t us respect it. Let us not resent the misfortunes that
sometimes befall virtue, lest we at the same time disturb the limpid
essence of its happiness. The soul that has this happiness dreams no
more of reward, than others expect punishment because of their
wickedness. They only are ever clamouring for justice who know it not
in their lives.

74. There is wisdom in the Hindu saying: "Work as they work, who are
ambitious. Respect life, as they respect it who desire it. Be happy, as
they are happy who live for happiness alone."

And this is indeed the central point of human wisdom--to act as though
each deed must bear wondrous, everlasting, fruit, and yet to realise
the insignificance of a just action before the universe; to grasp the
disproportion of things, and yet to march onwards as though the
proportions were established by man; to keep our eyes fixed on the
great sphere, and ourselves to move in the little sphere with as much
confidence and earnestness, with as much assurance and satisfaction, as
though the great sphere were contained within it.

Is there need of illusion to keep alive our desire for good? then must
this desire stand confessed as foreign to the nature of man. It is a
mistake to imagine that the heart will long cherish within it the ideas
that reason has banished; but within the heart there is much that
reason may take to itself. And at last the heart becomes the refuge to
which reason is apt to fly, ever more and more simply, each time that
the night steals upon it; for it is to the heart as a young,
clairvoyant girl, who still at times needs advice from her blind, but
smiling, mother. There comes a moment in life when moral beauty seems
more urgent, more penetrating, than intellectual beauty; when all that
the mind has treasured must be bathed in the greatness of soul, lest it
perish in the sandy desert, forlorn as a river that seeks in vain for
the sea.

75. But let us exaggerate nothing when dealing with wisdom, though it
be wisdom itself. The external forces, we know, will not yield to the
righteous man; but still he is absolute lord of most of the inner
powers; and these are for ever spinning the web of nearly all our
happiness and sorrow. We have said elsewhere that the sage, as he
passes by, intervenes in countless dramas. Indeed his mere presence
suffices to arrest most of the calamities that arise from error or
evil. They cannot approach him, or even those who are near him. A
chance mee