hat are loftiest, for the loftiest
reasons for sorrow must be on the eve of becoming reasons for gladness
and joy. But reasons that have not within them these germs of greatness
and happiness--and in moral life open spaces abound where greatness and
happiness blend--these are surely not worthy of mention. Before we can
bring happiness to others, we first must be happy ourselves; nor will
happiness abide within us unless we confer it on others. If there be a
smile upon our lips, those around us will soon smile too; and our
happiness will become the truer and deeper as we see that these others
are happy. "It is not seemly that I, who, willingly, have brought
sorrow to none, should permit myself to be sad," said Marcus Aurelius,
in one of his noblest passages. But are we not saddening ourselves, and
learning to sadden others, if we refuse to accept all the happiness
offered to man?

59. The humble thought that connects a mere satisfied glance, an
ordinary, everyday act of simple kindness, or an insignificant moment
of happiness, with something eternal, and stable, and beautiful, is of
far greater value, and infinitely nearer to the mystery of life, than
the grand and gloomy meditation wherein sorrow, love, and despair blend
with death and destiny and the apathetic forces of nature. Appearances
often deceive us. Hamlet, bewailing his fate on the brink of the gulf,
seems profounder, imbued with more passion, than Antoninus Pius, whose
tranquil gaze rests on the self-same forces, but who accepts them and
questions them calmly, instead of recoiling in horror and calling down
curses upon them. Our slightest gesture at nightfall seems more
momentous by far than all we have done in the day; but man was created
to work in the light, and not to burrow in darkness.

60. The smallest consoling idea has a strength of its own that is not
to be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisite
expression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with it
nothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness to
throw light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought of
hope, or of cheerful acceptance of inevitable law, in itself already is
action in search of a foothold wherefrom to take flight into life. It
cannot be harmful for us to acknowledge at times that action begins
with reality only, though our thoughts be never so large and
disinterested and admirable in themselves. 'For all that goes to build