We must approach it with
adoration if we are not to profane it, and with poetry if we are to
understand it. If there is anything in the world which gives us a sweet,
ineffable impression, of the ideal, it is this trembling modest love. To
deceive it would be a crime. Merely to watch its unfolding life is bliss
to the beholder; he sees in it the birth of a divine marvel. When the
garland of youth fades on our brow, let us try at least to have the
virtues of maturity; may we grow better, gentler, graver, like the fruit
of the vine, while its leaf withers and falls.
* * * * *
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the
most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
* * * * *
He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature, and a
continuous moral progress toward inward contentment and religious
submission, is less liable than any one else to miss and waste life.
January 2, 1875. (_Hyeres_.)--In spite of my sleeping draught I have had
a bad night. Once it seemed as if I must choke, for I could breathe
neither way.
Could I be more fragile, more sensitive, more vulnerable! People talk to
me as if there were still a career before me, while all the time I know
that the ground is slipping from under me, and that the defense of my
health is already a hopeless task.
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