punishes the wicked. What soul that were sure of reward could ever
claim to be good? But we are less just than destiny even, when it is
destiny that we judge. Our eyes see only the sage's misfortune, for
misfortune is known to us all; but we see not his happiness, for to
understand the happiness of the wise and the just whose destinies we
endeavour to gauge, we must needs be possessed of wisdom and justice
that shall be fully equal to theirs. When a man of inferior soul
endeavours to estimate a great sage's happiness, this happiness flows
through his fingers like water; yet is it heavy as gold, and as
brilliant as gold, in the hand of a brother sage. For to each is the
happiness given that he can best understand. The sage's misfortune may
often resemble the one that befalls other men; but his happiness has
nothing in common with that which he who is not wise terms happiness.
In happiness there are far more regions unknown than there are in
misfortune. The voice of misfortune is ever the same; happiness becomes
the more silent as it penetrates deeper.
When we put our misfortunes into one scale of the balance, each of us
lays, in the other, all that he deems to be happiness. The savage
flings feathers, and powder, and alcohol into the scale; civilised men
some gold, a few days of delirium; but the sage will deposit therein
countless things our eyes cannot see--all his soul, it may be, and even
the misfortune that he will have purified.
52. There is nothing in all the world more just than happiness, nothing
that will more faithfully adopt the form of our soul, or so carefully
fill the space that our wisdom clings open. Yet is it most silent of
all that there is in the world. The Angel of Sorrow can speak every
language--there is not a word but she knows; but the lips of the Angel
of Happiness are sealed, save when she tells of the savage's joys. It
is hundreds of centuries past that misfortune was cradled, but
happiness seems even now to have scarcely emerged from its infancy.
There are some men have learned to be happy; why are there none whose
great gladness has urged them to lift up their voice in the name of the
silent Archangel who has flooded their soul with light? Are we not
almost teaching happiness if we do only speak of it; invoking it, if we
let no day pass without pronouncing its name? And is it not the first
duty of those who are happy to tell of their gladness to others? All
men can learn to be happy; and the teaching of it is easy. If you live
among those who daily call blessing on life, it shall not be long ere
you will call blessing on yours. Smiles are as catching as tears; and
periods men have termed happy, were periods when there existed some who
knew of their happiness. Happiness rarely is absent; it is we that know
not of its presence. The greatest felicity avails us nothing if we know
not that we are happy; there is more joy in the smallest delight
whereof we are conscious, than in the approach of the mightiest
happiness that enters not into our soul. There are only too many who
think that what they have cannot be happiness; and therefore is it the
duty of such as are happy, to prove to the others that they only
possess what each man possesses deep down in the depths of his heart.
To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest of
happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come to us
one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman felicity, that
all men regarded with envy; and if he were very simply to say to us,
"All is mine that you pray for each day: I have riches, and youth, and
health; I have glory, and power, and love; and if to-day I am truly
able to call myself happy, it is not on account of the gifts that
fortune has deigned to accord me, but because I have learned from these
gifts to fix my eyes far above happiness. If my marvellous travels and
victories, my strength and my love, have brought me the peace and the
gladness I sought, it is only because they have taught me that it is
not in them that the veritable gladness and peace can be found. It was
in myself they existed, before all these triumphs; and still in myself
are they now, after all my achievement; and I know full well that had
but a little more wisdom been mine, I might have enjoyed all I now
enjoy without the aid of so much good fortune. I know that today I am
happier still than I was yesterday, because I have learned at last that
I stand in no need of good fortune in order to free my soul, to bring
peace to my thoughts, to enlighten my heart."
