thoughts and
our feelings enclose that our happiness can breathe in freedom. It
demands no material space, but finds ever too narrow the spiritual
fields we throw open; wherefore we must unceasingly endeavour to
enlarge its territory, until such time as, soaring up on high, it finds
sufficient aliment in the space which it does of itself fling open.
Then it is, and then only, that happiness truly illumines the most
eternal, most human part of man; and indeed all other forms of
happiness are merely unconscious fragments of this great happiness,
which, as it reflects and looks before it, is conscious of no limit
within itself or in all that surrounds it.

81. This space must dwindle daily in those who follow evil, seeing that
their thoughts and feelings must of necessity dwindle also. But the man
who has risen somewhat will soon forsake the ways of evil; for look
deep down enough and you shall ever find its origin in straitened
feeling and stunted thought. He does evil no longer, because his
thoughts are purer and higher; and now that he is incapable of evil,
his thoughts will become purer still. And thus do our thoughts and
actions, having won their way into the placid heaven where no barrier
restrains the soul, become as inseparable as the wings of a bird; and
what to the bird was only a law of equilibrium is here transformed into
a law of justice.

82. Who can tell whether the satisfaction derived from evil can ever
penetrate to the soul, unless there mingle with it a vague desire, a
promise, a distant hope, of goodness or of pity?

The joy of the wretch whose victim lies in his power is perhaps
unredeemed in its gloom and futility, save by the thought of mercy that
flashes across him. Evil at times would seem compelled to beg a ray of
light from virtue, to shed lustre on its triumph. Is it possible for a
man to smile in his hatred and not borrow the smile of love? But the
smile will be short-lived, for here, as everywhere, there is no inner
injustice. Within the soul the high-water mark of happiness is always
level with that of justice or charity--which words I use here
indifferently, for indeed what is charity or love but justice with
naught to do but count its jewels? The man who goes forth to seek his
happiness in evil does merely prove thereby that he is less happy than
the other who watches, and disapproves. And yet his object is identical
with that of the upright man. He too is in search of happiness, of some