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WISDOM AND DESTINY
By
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
Translated by ALFRED SUTRO
TO
GEORGETTE LEBLANC
I OFFER THIS BOOK, WHEREIN HER THOUGHT BLENDS WITH MINE
INTRODUCTION
This essay on Wisdom and Destiny was to have been a thing of some
twenty pages, the work of a fortnight; but the idea took root, others
flocked to it, and the volume has occupied M. Maeterlinck continuously
for more than two years. It has much essential kinship with the
"Treasure of the Humble," though it differs therefrom in treatment; for
whereas the earlier work might perhaps be described as the eager
speculation of a poet athirst for beauty, we have here rather the
endeavour of an earnest thinker to discover the abode of truth. And if
the result of his thought be that truth and happiness are one, this was
by no means the object wherewith he set forth. Here he is no longer
content with exquisite visions, alluring or haunting images; he probes
into the soul of man and lays bare all his joys and his sorrows. It is
as though he had forsaken the canals he loves so well--the green, calm,
motionless canals that faithfully mirror the silent trees and
moss-covered roofs--and had adventured boldly, unhesitatingly, on the
broad river of life.
He describes this book himself, in a kind of introduction that is
almost an apology, as "a few interrupted thoughts that entwine
themselves, with more or less system, around two or three subjects." He
declares that there is nothing it undertakes to prove; that there are
none whose mission it is to convince. And so true is this, so
absolutely honest and sincere is the writer, that he does not shrink
from attacking, qualifying, modifying, his own propositions; from
advancing, and insisting on, every objection that flits across his
brain; and if such proposition survive the onslaught of its
adversaries, it is only because, in the deepest of him, he holds it for
absolute truth. For this book is indeed a confession, a naive,
outspoken, unflinching description of all that passes in his mind; and
even those who like not his theories still must admit that this mind is
strangely beautiful.
There have been many columns filled--and doubtless will be again--with
ingenious and scholarly attempts to place a definitive label on M.
Maeterlinck, and his talent; to trace his thoughts to their origin,
clearly denoting the authors by whom he has been influenced; in a
measure to predict his future, and accurately to establish the place
that he fills in the hierarchy of genius. With all this I feel that I
have no concern. Such speculations doubtless have their use and serve
their purpose. I shall be content if I can impress upon those who may
read these lines, that in this book the man is himself, of untrammelled
thought; a man possessed of the rare faculty of seeing beauty in all
things, and, above all, in truth; of the still rarer faculty of loving
all things, and, above all, life.
Nor is this merely a vague and, at bottom, a more or less meaningless
statement. For, indeed, considering this essay only, that deals with
wisdom and destiny, at the root of it--its fundamental principle, its
guiding, inspiring thought--is love. "Nothing is contemptible in this
world save only scorn," he says; and for the humble, the foolish, nay,
even the wicked, he has the same love, almost the same admiration, as
for the sage, the saint, or the hero. Everything that exists fills him
with wonder, because of its existence, and of the mysterious force that
is in it; and to him love and wisdom are one, "joining hands in a
circle of light." For the wisdom that holds aloof from mankind, that
deems itself a thing apart, select, superior, he has scant sympathy--it
has "wandered too far from the watchfires of the tribe." But the wisdom
that is human, that feeds constantly on the desires, the feelings, the
hopes and the fears of man, must needs have love ever by its side; and
these two, marching together, must inevitably find themselves, sooner
or later, on the ways that lead to goodness. "There comes a moment in
life," he says, "when moral beauty seems more urgent, more penetrating,
than intellectual beauty; when all that the mind has treasured must be
bathed in the greatness of soul, lest it perish in the sandy desert,
forlorn as the river that seeks in vain for the sea." But for
unnecessary self-sacrifice, renouncement, abandonment of earthly joys,
and all such "parasitic virtues," he has no commendation or approval;
feeling that man was created to be happy, and that he is not wise who
voluntarily discards a happiness to-day for fear lest it be taken from
him on the morrow. "Let us wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds--till
then, each man to his work. The hour will sound at last--let us not
waste our time in seeking it on the dial of life."
In this book, morality, conduct, life are Surveyed from every point of
the compass, but from an eminence always. Austerity holds no place in
his philosophy; he finds room even "for the hours that babble aloud in
their wantonness." But all those who follow him are led by smiling
wisdom to the heights where happiness sits enthroned between goodness
and love, where virtue rewards itself in the "silence that is the
walled garden of its happiness."