53. Of this the sage is fully aware, though no superhuman happiness may
have descended upon him. The upright man knows it too, though he be
less wise than the sage, and his consciousness less fully developed;
for an act of goodness or justice brings with it a kind of inarticulate
consciousness that often becomes more effective, more faithful, more
loving, than the consciousness that springs into being from the very
deepest thought. Acts of this nature bring, above all, a special
knowledge of happiness. Strive as we may, our loftiest thoughts are
always uncertain, unstable; but the light of a goodly deed shines
steadily on, and is lasting. There are times when deep thought is no
more than merely fictitious consciousness; but an act of charity, the
heroic duty fulfilled--these are true consciousness; in other words,
happiness in action. The happiness of Marcus Aurelius, who condones a
mortal affront; of Washington, giving up power when he feared that his
glory was leading his people astray--the happiness of these will differ
by far from that of some mean-souled, venomous creature who might (if
such a thing may be assumed) by mere chance have discovered some
extraordinary natural law. Long is the road that leads from the
satisfied brain to the heart at rest, and only such joys will nourish
there as are proof against winter's storms. Happiness is a plant that
thrives far more readily in moral than in intellectual life.
Consciousness--the consciousness of happiness, above all--will not
choose the intellect as a hiding-place for the treasure it holds most
dear. At times it would almost seem as if all that is loftiest in
intellect, fraught with most comfort, is transformed into consciousness
only when passed through an act of virtue. It suffices not to discover
new truths in the world of thought or of fact. For ourselves, a truth
only lives from the moment it modifies, purifies, sweetens something we
have in our soul. To be conscious of moral improvement is of the
essence of consciousness. Some beings there are, of vigorous intellect,
whose intellect never is used to discover a fault, or foster a feeling
of charity. And this happens often with women. In cases where a man and
a woman have equal intellectual power, the woman will always devote far
less of this power to acquiring moral self-knowledge. And truly the
intellect that aims not at consciousness is but beating its wings in
the void. Loss and corruption needs must ensue if the force of our
brain be not at once gathered up in the purest vase of our heart. Nor
can such an intellect ever know happiness; nay, it seems to invite
misfortune. For intellect may be of the loftiest, mightiest, and yet
perhaps never draw near unto joy; but in the soul that is gentle, and
pure, and good, sorrow cannot for ever abide. And even though the
boundary line between intellect and consciousness be not always as
clearly defined as here we seem to assume, even though a beautiful
thought in itself may be often a goodly action--yet, none the less will
a beautiful thought, that springs not from noble deed, or wherefrom
noble deed shall not spring, add but little unto our felicity; whereas
a good deed, though it father no thought, will ever fall like soft
bountiful rain on our knowledge of happiness.
54. "How final must his farewell to happiness have been," exclaims
Renan, speaking of the renouncement of Marcus Aurelius--"how final must
his farewell to happiness have been, for him to be capable of such
excess! None will ever know how great was the suffering of that poor,
stricken heart, or the bitterness the waxen brow concealed, calm
always, and even smiling. It is true that the farewell to happiness is
the beginning of wisdom, and the surest road to happiness. There is
nothing sweeter than the return of joy that follows the renouncement of
joy, as there is nothing more exquisite, of keener, deeper delight,
than the enchantment of the disenchanted."
In these terms does a sage describe a sage's happiness; but is it true
that the happiness of Marcus Aurelius, as of Renan himself, arose only
from the return of joy that followed the renouncement of joy, and from
the enchantment of the disenchanted? For then were it better that
wisdom be less, that we be the less disenchanted. But what can the
wisdom desire that declares itself thus disenchanted? Was it not truth
that it sought? and is there a truth that can stifle the love of truth
in the depths of a loyal heart? The truth that has taught you that man
is wicked and nature unjust; that justice is futile, and love without
power, has indeed taught you nothing if it have not at the same time
revealed a truth that is greater still, one that throws on these
disillusions a light more brilliant, more ample, than the myriad
flickering beams it has quenched all around you, For there lurks
unspeakable pride, and pride of the poorest kind, in thus declaring
ourselves satisfied because we can find satisfaction in nothing that
is. Such satisfaction, in truth, is discontent only, too sluggish to
lift its head; and they only are discontented who no longer would
understand.
Does not the man who conceives it his duty to forswear all happiness
renounce something as well that, as yet, has not turned into happiness?
