ll
desire.

We must beware lest there enter our soul certain parasitic virtues. And
renouncement, often, is only a parasite. Even if it do not enfeeble our
inward life, it must inevitably bring disquiet. Just as bees cease from
work at the approach of an intruder into their hive, so will the
virtues and strength of the soul into which contempt or renouncement
has entered, forsake all their tasks, and eagerly flock round the
curious guest that has come in the wake of pride; for so long as
renouncement be conscious, so long will the happiness found therein
have its origin truly in pride. And he who is bent on renouncement had
best, first of all, forswear the delights of pride, for these are
wholly vain and wholly deceptive.

55. Within reach of all, demanding neither boldness nor energy, is this
"enchantment of the disenchanted!" But what name shall we give to the
man who renounces that which brought happiness to him, and rather would
surely lose it to-day than live in fear lest fortune haply deprive him
thereof on the morrow? Is the mission of wisdom only to peer into the
uncertain future, with ear on the stretch for the footfall of sorrow
that never may come--but deaf to the whirr of the wings of the
happiness that fills all space?

Let us not look to renouncement for happiness till we have sought it
elsewhere in vain. It is easy to be wise if we be content to regard as
happiness the void that is left by the absence of happiness. But it was
not for unhappiness the sage was created; and it is more glorious, as
well as more human, to be happy and still to be wise. The supreme
endeavour of wisdom is only to seek in life for the fixed point of
happiness; but to seek this fixed point in renouncement and farewell to
joy, is only to seek it in death. He who moves not a limb is persuaded,
perhaps, he is wise; but was this the purpose wherefor mankind was
created? Ours is the choice--whether wisdom shall be the honoured wife
of our passions and feelings, our thoughts and desires, or the
melancholy bride of death. Let the tomb have its stagnant wisdom, but
let there be wisdom also for the hearth where the fire still burns.

56. It is not by renouncing the joys that are near us that we shall
grow wise; but as we grow wise we unconsciously abandon the joys that
now are beneath us. Even so does the child, as years come to him, give
up one by one without thinking the games that have ceased to amuse. And
just as the child learns