It is strange to turn from this essay to Serres Chaudes and La
Princesse Maleine, M. Maeterlinck's earliest efforts--the one a
collection of vague images woven into poetical form, charming, dreamy,
and almost meaningless; the other a youthful and very remarkable effort
at imitation. In the plays that followed the Princesse Maleine there
was the same curious, wandering sense of, and search for, a vague and
mystic beauty: "That fair beauty which no eye can see, Of that sweet
music which no ear can measure." In a little poem of his, Et s'il
revenait, the last words of a dying girl, forsaken by her lover, who is
asked by her sister what shall be told to the faithless one, should he
ever seek to know of her last hours:
"Et s'il m'interroge encore
Sur la derniere heure?--
Dites lui que j'ai souri
De peur qu'il ne pleure ..."
touch, perhaps, the very high-water mark of exquisite simplicity and
tenderness blent with matchless beauty of expression. Pelleas et
Melisande was the culminating point of this, his first, period--a
simple, pathetic love-story of boy and girl--love that was pure and
almost passionless. It was followed by three little plays--"for
marionettes," he describes them on the title-page; among them being La
Mort de Tintagiles, the play he himself prefers of all that he has
written. And then came a curious change: he wrote Aglavaine et
Selysette. The setting is familiar to us; the sea-shore, the ruined
tower, the seat by the well; no less than the old grandmother and
little Yssaline. But Aglavaine herself is strange: this woman who has
lived and suffered; this queenly, majestic creature, calmly conscious
of her beauty and her power; she whose overpowering, overwhelming love
is yet deliberate and thoughtful. The complexities of real life are
vaguely hinted at here: instead of Golaud, the mediaeval, tyrannous
husband, we have Selysette, the meek, self-sacrificing wife; instead of
the instinctive, unconscious love of Pelleas and Melisande, we have
great burning passion. But this play, too, was only a stepping-stone--a
link between the old method and the new that is to follow. For there
will probably be no more plays like Pelleas et Melisande, or even like
Aglavaine et Selysette. Real men and women, real problems and
disturbance of life--it is these that absorb him now. His next play
will doubtless deal with a psychology more actual, in an atmosphere
less romantic; and the old familiar scene of wood, and garden, and
palace corridor will be exchanged for the habitual abode of men.
I have said it was real life that absorbed him now, and yet am I aware
that what seems real to him must still appear vague and visionary to
many. It is, however, only a question of shifting one's point of view,
or, better still, of enlarging it. Material success in life, fame,
wealth--these things M. Maeterlinck passes indifferently by. There are
certain ideals that are dear to many on which he looks with the vague
wonder of a child. The happiness of which he dreams is an inward
happiness, and within reach of successful and unsuccessful alike. And
so it may well be that those content to buffet with their fellows for
what are looked on as the prizes of this world, will still write him
down a mere visionary, and fail to comprehend him. The materialist who
complacently defines the soul as the "intellect plus the emotions,"
will doubtless turn away in disgust from M. Maeterlinck's constant
references to it as the seat of something mighty, mysterious,
inexhaustible in life. So, too, may the rigid follower of positive
religion, to whom the Deity is a power concerned only with the
judgment, reward, and punishment of men, protest at his saying that
"God, who must be at least as high as the highest thoughts He has
implanted in the best of men, will withhold His smile from those whose
sole desire has been to please Him; and they only who have done good
for sake of good, and as though He existed not; they only who have
loved virtue more than they loved God Himself, shall be allowed to
stand by His side." But, after all, the genuine seeker after truth
knows that what seemed true yesterday is to-day discovered to be only a
milestone on the road; and all who value truth will be glad to listen
to a man who, differing from them perhaps, yet tells them what seems
true to him. And whereas in the "Treasure of the Humble" he looked on
life through a veil of poetry and dream, here he stands among his
fellow-men, no longer trying to "express the inexpressible," but, in
all simplicity, to tell them what he sees.
"Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an
act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and
contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest
heights of our soul." This thought lies at the root of his whole
philosophy--goodness, happiness, love, supporting each other,
intertwined, rewarding each other. "Let us not think virtue will
crumble, though God Himself seem unjust. Where could the virtue of man
find more everlasting foundation than in the seeming injustice of God?"
Strange that the man who has written these words should have spent all
his school life at a Jesuit college, subjected to its severe,
semi-monastic discipline; compelled, at the end of his stay, to go,
with the rest of his fellows, through the customary period of
"retreat," lasting ten days, when the most eloquent of the fathers
would, one after the other, deliver sermons terrific to boyish
imagination, sermons whose unvarying burden was Hell and the wrath of
God--to be avoided only by becoming a Jesuit priest. Out of the
eighteen boys in the "rhetorique" class, eleven eagerly embraced this
chance of escape from damnation. As for M. Maeterlinck
himself--fortunately a day-boarder only--one can fancy him wandering
home at night, along the canal banks, in the silence broken only by the
pealing of church bells, brooding over these mysteries ... but how long
a road must the man have travelled who, having been taught the God of
Fra Angelico, himself arrives at the conception of a "God who sits
smiling on a mountain, and to whom our gravest offences are only as the
naughtiness of puppies playing on the hearth-rug."