And besides, what are the joys to which we bid this somewhat affected
farewell? It must surely be right to discard all happiness injurious to
others; but happiness that injures others will not long wear the
semblance of happiness in the eyes of the sage. And when his wisdom at
length has revealed the profounder joys, will it not be in all
unconsciousness that he renounces those of lesser worth?
Let us never put faith in the wisdom or gladness that is based on
contempt of a single existing thing; for contempt and renouncement, its
sickly offspring, offer asylum to none but the weak and the aged. We
have only the right to scorn a joy when such scorn is wholly
unconscious. But so long as we listen to the voice of contempt or
renouncement, so long as we suffer these to flood our heart with
bitterness, so long must the joy we discard be a joy that we still
desire.
We must beware lest there enter our soul certain parasitic virtues. And
renouncement, often, is only a parasite. Even if it do not enfeeble our
inward life, it must inevitably bring disquiet. Just as bees cease from
work at the approach of an intruder into their hive, so will the
virtues and strength of the soul into which contempt or renouncement
has entered, forsake all their tasks, and eagerly flock round the
curious guest that has come in the wake of pride; for so long as
renouncement be conscious, so long will the happiness found therein
have its origin truly in pride. And he who is bent on renouncement had
best, first of all, forswear the delights of pride, for these are
wholly vain and wholly deceptive.
55. Within reach of all, demanding neither boldness nor energy, is this
"enchantment of the disenchanted!" But what name shall we give to the
man who renounces that which brought happiness to him, and rather would
surely lose it to-day than live in fear lest fortune haply deprive him
thereof on the morrow? Is the mission of wisdom only to peer into the
uncertain future, with ear on the stretch for the footfall of sorrow
that never may come--but deaf to the whirr of the wings of the
happiness that fills all space?
Let us not look to renouncement for happiness till we have sought it
elsewhere in vain. It is easy to be wise if we be content to regard as
happiness the void that is left by the absence of happiness. But it was
not for unhappiness the sage was created; and it is more glorious, as
well as more human, to be happy and still to be wise. The supreme
endeavour of wisdom is only to seek in life for the fixed point of
happiness; but to seek this fixed point in renouncement and farewell to
joy, is only to seek it in death. He who moves not a limb is persuaded,
perhaps, he is wise; but was this the purpose wherefor mankind was
created? Ours is the choice--whether wisdom shall be the honoured wife
of our passions and feelings, our thoughts and desires, or the
melancholy bride of death. Let the tomb have its stagnant wisdom, but
let there be wisdom also for the hearth where the fire still burns.
56. It is not by renouncing the joys that are near us that we shall
grow wise; but as we grow wise we unconsciously abandon the joys that
now are beneath us. Even so does the child, as years come to him, give
up one by one without thinking the games that have ceased to amuse. And
just as the child learns far more from his play than from work that is
given him, so does wisdom progress far more quickly in happiness than
in misfortune. It is only one side of morality that unhappiness throws
into light; and the man whom sorrow has taught to be wise, is like one
who has loved and never been loved in return. There must always be
something unknown to the love whereto no other love has made answer;
and this, too, will remain unknown to him whose wisdom is born of
sorrow.
"Is happiness truly as happy as people imagine?" was asked of two happy
ones once by a philosopher whom protracted injustice had saddened. No;
it is a thing more desirable far, but also much less to be envied, than
people suppose; for it is in itself quite other than they can conceive
who have never been perfectly happy. To be gay is not to be happy, nor
will he who is happy always be gay. It is only the little ephemeral
pleasures that forever are smiling; and they die away as they smile.
But some loftiness once obtained, lasting happiness becomes no less
grave than majestic sorrow. Wise men have said it were best for us not
to be happy, so that happiness thus might be always the one thing
desired. But how shall the sage, to whom happiness never has come, be
aware that wisdom is the one thing alone that happiness neither can
sadden nor weary? Those thinkers have learned to love wisdom with a far
more intimate love whose lives have been happy, than those whose lives
have been sad. The wisdom forced into growth by misfortune is different
far from the wisdom that ripens beneath happiness. The first, where it
seeks to console, must whisper of happiness; the other tells of itself.
