Prom such a point of view destiny looks
harsh, savage, and cruel, and the tragedy of life rises like a rock in
the midst of the dull waters of daily triviality. It is impossible not
to be serious under the weight of indefinable anxiety produced in us by
such a spectacle. The surface of things may be smiling or commonplace,
but the depths below are austere and terrible. As soon as we touch upon
eternal things, upon the destiny of the soul, upon truth or duty, upon
the secrets of life and death, we become grave whether we will or no.
Love at its highest point--love sublime, unique, invincible--leads us
straight to the brink of the great abyss, for it speaks to us directly
of the infinite and of eternity. It is eminently religious; it may even
become religion. When all around a man is wavering and changing, when
everything is growing dark and featureless to him in the far distance of
an unknown future, when the world seems but a fiction or a fairy tale,
and the universe a chimera, when the whole edifice of ideas vanishes in
smoke, and all realities are penetrated with doubt, what is the fixed
point which may still be his? The faithful heart of a woman! There he
may rest his head; there he will find strength to live, strength to
believe, and, if need be, strength to die in peace with a benediction on
his lips.
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