His environment, no less than his schooling, helped to give a mystic
tinge to his mind. The peasants who dwelt around his father's house
always possessed a peculiar fascination for him; he would watch them as
they sat by their doorway, squatting on their heels, as their custom
is--grave, monotonous, motionless, the smoke from their pipes almost
the sole sign of life. For the Flemish peasant is a strangely inert
creature, his work once done--as languid and lethargic as the canal
that passes by his door. There was one cottage into which the boy would
often peep on his way home from school, the home of seven brothers and
one sister, all old, toothless, worn--working together in the daytime
at their tiny farm; at night sitting in the gloomy kitchen, lit by one
smoky lamp--all looking straight before them, saying not a word; or
when, at rare intervals, a remark was made, taking it up each in turn
and solemnly repeating it, with perhaps the slightest variation in
form. It was amidst influences such as these that his boyhood was
passed, almost isolated from the world, brooding over lives of saints
and mystics at the same time that he studied, and delighted in,
Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, Goethe and Heine. For his taste has
been catholic always; he admires Meredith as he admires Dickens, Hello
and Pascal no less than Schopenhauer. And it is this catholicity, this
open mind, this eager search for truth, that have enabled him to emerge
from the mysticism that once enwrapped him to the clearer daylight of
actual existence; it is this faculty of admiring all that is admirable
in man and in life that some day, perhaps, may take him very far.
It will surprise many who picture him as a mere dreamy decadent, to be
told that he is a man of abiding and abundant cheerfulness, who finds
happiness in the simplest of things. The scent of a flower, the flight
of sea-gulls around a cliff, a cornfield in sunshine--these stir him to
strange delight. A deed of bravery, nobility, or of simple devotion; a
mere brotherly act of kindness, the unconscious sacrifice of the
peasant who toils all day to feed and clothe his children--these awake
his warm and instant sympathy. And with him, too, it is as with De
Quincey when he says, "At no time of my life have I been a person to
hold myself polluted by the touch or approach of any creature that wore
a human shape"; and more than one unhappy outcast, condemned by the
stern law of man, has been gladdened by his ready greeting and welcome.
But, indeed, all this may be read of in his book--I desired but to make
it clear that the book is truly a faithful mirror of the man's own
thoughts, and feelings, and actions. It is a book that many will
love--all those who suffer, for it will lighten their suffering; all
those who love, for it will teach them to love more deeply. It is a
book with its faults, doubtless, as every book must be; but it has been
written straight from the heart, and will go to the heart of many ...
Alfred Sutro
WISDOM AND DESTINY
1. In this book there will often be mention of wisdom and destiny, of
happiness, justice, and love. There may seem to be some measure of
irony in thus calling forth an intangible happiness where so much real
sorrow prevails; a justice that may well be ideal in the bosom of an
injustice, alas! only too material; a love that eludes the grasp in the
midst of palpable hatred and callousness. The moment may seem but
ill-chosen for leisurely search, in the hidden recess of man's heart,
for motives of peace and tranquillity; occasions for gladness,
uplifting, and love; reasons for wonder and gratitude--seeing that the
vast bulk of mankind, in whose name we would fain lift our voice, have
not even the time or assurance to drain to the dregs the misery and
desolation of life. Not to them is it given to linger over the inward
rejoicing, the profound consolation, that the satisfied thinker has
slowly and painfully acquired, that he knows how to prize. Thus has it
often been urged against moralists, among them Epictetus, that they
were apt to concern themselves with none but the wise alone. In this
reproach is some truth, as some truth there must be in every reproach
that is made. And indeed, if we had only the courage to listen to the
simplest, the nearest, most pressing voice of our conscience, and be
deaf to all else, it were doubtless our solitary duty to relieve the
suffering about us to the greatest extent in our power. It were
incumbent upon us to visit and nurse the poor, to console the
afflicted; to found model factories, surgeries, dispensaries, or at
least to devote ourselves, as men of science do, to wresting from
nature the material secrets which are most essential to man. But yet,
were the world at a given moment to contain only persons thus actively
engaged in helping each other, and none venturesome enough to dare
snatch leisure for research in other directions, then could this
charitable labour not long endure; for all that is best in the good
that at this day is being done round about us, was conceived in the
spirit of one of those who neglected, it may be, many an urgent,
immediate duty in order to think, to commune with themselves, in order
to speak. Does it follow that they did the best that was to be done? To
such a question as this who shall dare to reply? The soul that is
meekly honest must ever consider the simplest, the nearest duty to be
the best of all things it can do; but yet were there cause for regret
had all men for all time restricted themselves to the duty that lay
nearest at hand. In each generation some men have existed who held in
all loyalty that they fulfilled the duties of the passing hour by
pondering on those of the hour to come. Most thinkers will say that
these men were right. It is well that the thinker should give his
thoughts to the world, though it must be admitted that wisdom befinds
itself sometimes in the reverse of the sage's pronouncement. This
matters but little, however; for, without such pronouncement, the
wisdom had not stood revealed; and the sage has accomplished his duty.