He who is sad is taught by his wisdom that happiness yet may be his; he
who is happy is taught by his wisdom that he may become wiser still.
The discovery of happiness may well be the great aim of wisdom; and we
needs must be happy ourselves before we can know that wisdom itself
contains all.
57. There are some who are wholly unable to support the burden of joy.
There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow. It may
even be true that permanent happiness calls for more strength in man
than permanent sorrow; for the heart wherein wisdom is not delights
more in the expectation of that which it has not yet, than in the full
possession of all it has ever desired. He in whom happiness dwells is
amazed at the heart that finds aliment only in fear or in hope, and
that cannot be nourished on what it possesses, though it possess all it
ever desired.
We often see men who are strong and morally prudent whom happiness yet
overcomes. Not finding therein all they sought, they do not defend it,
or cling to it, with the energy needful in life. We must have already
acquired some not inconsiderable wisdom to be undismayed at perceiving
that happiness too has its sorrow, and to be not induced by this sorrow
to think that ours cannot be the veritable happiness. The most precious
gift that happiness brings is the knowledge that springs up within us
that it is not a thing of mere ecstasy, but a thing that bids us
reflect. It becomes far less rare, far less inaccessible, from the
moment we know that its greatest achievement is to give to the soul
that is able to prize it an increase of consciousness, which the soul
could elsewhere never have found. To know what happiness means is of
far more importance to the soul of man than to enjoy it. To be able
long to love happiness great wisdom needs must be ours; but a wisdom
still greater for us to perceive, as we lie in the bosom of cloudless
joy, that the fixed and stable part of that joy is found in the force
which, deep down in our consciousness, could render us happy still
though misfortune wrapped us around. Do not believe you are happy till
you have been led by your happiness up to the heights whence itself
disappears from your gaze, but leaving you still, unimpaired, the
desire to live.
58. There are some profound thinkers, such as Pascal, Schopenhauer,
Hello, who seem not to have been happy, for all that the sense of the
infinite, universal, eternal, was loftily throned in their soul. But it
may well be an error to think that he who gives voice to the
multitude's sorrow must himself always be victim to great personal
despair. The horizon of sorrow, surveyed from the height of a thought
that has ceased to be selfish, instinctive, or commonplace, differs but
little from the horizon of happiness when this last is regarded from
the height of a thought of similar nature, but other in origin. And
after all, it matters but little whether the clouds be golden or gloomy
that yonder float over the plain; the traveller is glad to have reached
the eminence whence his eye may at last repose on illimitable space.
The sea is not the less marvellous and mysterious to us though white
sails be not for ever flitting over its surface; and neither tempest
nor day that is radiant and calm is able to bring enfeeblement unto the
life of our soul. Enfeeblement comes through our dwelling, by night and
by day, in the airless room of our cold, self-satisfied, trivial,
ungenerous thoughts, at a time when the sky all around our abode is
reflecting the light of the ocean.
