness of these will differ
by far from that of some mean-souled, venomous creature who might (if
such a thing may be assumed) by mere chance have discovered some
extraordinary natural law. Long