2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is the
misery of man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so should
there be physicians for human misery. But can the fact that disease is,
unhappily, only too prevalent, render it wrong for us ever to speak of
health? which were indeed as though, in anatomy--the physical science
that has most in common with morals--the teacher confined himself
exclusively to the study of the deformities that greater or lesser
degeneration will induce in the organs of man. We have surely the right
to demand that his theories be based on the healthy and vigorous body;
as we have also the right to demand that the moralist, who fain would
see beyond the present hour, should take as his standard the soul that
is happy, or that at least possesses every element of happiness, save
only the necessary consciousness.
We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I imagine,
neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times, as though
this injustice had ended, else should we never emerge from our circle.
It is imperative that there should be some who dare speak, and think,
and act as though all men were happy; for otherwise, when the day comes
for destiny to throw open to all the people's garden of the promised
land, what happiness shall the others find there, what justice, what
beauty or love? It may be urged, it is true, that it were best, first
of all, to consider the most pressing needs, yet is this not always
wisest; it is often of better avail from the start to seek that which
is highest. When the waters beleaguer the home of the peasant in
Holland, the sea or the neighbouring river having swept down the dyke
that protected the country, most pressing is it then for the peasant to
safeguard his cattle, his grain, his effects; but wisest to fly to the
top of the dyke, summoning those who live with him, and from thence
meet the flood, and do battle. Humanity up to this day has been like an
invalid tossing and turning on his couch in search of repose; but
therefore none the less have words of true consolation come only from
those who spoke as though man were freed from all pain. For, as man was
created for health, so was mankind created for happiness; and to speak
of its misery only, though that misery be everywhere and seem
everlasting, is only to say words that fall lightly and soon are
forgotten. Why not speak as though mankind were always on the eve of
great certitude, of great joy? Thither, in truth, is man led by his
instinct, though he never may live to behold the long-wished-for
to-morrow. It is well to believe that there needs but a little more
thought, a little more courage, more love, more devotion to life, a
little more eagerness, one day to fling open wide the portals of joy
and of truth. And this thing may still come to pass. Let us hope that
one day all mankind will be happy and wise; and though this day never
should dawn, to have hoped for it cannot be wrong. And in any event, it
is helpful to speak of happiness to those who are sad, that thus at
least they may learn what it is that happiness means. They are ever
inclined to regard it as something beyond them, extraordinary, out of
their reach. But if all who may count themselves happy were to tell,
very simply, what it was that brought happiness to them, the others
would see that between sorrow and joy the difference is but as between
a gladsome, enlightened acceptance of life and a hostile, gloomy
submission; between a large and harmonious conception of life, and one
that is stubborn and narrow. "Is that all?" the unhappy would cry. "But
we too have within us, then, the elements of this happiness." Surely
you have them within you! There lives not a man but has them, those
only excepted upon whom great physical calamity has fallen. But speak
not lightly of this happiness. There is no other. He is the happiest
man who best understands his happiness; for he is of all men most fully
aware that it is only the lofty idea, the untiring, courageous, human
idea, that separates gladness from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful
to speak, and as often as may be; not with the view of imposing our own
idea upon others, but in order that they who may listen shall, little
by little, conceive the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in
no two men is it the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no
comfort to me; nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs of
my life. Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; but you
unconsciously make this the easier for me, by telling of the idea that
is yours. It may happen that I shall find solace in that which brings
sorrow to you, and that which to you speaks of gladness may be fraught
with affliction for me. But no matter; into my grief will enter all
that you saw of beauty and comfort, and into my joy there will pass all
that was great in your sadness, if indeed my joy be on the same plane
as your sadness. It behoves us, the first thing of all, to prepare in
our soul a place of some loftiness, where this idea may be lodged; as
the priests of ancient religions laid the mountain peak bare, and
cleared it of thorn and of root for the fire to descend from heaven.
There may come to us any day, from the depths of the planet Mars, the
infallible formula of happiness, conveyed in the final truth as to the
aim and the government of the universe. Such a formula could only bring
change or advancement unto our spiritual life in the degree of the
desire and expectation of advancement in which we might long have been
living. The formula would be the same for all men, yet would each one
benefit only in the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness,
knowledge, that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all study
of justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation,
provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, a
stepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable day
of all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute truth,
in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is given us to
live in a truth more important still, the truth of our soul and our
character; and some wise men have proved that this life can be lived in
the midst of gravest material errors.