But there is a difference perhaps between the sage and the thinker. It
may be that sorrow will steal over the thinker as he stands on the
height he has gained; but the sage by his side only smiles--and this
smile is so loyal, so human and natural, that the humblest creature of
all must needs understand, and will gladly welcome it to him, as it
falls like a flower to the foot of the mountain. The thinker throws
open the road "which leads from the seen to the unseen;" the sage
throws open the highway that takes us from that which we love to-day to
that which we yet shall love, and the paths that ascend from that which
has ceased to console to that which, for long time to come, shall be
laden with deep consolation. It is needful, but not all-sufficient, to
have reflected deeply and boldly on man, and nature, and God; for the
profoundest thought is of little avail if it contain no germ of
comfort. Indeed, it is only thought that the thinker, as yet, does nor
wholly possess; as the other thoughts are, too, that remain outside our
normal, everyday life. It is easier far to be sad and dwell in
affliction than at once to do what time in the end will always compel
us to do: to shake ourselves free from affliction. He who spends his
days gloomily, in constant mistrust of his fellows, will often appear a
profounder thinker than the other, who lives in the faith and honest
simplicity wherein all men should dwell. Is there a man can believe he
has done all it lay in his power to do if, as he meditates thus, in the
name of his brethren, on the sorrows of life, he hides from
them--anxious, perhaps, not to weaken his grandiose picture of
sorrow--the reasons wherefore he accepts life, reasons that must be
decisive, since he himself continues to live? The thought must be
incomplete surely whose object is not to console. It is easier for you
to tell me the cause of your sorrow than, very simply, to speak of the
deeper, the weightier reasons that induce your instinct to cling to
this life whose distress you bemoan. Which of us finds not, unsought,
many thousands of reasons for sorrow? It is doubtless of service that
the sage should point out those that are loftiest, for the loftiest
reasons for sorrow must be on the eve of becoming reasons for gladness
and joy. But reasons that have not within them these germs of greatness
and happiness--and in moral life open spaces abound where greatness and
happiness blend--these are surely not worthy of mention. Before we can
bring happiness to others, we first must be happy ourselves; nor will
happiness abide within us unless we confer it on others. If there be a
smile upon our lips, those around us will soon smile too; and our
happiness will become the truer and deeper as we see that these others
are happy. "It is not seemly that I, who, willingly, have brought
sorrow to none, should permit myself to be sad," said Marcus Aurelius,
in one of his noblest passages. But are we not saddening ourselves, and
learning to sadden others, if we refuse to accept all the happiness
offered to man?
59. The humble thought that connects a mere satisfied glance, an
ordinary, everyday act of simple kindness, or an insignificant moment
of happiness, with something eternal, and stable, and beautiful, is of
far greater value, and infinitely nearer to the mystery of life, than
the grand and gloomy meditation wherein sorrow, love, and despair blend
with death and destiny and the apathetic forces of nature. Appearances
often deceive us. Hamlet, bewailing his fate on the brink of the gulf,
seems profounder, imbued with more passion, than Antoninus Pius, whose
tranquil gaze rests on the self-same forces, but who accepts them and
questions them calmly, instead of recoiling in horror and calling down
curses upon them. Our slightest gesture at nightfall seems more
momentous by far than all we have done in the day; but man was created
to work in the light, and not to burrow in darkness.
60. The smallest consoling idea has a strength of its own that is not
to be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisite
expression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with it
nothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness to
throw light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought of
hope, or of cheerful acceptance of inevitable law, in itself already is
action in search of a foothold wherefrom to take flight into life. It
cannot be harmful for us to acknowledge at times that action begins
with reality only, though our thoughts be never so large and
disinterested and admirable in themselves. 'For all that goes to build
up what is truly our destiny is contained in those of our thoughts
which, hurried along by the mass of ideas still obscure, indistinct,
incomplete, have had strength sufficient--or been forced, it may be--to
turn into facts, into gestures, into feelings and habits. We do not
imply by this that the other thoughts should be neglected. Those that
surround our actual life may perhaps be compared with an army besieging
a city. The city once taken, the bulk of the troops would probably not
be permitted to pass through the gates. Admission would be doubtless
withheld from the irregular part of the army--barbarians, mercenaries,
all those, in a word, whose natural tendencies would lead them to
drunkenness, pillage, or bloodshed. And it might also very well happen
that fully two-thirds of the troops would have taken no part in the
final decisive battle. But there often is value in forces that appear
to be useless; and the city would evidently not have yielded to panic
and thrown open her gates, had the well-disciplined force at the foot
of the walls not been flanked by the hordes in the valley. So is it in
moral life, too. Those thoughts are not wholly vain that have been
unable to touch our actual life; they have helped on, supported, the
others; yet is it these others alone that have fully accomplished their
mission And therefore does it behove us to have in our service, drawn
up in front of the crowded ranks of our sad and bewildered thoughts, a
group of ideas more human and confident, ready at all times to
penetrate vigorously into life.