It will be
almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of
negativity and deadness. No one portion of the universe would
then have importance beyond another; and the whole collection of
its things and series of its events would be without
significance, character, expression, or perspective. Whatever of
value, interest, or meaning our respective worlds may appear
endued with are thus pure gifts of the spectator's mind. The
passion of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this
fact. If it comes, it comes; if it does not <148> come, no
process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value
of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont
Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets
the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue
to his life. So with fear, with indignation, jealousy, ambition,
worship. If they are there, life changes. And whether they
shall be there or not depends almost always upon non-logical,
often on organic conditions. And as the excited interest which
these passions put into the world is our gift to the world, just
so are the passions themselves GIFTS--gifts to us, from sources
sometimes low and sometimes high; but almost always nonlogical
and beyond our control.
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