3. Is it idle to speak of justice, happiness, morals, and all
things connected therewith, before the hour of science has
sounded--that definitive hour, wherein all that we cling to may
crumble? The darkness that hangs over our life will then, it may be,
pass away; and much that we do in the darkness shall be otherwise done
in the light. But nevertheless do the essential events of our moral and
physical life come to pass in the darkness as completely, as
inevitably, as they would in the light, Our life must be lived while we
wait for the word that shall solve the enigma, and the happier, the
nobler our life, the more vigorous shall it become; and we shall have
the more courage, clear-sightedness, boldness, to seek and desire the
truth. And happen what may, the time can be never ill-spent that we
give to acquiring some knowledge of self. Whatever our relation may
become to this world in which we have being, in our soul there will yet
be more feelings, more passions, more secrets unchanged and unchanging,
than there are stars that connect with the earth, or mysteries fathomed
by science. In the bosom of truth undeniable, truth all absorbing, man
shall doubtless soar upwards; but still, as he rises, still shall his
soul unerringly guide him; and the grander the truth of the universe,
the more solace and peace it may bring, the more shall the problems of
justice, morality, happiness, love, present to the eyes of all men the
semblance they ever have worn in the eyes of the thinker. We should
live as though we were always on the eve of the great revelation; and
we should be ready with welcome, with warmest and keenest and fullest,
most heartfelt and intimate welcome. And whatever the form it shall
take on the day that it comes to us, the best way of all to prepare for
its fitting reception is to crave for it now, to desire it as lofty, as
perfect, as vast, as ennobling as the soul can conceive. It must needs
be more beautiful, glorious, and ample than the best of our hopes; for,
where it differ therefrom or even frustrate them, it must of necessity
bring something nobler, loftier, nearer to the nature of man, for it
will bring us the truth. To man, though all that he value go under, the
intimate truth of the universe must be wholly, preeminently admirable.
And though, on the day it unveils, our meekest desires turn to ashes
and float on the wind, still shall there linger within us all we have
prepared; and the admirable will enter our soul, the volume of its
waters being as the depth of the channel that our expectation has
fashioned.
4. Is it necessary that we should conceive ourselves to be superior
to the universe? Our reason may prove what it will: our reason is only
a feeble ray that has issued from Nature; a tiny atom of that whole
which Nature alone shall judge. Is it fitting that the ray of light
should desire to alter the lamp whence it springs?
That loftiness within us, from whose summit we venture to pass judgment
on the totality of life, to absolve or condemn it, is doubtless the
merest pin-prick, visible to our eye alone, on the illimitable sphere
of life. It is wise to think and to act as though all that happened to
man were all that man most required. It is not long ago--to cite only
one of the problems that the instinct of our planet is invited to
solve--that a scheme was on foot to inquire of the thinkers of Europe
whether it should rightly be held as a gain or a loss to mankind if an
energetic, strenuous, persistent race, which some, through prejudice
doubtless, still regard as inferior to the Aryan in qualities of heart
and of soul--if the Jews, in a word, were to vanish from the face of
the earth, or to acquire preponderance there. I am satisfied that the
sage might answer, without laying himself open to the charge of
indifference or undue resignation, "In what comes to pass will be
happiness." Many things happen that seem unjust to us; but of all the
achievements of reason there has been none so helpful as the discovery
of the loftier reason that underlies the misdeeds of nature. It is from
the slow and gradual vindication of the unknown force that we deemed at
first to be pitiless, that our moral and physical life has derived its
chief prop and support. If a race disappears that conforms with our
every ideal, it will be only because our ideal still falls short of the
grand ideal, which is, as we have said, the intimate truth of the
universe.
Our own experience has taught us that even in this world of reality
there exist dreams and desires, thoughts and feelings of beauty, of
justice, and love, that are of the noblest and loftiest. And if there
be any that shrink from the test of reality--in other words, from the
mysterious, nameless power of life--it follows that these must be
different, but not that their beauty is less, or their vastness, or
power to console. Till reality confront us, it is well, it may be, to
cherish ideals that we hold to surpass it in beauty; but once face to
face with reality, then must the ideal flame that has fed on our
noblest desires be content to throw faithful light on the less fragile,
less tender beauty of the mighty mass that crushes these desires. Nor
does this seem to me to imply a mere drowsy fatalism, or servile
acquiescence, or optimism shrinking from action. The sage no doubt must
many a time forfeit some measure of the blind, the head-strong,
fanatical zeal that has enabled some men, whose reason was fettered and
bound, to achieve results that are nigh superhuman; but therefore none
the less is it certain that no man of upright soul should go forth in
search of illusion or blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a region
inferior to that of his noblest hours. To do our true duty in life, it
must ever be done with the aid of all that is highest in our soul,
highest in the truth that is ours. And even though it be permissible at
times in actual, every-day life to compromise with events, and not
follow impulse to the ruthless end--as did St. Just, for instance, who
in his admirable and ardent desire for universal peace, happiness,
justice, in all good faith sent thousands to the scaffold--in the life
of thought it is our unvarying duty to pursue our thought right to the
end.
