thoughts would then quickly cease to be just or profound. To disdain
is only too easy, not so to understand; but in him who is truly wise
there passes no thought of disdain, but it will, sooner or later,
evolve into full comprehension. The thought that can travel
scornfully over the heads of that great silent throng without
recognising its myriad brothers and sisters that are slumbering
there in its midst, is only too often merely a sterile, vicious
dream. We do well to remind ourselves at times that the spiritual,
no less than the physical, atmosphere demands more nitrogen than
oxygen for the air to be breathed by man.

85. It need not surprise us that thinkers like Balzac should have
loved to dwell on these humble lives. Eternal sameness runs through
them, and yet does each century mark profoundest change in the
atmosphere that enwraps them. The sky above has altered, but these
simple lives have ever the self-same gestures; and it is these
unchanging gestures that tell of the altered sky. A great deed of
heroism fascinates us; our eye cannot travel beyond the act itself;
but insignificant thoughts and deeds lead us on to the horizon
beyond them; and is not the shining star of human wisdom always
situate on the horizon? If we could see these things as nature sees
them, with her thoughts and feelings, we should realise that the
uniform mediocrity that runs through these lives cannot truly be
mediocre, from the mere fact of its uniformity. And indeed this
matters but little; we can never judge another soul above the high-
water mark of our own; and however insignificant a creature may seem
to us at first, as our own soul emerges from shadow, so does the
shadow lift from him. There is nothing our eyes behold that is too
small to deserve our love; and there where we cannot love, we have
only to raise our lamp till it reaches the level of love, and then