the hazard may be, all must allow who have
asked the sad question of the nineteenth century,--Is
life worth living? Surely it is sufficient
to spur man to new effort,--the
suspicion that beyond civilization, beyond
mental culture, beyond art and mechanical
perfection, there is a new, another gateway,
admitting to the realities of life.




V


When it seems as if the end was reached,
the goal attained, and that man has no more
to do,--just then, when he appears to have
no choice but between eating and drinking and
living in his comfort as the beasts do in theirs,
and scepticism which is death,--then it is that
in fact, if he will but look, the Golden Gates
are before him. With the culture of the age
within him and assimilated perfectly, so that
he is himself an incarnation of it, then he is fit
to attempt the great step which is absolutely
possible, yet is attempted by so few even of
those who are fitted for it. It is so seldom
attempted, partly because of the profound difficulties
which surround it, but much more