Again, the knowledge that our actions still await the seal of final
truth can deter from action those only who would have remained no less
inert had no such knowledge been theirs. Thought that rises encourages
where it disheartens. And to those of a loftier vision, prepared in
advance to admire the truth that will nullify all they have done, it
seems only natural still to endeavour with all might and main to
enhance what yet may be termed the justice, the beauty, the reason of
this our earth. They know that to penetrate deeper, to understand, to
respect--all this is enhancement. Above all, they have faith in "the
idea of the universe." They are satisfied that every effort that tends
to improvement approaches the secret intention of life; they are taught
by the failure of their noblest endeavours, by the resistance of this
mighty world, to discover anew fresh reasons for wonder, for ardour,
for hope.
As you climb up a mountain towards nightfall, the trees and the houses,
the steeple, the fields and the orchards, the road, and even the river,
will gradually dwindle and fade, and at last disappear in the gloom
that steals over the valley. But the threads of light that shine from
the houses of men and pierce through the blackest of nights, these
shine on undimmed. And every step that you take to the summit reveals
but more lights, and more, in the hamlets asleep at your foot. For
light, though so fragile, is perhaps the one thing of all that yields
naught of itself as it faces immensity. Thus it is with our moral light
too, when we look upon life from some slight elevation. It is well that
reflection should teach us to disburden our soul of base passions; but
it should not discourage, or weaken, our humblest desire for justice,
for truth, and for love.
Whence comes this rule that I thus propound? Nay, I know not myself. To
me it seems helpful and requisite; nor could I give reasons other than
spring from the feelings alone. Such reasons, however, at times should
by no means be treated too lightly. If I should ever attain a summit
whence this law seemed useless to me, I would listen to the secret
instinct bidding me not linger, but climb on still higher, till its
usefulness should once again be clearly apparent to me.
5. This general introduction over, let us speak more particularly
of the influence that wisdom can have upon destiny. And, the occasion
presenting itself here, I shall do well perhaps to state now, at the
very beginning, that in this book it will be vain to seek for any
rigorous method. For indeed it is but composed of oft-interrupted
thoughts, that entwine themselves with more or less system around two
or three subjects. Its object is not to convince; there is nothing it
professes to prove. Besides, in life books have by no means the
importance that writers and readers claim for them. We should regard
them as did a friend of mine, a man of great wisdom, who listened one
day to the recital of the last moments of the Emperor Antoninus Pius.
Antoninus Pius--who was perhaps truly the best and most perfect man
this world has known, better even than Marcus Aurelius; for in addition
to the virtues, the kindness, the deep feeling and wisdom of his
adopted son, he had something of greater virility and energy, of
simpler happiness, something more real, spontaneous, closer to everyday
life--Antoninus Pius lay on his bed, awaiting the summons of death, his
eyes dim with unbidden tears, his limbs moist with the pale sweat of
agony. At that moment there entered the captain of the guard, come to
demand the watchword, such being the custom. AEQUANIMITAS--EVENNESS OF
MIND, he replied, as he turned his head to the eternal shadow. It is
well that we should love and admire that word, said my friend. But
better still, he added, to have it in us to sacrifice, unknown to
others, unknown even to ourselves, the time fortune accords us wherein
to admire it, in favour of the first little useful, living deed that
the same fortune incessantly offers to every willing heart.
6. "It was doubtless the will of their destiny that men and events
should oppress them whithersoever they went," said an author of the
heroes of his book. Thus it is with the majority of men; Indeed, with
all those who have not yet learned to distinguish between exterior and
moral destiny. They are like a little bewildered stream that I chanced
to espy one evening as I stood on the hillside. I beheld it far down in
the valley, staggering, struggling, climbing, falling: blindly groping
its way to the great lake that slumbered, the other side of the forest,
in the peace of the dawn. Here it was a block of basalt that forced the
streamlet to wind round and about four times; there, the roots of a
hoary tree; further on still, the mere recollection of an obstacle now
gone for ever thrust it back to its source, bubbling in impotent fury,
divided for all time from its goal and its gladness. But, in another
direction, at right angles almost to the distraught, unhappy, useless
stream, a force superior to the force of instinct had traced a long,
greenish canal, calm, peaceful, deliberate; that flowed steadily across
the country, across the crumbling stones, across the obedient forest,
on its clear and unerring, unhurrying way from its distant source on
the horizon to the same tranquil, shining lake. And I had at my feet
before me the image of the two great destinies offered to man.
