_Ten_ P.M.--Visits and a walk. I have spent the evening alone. Many
things to-day have taught me lessons of wisdom. I have seen the
hawthorns covering themselves with blossom, and the whole valley
springing up afresh under the breath of the spring. I have been the
spectator of faults of conduct on the part of old men who will not grow
old, and whose heart is in rebellion against the natural law. I have
watched the working of marriage in its frivolous and commonplace forms,
and listened to trivial preaching. I have been a witness of griefs
without hope, of loneliness that claimed one's pity. I have listened to
pleasantries on the subject of madness, and to the merry songs of the
birds. And everything has had the same message for me: "Place yourself
once more in harmony with the universal law; accept the will of God;
make a religious use of life; work while it is yet day; be at once
serious and cheerful; know how to repeat with the apostle, 'I have
learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.'"
August 26, 1868.--After all the storms of feeling within and the organic
disturbances without, which during these latter months have pinned me so
closely to my own individual existence, shall I ever be able to reascend
into the region of pure intelligence, to enter again upon the
disinterested and impersonal life, to recover my old indifference toward
subjective miseries, and regain a purely scientific and contemplative
state of mind? Shall I ever succeed in forgetting all the needs which
bind me to earth and to humanity? Shall I ever become pure spirit? Alas!
I cannot persuade myself to believe it possible for an instant.
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