lie in wait? So little! The soul is not exacting. A thought that is
almost beautiful—a thought that you speak not, but that you cherish
within you at this moment, will irradiate you as though you were a
transparent vase. They will see it and their greeting to you will be
very different than had you been meditating how best to deceive your
brother. We are surprised when certain men tell us that they have never
come across real ugliness, that they cannot conceive that a soul can be
base. Yet need there be no cause for surprise. These men had ‘begun.’
They themselves had been the first to be beautiful, and had therefore
attracted all the beauty that passed by, as a lighthouse attracts
the vessels from the four corners of the horizon. Some there are who
complain of women, for instance, never dreaming that, the first time a
man meets a woman, a single word or thought that denies the beautiful
or profound will be enough to poison for ever _his existence_ in
her soul. ‘For my part,’ said a sage to me one day, ‘I have never
come across a single woman who did not bring to me something that was
great.’ He was great himself first of all; therein lay his secret.
There is one thing only that the soul can never forgive; it is to have
been compelled to behold, or share, or pass close to an ugly action,
word, or thought. It cannot forgive, for forgiveness here were but
the denial of itself. And yet with the generality of men, ingenuity,
strength and skill do but imply that the soul must first of all be
banished from their life, and that every impulse that lies too deep
must be carefully brushed aside. Even in love do they act thus, and
therefore it is that the woman, who is so much nearer the truth, can
scarcely ever live a moment of the true life with them. It is as though
men dreaded the contact of their soul, and were anxious to keep its
beauty at immeasurable distance. Whereas, on the contrary, we should
endeavour to move in advance of ourselves. If at this moment you think
or say something that is too beautiful to be true in you—if you have
but endeavoured to think or say it to-day, on the morrow it will be
true. We must try to be more beautiful than ourselves; we shall never
distance our soul. We can never err when it is question of silent or
hidden beauty. Besides, so long as the spring within us be limpid,
it matters but little whether error there be or not. But do any of
us ever dream of making the slightest unseen effort? And yet in the
domain where we are everything is effective, for that everything is
waiting. All the doors are unlocked, we have but to push them open, and
the palace is full of manacled queens. A single word will very often
suffice to clear the mountain of refuse. Why not have the courage to
meet a base question with a noble answer? Do you imagine it would pass
quite unnoticed or merely arouse surprise? Do you not think it would
be more akin to the discourse that would naturally be held between two
souls? We know not where it may give encouragement, where freedom. Even
he who rejects your words will, in spite of himself, have taken a step
towards the beauty that is within him. Nothing of beauty dies without
having purified something, nor can aught of beauty be lost. Let us not
be afraid of sowing it along the road. It may remain there for weeks or
years, but like the diamond it cannot dissolve, and finally there will
pass by some one whom its glitter will attract; he will pick it up and
go his way, rejoicing. Then why keep back a lofty, beautiful word, for
that you doubt whether others will understand? An instant of higher
goodness was impending over you; why hinder its coming, even though
you believe not that those about you will profit thereby? What if you
are among men of the valley, is that sufficient reason for checking
the instinctive movement of your soul towards the mountain peaks? Does
darkness rob deep feeling of its power? Have the blind nought but
their eyes wherewith to distinguish those who love them from those who
love them not? Can the beauty not exist that is not understood, and is
there not in every man something that does understand—in regions far
beyond what he seems to understand, far beyond, too, what he believes
he understands? ‘Even to the very wretchedest of all,’ said to me one
day the loftiest minded creature it has ever been my happiness to
know, ‘even to the very wretchedest of all I never have the courage
to say anything in reply that is ugly or mediocre.’ I have for a long
time followed that man’s life, and have seen the inexplicable power
he exercised over the most obscure, the most unapproachable, the
blindest, even the most rebellious of souls. For no tongue can tell the
power of a soul that strives to live in an atmosphere of beauty, and is
actively beautiful in itself. And indeed is it not the quality of this
activity that renders a life either miserable or divine?
If we could but probe to the root of things it might well be discovered
that it is by the strength of some souls that are beautiful that others
are sustained in life. Is it not the idea we each form of certain
chosen ones that constitutes the only living, effective morality? But
in this idea how much is there of the soul that is chosen, how much of
him who chooses? Do not these things blend very mysteriously, and does
not this ideal morality lie infinitely deeper than the morality of the
most beautiful books? A far-reaching influence exists therein whose
limits it is indeed difficult to define, and a fountain of strength
whereat we all of us drink many times a day. Would not any weakness in
one of those creatures whom you thought perfect and loved in the region
of beauty, at once lessen your confidence in the universal greatness of
things, and would your admiration for them suffer?
