and imposing; but their
number is greater to-day, and they admit us, in silence, to paths that
extend very far. And even though the home of this woman be not
brightened by one single gleam from without, will she have failed to
fulfil her destiny because her life is lived in the shade? Cannot
destiny be beautiful and complete in itself, without help from without?
As the soul that has truly conquered surveys the triumphs of the past,
it is glad of those only that brought with them a deeper knowledge of
life and a nobler humility; of those that lent sweeter charm to the
moments when love, glory, and enthusiasm having faded away, the fruit
that a few hours of boiling passion had ripened was gathered in
meditation and silence. When the feasting is over: when charity,
kindness and valorous deed all lie far behind us: what is there left to
the soul but some stray recollections, a gain of some consciousness,
and a feeling that helps us to look on our place in the world with more
knowledge and less apprehension--a feeling blent with some wisdom, from
the numberless things it has learned? When the hour for rest has
sounded--as it must sound every night and at every moment of
solitude--when the gaudy vestments of love, and glory, and power fall
helplessly round us; what is it we can take with us as we seek refuge
within ourselves, where the happiness of each day is measured by the
knowledge the day has brought us, by the thoughts and the confidence it
has helped us to acquire? Is our true destiny to be found in the things
which take place about us, or in that which abides in our soul? "Be a
man's power or glory never so great," said a philosopher, "his soul
soon learns how to value the feelings that spring from external events;
and as he perceives that no increase has come to his physical
faculties, that these remain wholly unchanged, neither altered nor
added to, then does the sense of his nothingness burst full upon him.
The king who should govern the world must still, like the rest of his
brothers, revolve in a limited circle, whose every law must be obeyed;
and on his impressions and thoughts must his happiness wholly depend."
The impressions his memory retains, we might add, because they have
chastened his mind; for the souls that we deal with here will retain
such impressions only as have quickened their sense of goodness, as
have made them a little more noble. Is it impossible to find--it
matters not where, nor how great be