The wrinkles of science disappeared under the magic breath of
admiration; the old elasticity of soul, trustful, free, and living was
mine once more. I was once more young, capable of self-abandonment and
of love. All my barrenness had disappeared; the heavenly dew had
fertilized the dead and gnarled stick; it began to be green and flower
again. My God, how wretched should we be without beauty! But with it,
everything is born afresh in us; the senses, the heart, imagination,
reason, will, come together like the dead bones of the prophet, and
become one single and self-same energy. What is happiness if it is not
this plentitude of existence, this close union with the universal and
divine life? I have been happy a whole half day, and I have been
brooding over my joy, steeping myself in it to the very depths of
consciousness.
October 22, 1856.--We must learn to look upon life as an apprenticeship
to a progressive renunciation, a perpetual diminution in our
pretensions, our hopes, our powers, and our liberty. The circle grows
narrower and narrower; we began with being eager to learn everything, to
see everything, to tame and conquer everything, and in all directions we
reach our limit--_non plus ultra_. Fortune, glory, love, power, health,
happiness, long life, all these blessings which have been possessed by
other men seem at first promised and accessible to us, and then we have
to put the dream away from us, to withdraw one personal claim after
another to make ourselves small and humble, to submit to feel ourselves
limited, feeble, dependent, ignorant and poor, and to throw ourselves
upon God for all, recognizing our own worthlessness, and that we have no
right to anything.
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