And again, I doubt whether anything in the world can beautify a soul
more spontaneously, more naturally, than the knowledge that somewhere
in its neighbourhood there exists a pure and noble being whom it can
unreservedly love. When the soul has veritably drawn near to such a
being, beauty is no longer a lovely, lifeless thing that one exhibits
to the stranger, for it suddenly takes unto itself an imperious
existence, and its activity becomes so natural as to be henceforth
irresistible. Wherefore you will do well to think it over, for none are
alone, and those who are good must watch.
Plotinus, in the eighth book of the fifth ‘Ennead,’ after speaking
of the beauty that is ‘intelligible’—_i.e._, divine, concludes
thus: ‘As regards ourselves, we are beautiful when we belong to
ourselves, and ugly when we lower ourselves to our inferior nature.
Also are we beautiful when we know ourselves, and ugly when we have
no such knowledge.’ Bear it in mind, however, that here we are on the
mountains, where not to know oneself means far more than mere ignorance
of what takes place within us at moments of jealousy or love, fear or
envy, happiness or unhappiness. Here not to know oneself means to be
unconscious of all the divine that throbs in man. As we wander from
the gods within us so does ugliness enwrap us; as we discover them, so
do we become more beautiful. But it is only by revealing the divine
that is in us that we may discover the divine in others. Needs must
one god beckon to another, and no signal is so imperceptible but they
will every one of them respond. It cannot be said too often that, be
the crevice never so small, it will yet suffice for all the waters of
heaven to pour into our soul. Every cup is stretched out to the unknown
spring, and we are in a region where none think of aught but beauty. If
we could ask of an angel what it is that our souls do in the shadow,
I believe the angel would answer, after having looked for many years
perhaps, and seen far more than the things the soul seems to do in the
eyes of men, ‘They transform into beauty all the little things that
are given to them.’ Ah! we must admit that the human soul is possessed
of singular courage! Resignedly does it labour, its whole life long,
in the darkness whither most of us relegate it, where it is spoken to
by none. There, never complaining, does it do all that in its power
lies, striving to tear from out the pebbles we fling to it the nucleus
of eternal light that peradventure they contain. And in the midst of
its work it is ever lying in wait for the moment when it may show, to
a sister who is more tenderly cared for, or who chances to be nearer,
the treasures it has so toilfully amassed. But thousands of existences
there are that no sister visits; thousands of existences wherein life
has infused such timidity into the soul that it departs without saying
a word, without even once having been able to deck itself with the
humblest jewels of its humble crown....
And yet, in spite of all, does it watch over everything from out its
invisible heaven. It warns and loves, it admires, attracts, repels. At
every fresh event does it rise to the surface, where it lingers till
it be thrust down again, being looked upon as wearisome and insane.
It wanders to and fro, like Cassandra at the gates of the Atrides.
It is ever giving utterance to words of shadowy truth, but there are
none to listen. When we raise our eyes it yearns for a ray of sun or
star, that it may weave into a thought, or, haply, an impulse, which
shall be unconscious and very pure. And if our eyes bring it nothing,
still will it know how to turn its pitiful disillusion into something
ineffable, that it will conceal even till its death. When we love, how
eagerly does it drink in the light from behind the closed door—keen
with expectation, it yet wastes not a minute, and the light that steals
through the apertures becomes beauty and truth to the soul. But if the
door opens not (and how many lives are there wherein it does open?) it
will go back into its prison, and its regret will perhaps be a loftier
verity that shall never be seen, for we are now in the region of
transformations whereof none may speak; and though nothing born this
side of the door can be lost, yet does it never mingle with our life....
I said just now that the soul changed into beauty the little things
we gave to it. It would even seem, the more we think of it, that the
soul has no other reason for existence, and that all its activity is
consumed in amassing, at the depths of us, a treasure of indescribable
beauty. Might not everything naturally turn into beauty, were we not
unceasingly interrupting the arduous labours of our soul? Does not
evil itself become precious so soon as it has gathered therefrom the
deep lying diamond of repentance? The acts of injustice whereof you
have been guilty, the tears you have caused to flow, will not these
end too by becoming so much radiance and love in your soul? Have you
ever cast your eyes into this kingdom of purifying flame that is
within you? Perhaps a great wrong may have been done you to-day, the
act itself being mean and disheartening, the mode of action of the
basest, and ugliness wrapped you round as your tears fell. But let
some years elapse, then give one look into your soul, and tell me
whether, beneath the recollection of that act, you see not something
that is already purer than thought; an indescribable, unnameable force
that has nought in common with the forces of this world; a mysterious
inexhaustible spring of the other life, whereat you may drink for the
rest of your days. And yet will you have rendered no assistance to
the untiring queen; other thoughts will have filled your mind, and it
will be without your knowledge that the act will have been purified
in the silence of your being, and will have flown into the precious
waters that lie in the great reservoir of truth and beauty, which,
unlike the shallower reservoir of true or beautiful thoughts, has an
ever unruffled surface, and remains for all time out of reach of the
breath of life. Emerson tells us that there is not an act or event in
our life but, sooner or later, casts off its outer shell, and bewilders
us by its sudden flight, from the very depths of us, on high into the
empyrean. And this is true to a far greater extent than Emerson had
foreseen, for the further we advance in these regions, the diviner are
the spheres we discover.
