Life; Life the indomitable, the multifarious; Life, as it rises in the
scale, becoming conscious of itself--the thought of this recurs again
and again to one’s mind, and each time with a greater sense of power,
and of a sort of consolation. What limit need be assigned, one asks
oneself, to its capabilities, to the endless transformations, to the
possibilities, as yet unguessed at, which may have been destined for it
by its Inventor from the beginning of things? If the mere personal
consciousness, the precarious personal life, is rarely without an
element of discomfort, in this larger sense that personal life all but
disappears, and with the loss of it comes--not perhaps actual joy, that
could hardly be looked for--but at least a great exhilaration, an
extraordinary sense of width, of serenity, and of detachment.
As the mind descends deeper and deeper into that serene abyss it seems
to shake itself free for the time being from all that confused,
battling, disturbing sea in which its daily lot is cast. As that
downward course continues, all that appertains to the surface becomes
more and more dreamlike, as it might to a diver, and the mind widens and
strengthens insensibly with each descending fathom. “Life” is indeed a
marvellous shibboleth; a spell that unlocks innumerable doors; a word of
varied and manifold meanings. Merely to write it down, merely to utter
it, seems to clear the atmosphere. Mental fogs of all kinds at that
touch roll up their dingy tents, and depart. An impression of
morning--fresh, imperishable morning--hovers around it; youth, health,
fecundity, vigour belong to it. All the winds of Spring--“driving sweet
buds, like flocks to feed in air"--rush after it, and fan it on its
course. The sense of the good green earth, and of all those good green
things that belong to it, pours in a stream of joy through even the
dreariest veins. “And if one little planet is able to show it in this
inexhaustible profusion, what of all the other planets?” one thinks.
“What of those countless other worlds, all belonging to the same great
plan; all built and upheld by the same architectonic hand; all strung,
as it were, upon one great string, and vibrating eternally to a single
immortal touch?”