What to the intellect
is old and worn-out is perennially young and fresh to the heart;
curiosity is insatiable, but love is never tired. The natural
preservative against satiety, too, is work. What we do may weary others,
but the personal effort is at least useful to its author. Where every
one works, the general life is sure to possess charm and savor, even
though it repeat forever the same song, the same aspirations, the same
prejudices, and the same sighs. "To every man his turn," is the motto of
mortal beings. If what they do is old, they themselves are new; when
they imitate, they think they are inventing. They have received, and
they transmit. _E sempre bene!_
August 24, 1880.--As years go on I love the beautiful more than the
sublime, the smooth more than the rough, the calm nobility of Plato more
than the fierce holiness of the world's Jeremiahs. The vehement
barbarian is to me the inferior of the mild and playful Socrates. My
taste is for the well-balanced soul and the well-trained heart--for a
liberty which is not harsh and insolent, like that of the newly
enfranchised slave, but lovable. The temperament which charms me is that
in which one virtue leads naturally to another. All exclusive and
sharply-marked qualities are but so many signs of imperfection.
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