We can form no adequate conception of what this silent activity of
the souls that surround us may really mean. Perhaps you have spoken a
pure word to one of your fellows by whom it has not been understood.
You look upon it as lost and dismiss it from your mind. But one day,
peradventure, the word comes up again extraordinarily transformed,
and revealing the unexpected fruit it has borne in the darkness;
then silence once more falls over all. But it matters not; we have
learned that nothing can be lost in the soul, and that even to the
very pettiest there come moments of splendour. It is unmistakably
borne home to us that even the unhappiest and the most destitute of
men have at the depths of their being and in spite of themselves a
treasure of beauty that they cannot despoil. They have but to acquire
the habit of dipping into this treasure. It suffices not that beauty
should keep solitary festival in life; it has to become a festival of
every day. There needs no great effort to be admitted into the ranks
of those ‘whose eyes no longer behold earth in flower and sky in glory
in infinitesimal fragments, but indeed in sublime masses,’ and I speak
here of flowers and sky that are purer and more lasting than those that
we behold. Thousands of channels there are through which the beauty
of our soul may sail even unto our thoughts. Above all is there the
wonderful, central channel of love.
Is it not in love that are found the purest elements of beauty that we
can offer to the soul? Some there are who do thus in beauty love each
other. And to love thus means that, little by little, the sense of
ugliness is lost; that one’s eyes are closed to all the littlenesses
of life, to all but the freshness and virginity of the very humblest
of souls. Loving thus, we have no longer even the need to forgive.
Loving thus, we can no longer have anything to conceal, for that the
ever-present soul transforms all things into beauty. It is to behold
evil in so far only as it purifies indulgence, and teaches us no longer
to confound the sinner with his sin. Loving thus do we raise on high
within ourselves all those about us who have attained an eminence
where failure has become impossible; heights whence a paltry action
has so far to fall that, touching earth, it is compelled to yield up
its diamond soul. It is to transform, though all unconsciously, the
feeblest intention that hovers about us into illimitable movement. It
is to summon all that is beautiful in earth, heaven or soul, to the
banquet of love. Loving thus, we do indeed exist before our fellows as
we exist before God. It means that the least gesture will call forth
the presence of the soul with all its treasure. No longer is there need
of death, disaster or tears for that the soul shall appear; a smile
suffices. Loving thus, we perceive truth in happiness as profoundly as
some of the heroes perceived it in the radiance of greatest sorrow. It
means that the beauty that turns into love is undistinguishable from
the love that turns into beauty. It means to be able no longer to
tell where the ray of a star leaves off and the kiss of an ordinary
thought begins. It means to have come so near to God that the angels
possess us. Loving thus, the same soul will have been so beautified
by us all that it will become, little by little, the ‘unique angel’
mentioned by Swedenborg. It means that each day will reveal to us a
new beauty in that mysterious angel, and that we shall walk together
in a goodness that shall ever become more and more living, loftier
and loftier. For there exists also a lifeless beauty, made up of the
past alone; but the veritable love renders the past useless, and its
approach creates a boundless future of goodness, without disaster and
without tears. To love thus is but to free one’s soul, and to become
as beautiful as the soul thus freed. ‘If, in the emotion that this
spectacle cannot fail to awaken in thee,’ says the great Plotinus, when
dealing with kindred matters—and of all the intellects known to me
that of Plotinus draws the nearest to the divine—‘If, in the emotion
that this spectacle cannot fail to awaken in thee, thou proclaimest
not that it is beautiful; and if, plunging thine eyes into thyself,
thou dost not then feel the charm of beauty, it is in vain that, thy
disposition being such, thou shouldst seek the intelligible beauty; for
thou wouldst seek it only with that which is ugly and impure. Therefore
it is that the discourse we hold here is not addressed to all men. But
if thou hast recognised beauty within thyself, see that thou rise to
the recollection of the intelligible beauty.’
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh & London
End of Project Gutenberg's The Treasure of the Humble, by Maurice Maeterlinck