7. Side by side with those whom men and events oppress, there are
others who have within them some kind of inner force, which has its
will not only with men, but even with the events that surround them. Of
this force they are fully aware, and indeed it is nothing more than a
knowledge of self that has far overstepped the ordinary limits of
consciousness.
Our consciousness is our home, our refuge from the caprice of fate, our
centre of happiness and strength. But these things have been said so
often that we need do no more than refer to them, and indicate them as
our starting-point. Ennoblement comes to man in the degree that his
consciousness quickens, and the nobler the man has become, the
profounder must consciousness be. Admirable exchange takes place here;
and even as love is insatiable in its craving for love, so is
consciousness insatiable in its craving for growth, for moral
uplifting; and moral uplifting for ever is yearning for consciousness.
8. But this knowledge of self is only too often regarded as
implying no more than a knowledge of our defects and our qualities,
whereas it does indeed extend infinitely further, to mysteries vastly
more helpful. To know oneself in repose suffices not, nor does it
suffice to know oneself in the past or the present. Those within whom
lies the force that I speak of know themselves in the future too.
Consciousness of self with the greatest of men implies consciousness up
to a point of their star or their destiny. They are aware of some part
of their future, because they have already become part of this future.
They have faith in themselves, for they know in advance how events will
be received in their soul. The event in itself is pure water that flows
from the pitcher of fate, and seldom has it either savour or perfume or
colour. But even as the soul may be wherein it seeks shelter, so will
the event become joyous or sad, become tender or hateful, become deadly
or quick with life. To those round about us there happen incessant and
countless adventures, whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germ
of heroism; but the adventure passes away, and heroic deed is there
none. But when Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, an
adulterous woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession to
the level of God.
9. It might almost be said that there happens to men only that they
desire. It is true that on certain external events our influence is of
the feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which these
events shall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritual
part, on what is radiant, undying within them. There are thousands of
men within whom this spiritual part, that is craving for birth in every
misfortune, or love, or chance meeting, has known not one moment of
life--these men pass away like a straw on the stream. And others there
are within whom this immortal part absorbs all; these are like islands
that have sprung up in the ocean; for they have found immovable
anchorage, whence they issue commands that their destiny needs must
obey. The life of most men will be saddened or lightened by the thing
that may chance to befall them--in the men whom I speak of, whatever
may happen is lit up by their inward life. When you love, it is not
your love that forms part of your destiny; but the knowledge of self
that you will have found, deep down in your love--this it is that will
help to fashion your life. If you have been deceived, it is not the
deception that matters, but the forgiveness whereto it gave birth in
your soul, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of this
forgiveness--by these shall your life be steered to destiny's haven of
brightness and peace; by these shall your eyes see more clearly than if
all men had ever been faithful. But if, by this act of deceit, there
have come not more simpleness, loftier faith, wider range to your love,
then have you been deceived in vain, and may truly say nothing has
happened.
10. Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the
nature of ourselves. There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the
shape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are but offered to
those who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity and
silence. And whether you climb up the mountain or go down the hill to
the valley, whether you journey to the end of the world or merely walk
round your house, none but yourself shall you meet on the highway of
fate. If Judas go forth to-night, it is towards Judas his steps will
tend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open
his door, he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him,
and there will be occasion for wisdom. Our adventures hover around us
like bees round the hive when preparing to swarm. They wait till the
mother-idea has at last come forth from our soul, and no sooner has she
appeared than they all come rushing towards her. Be false, and
falsehoods will haste to you; love, and adventures will flock to you,
throbbing with love. They seem to be all on the watch for the signal we
hoist from within: and if the soul grow wiser towards evening, the
sorrow will grow wiser too that the soul had fashioned for itself in
the morning.
11. No great inner event befalls those who summon it not; and yet is
there germ of great inner event in the smallest occurrence of life. But
events such as these are apportioned by justice, and to each man is
given of the spoil in accord with his merits. We become that which we
discover in the sorrows and joys that befall us; and the least expected
caprices of fate soon mould themselves on our thoughts. It is in our
past that destiny finds all her weapons, her vestments, her jewels.
Were the only son of Thersites and Socrates to die the same day,
Socrates' grief would in no way resemble the grief of Thersites.
Misfortune or happiness, it seems, must be chastened ere it knock at
the door of the sage; but only by stooping low can it enter the
commonplace soul.
