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Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 05 - Little Journeys to the Homes of English Authors by Elbert Hubbard
page 59 of 249 (23%)

One can bear grief, but it takes two to be glad.

We reach the Divine through some one, and by dividing our joy with this
one we double it, and come in touch with the Universal. The sky is never
so blue, the birds never sing so blithely, our acquaintances are never so
gracious, as when we are filled with love for some one.

Being in harmony with one we are in harmony with all.

The lover idealizes and clothes the beloved with virtues that exist only
in his imagination. The beloved is consciously or unconsciously aware of
this, and endeavors to fulfil the high ideal; and in the contemplation of
the transcendent qualities that his mind has created, the lover is raised
to heights otherwise unattainable.

Should the beloved pass from the earth while this condition of exaltation
endures, the conception is indelibly impressed upon the soul, just as the
last earthly view is said to be photographed upon the retina of the dead.
The highest earthly relationship is, in its very essence, fleeting, for
men are fallible, and living in a world where material wants jostle, and
time and change play their ceaseless parts, gradual obliteration comes
and disillusion enters. But the memory of a sweet affinity once fully
possessed, and snapped by Fate at its supremest moment, can never die from
out the heart. All other troubles are swallowed up in this, and if the
individual is of too stern a fiber to be completely crushed into the dust,
time will come bearing healing, and the memory of that once ideal
condition will chant in the heart a perpetual eucharist.

And I hope the world has passed forever from the nightmare of pity for the
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