y be in this world,
whatever the aim of our efforts and hopes, and the result of our joys
and our sorrows, we are, above all, the blind custodians of life.
Absolutely, wholly certain is that one thing only; it is there that we
find the only fixed point of human morality. Life has been given
us--for a reason we know not--but surely not for us to enfeeble it, or
carelessly fling it away. For it is a particular form of life that we
represent on this planet--the life of feeling and thought; whence it
follows perhaps that all that inclines to weaken the ardour of feeling
and thought is, in its essence, immoral. Our task let it be then to
foster this ardour, to enhance and embellish it; let us constantly
strive to acquire deeper faith in the greatness of man, in his strength
and his destiny; or, we might equally say, in his bitterness, weakness,
and wretchedness; for to be loftily wretched is no less soul-quickening
than it is to be loftily happy. After all, it matters but little
whether it be man or the universe that we admire, so long as something
appear truly admirable to us, and exalt our sense of the infinite.
Every new star that is found in the sky will lend of its rays to the
passions, and thoughts, and the courage, of man. Whatever of beauty we
see in all that surrounds us, within us already is beautiful; whatever
we find in ourselves that is great and adorable, that do we find too in
others. If my soul, on awaking this morning, was cheered, as it dwelt
on its love, by a thought that drew near to a God--a God, we have said,
who is doubtless no more than the loveliest desire of our soul--then
shall I behold this same thought astir in the beggar who passes my
window the moment thereafter; and I shall love him the more for that I
understand him the better. And let us not think that love of this kind
can be useless; for indeed, if one day we shall know the thing that has
to be done, it will only be thanks to the few who love in this fashion,
with an ever-deepening love. From the conscious and infinite love must
the true morality spring, nor can there be greater charity than the
effort to ennoble our fellows. But I cannot ennoble you if I have not
become noble myself; I have no admiration to give you if there be
naught in myself I admire. If the deed I have done be heroic, its
truest reward will be my conviction that of an equal deed you are
capable too; this conviction ever will tend to become more spontaneous
within me, a