12. As we become wiser we escape some of our instinctive destinies.
There is in us all sufficient desire for wisdom to transform into
consciousness most of the hazards of life. And all that has thus been
transformed can belong no more to the hostile powers. A sorrow your
soul has changed into sweetness, to indulgence or patient smiles, is a
sorrow that shall never return without spiritual ornament; and a fault
or defect you have looked in the face can harm you no more, or even be
harmful to others.
Instinct and destiny are for ever conferring together; they support one
another, and rove, hand in hand, round the man who is not on his guard.
And whoever is able to curb the blind force of instinct within him, is
able to curb the force of external destiny also. He seems to create
some kind of sanctuary, whose inviolability will be in the degree of
his wisdom and the consciousness he has acquired becomes the centre of
a circle of light, within which the passer-by is secure from the
caprice of fate. Had Jesus Christ or Socrates dwelt in Agamemnon's
palace among the Atrides, then had there been no Oresteia; nor would
Oedipus ever have dreamed of destroying his sight if they had been
tranquilly seated on the threshold of Jocasta's abode. Fatality shrinks
back abashed from the should that has more than once conquered her;
there are certain disasters she dare not send forth when this soul is
near; and the sage, as he passes by, intervenes in numberless tragedies.
13. The mere presence of the sage suffices to paralyse destiny; and of
this we find proof in the fact that there exists scarce a drama wherein
a true sage appears; when such is the case, the event needs must halt
before reaching bloodshed and tears. Not only is there no drama wherein
sage is in conflict with sage, but indeed there are very few whose
action revolves round a sage. And truly, can we imagine that an event
shall turn into tragedy between men who have earnestly striven to gain
knowledge of self? But the heroes of famous tragedies do not question
their souls profoundly; and it follows therefrom that the beauty the
tragic poet presents is only a captive thing, is fettered with chains;
for were his heroes to soar to the height the real hero would gain,
their weapons would fall to the ground, and the drama itself become
peace--the peace of enlightenment. It is only in the Passion of Christ,
the Phaedo, Prometheus, the murder of Orpheus, the sacrifice of
Antigone--it is only in these that we find the drama of the sage, the
solitary drama of wisdom. But elsewhere it is rarely indeed that tragic
poets will allow a sage to appear on the scene, though it be for an
instant. They are afraid of a lofty soul; for they know that events are
no less afraid, and that a murder committed in the presence of the sage
seems quite other than the murder committed in the presence of those
whose soul still knows not itself. Had Oedipus possessed the inner
refuge that Marcus Aurelius, for instance, had been able to erect in
himself--a refuge whereto he could fly at all times--had he only
acquired some few of the certitudes open to every thinker--what could
destiny then have done? What would she have entrapped in her snares?
Would they have contained aught besides the pure light that streams
from the lofty soul, as it grows more beautiful still in misfortune?
But where is the sage in Oedipus? Is it Tiresias? He reads the future,
but knows not that goodness and forgiveness are lords of the future. He
knows the truth of the gods, but not the truth of mankind. He ignores
the wisdom that takes misfortune to her arms and would fain give it of
her strength. Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of
love be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who,
seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who sees
without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.
14. We are told that the famous tragedies show us the struggle of man
against Fate. I believe, on the contrary, that scarcely a drama exists
wherein fatality truly does reign. Search as I may, I cannot find one
which exhibits the hero in conflict with destiny pure and simple. For
indeed it is never destiny that he attacks; it is with wisdom he is
always at war. Real fatality exists only in certain external
disasters-as disease, accident, the sudden death of those we love; but
INNER FATALITY there is none. Wisdom has will power sufficient to
rectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at times
invade the narrow domain of external fatality. It is true that we must
have amassed considerable and patient treasure within us for this will
power to find the resources it needs.
15. The statue of destiny casts a huge shadow over the valley, which it
seems to enshroud in gloom; but this shadow has clearest outline for
such as look down from the mountain. We are born, it may be, with the
shadow upon us; but to many men is it granted to emerge from beneath
it; and even though infirmity or weakness keep us, till death, confined
in these sombre regions, still we can fly thence at times on the wings
of our hopes and our thoughts. There may well be some few over whom
Fate exerts a more tyrannous power, by virtue of instinct, heredity and
other laws more relentless still, more profound and obscure; but even
when we writhe beneath unmerited, crushing misfortune; even when
fortune compels us to do the thing we should never have done, had our
hands been free; even then, when the deed has been done, the misfortune
has happened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the least
influence on that which shall come to pass in our soul. She may strike
at the heart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keep
back the light that shall stream to this heart from the error
acknowledged, the pain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the
soul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into
feelings and treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so
great over all things external, she always must halt when she finds on
the threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. And if it be granted
her then to pass through to the hidden dwelling, it is but as a
bountiful guest she will enter, bringing with her new pledges of peace:
refreshing the slumberous air, and making still clearer the light, the
tranquillity deeper--illumining all the horizon.