that he exists in every act that is human. He no longer requires
that death, or friendship, or love should come to him decked out
with garlands illusion has woven, or escorted by omen, coincidence,
presage; but they come in their bareness and simpleness, and are
always sure of his welcome. He believes that all that the weak, and
the idle, and thoughtless consider sublime and exceptional, that the
fall equivalent for the most heroic deed, can be found in the simple
life that is bravely and wholly faced. He no longer considers
himself the chosen son of the universe; but his happiness,
consciousness, peace of mind, have gained all that his pride has
lost. And, this point once attained, then will the miraculous
adventures of a St. Theresa or Jean-de-la-Croix, the ecstasy of the
mystics, the supernatural incidents of legendary loves, the star of
an Alexander or a Napoleon--then will all these seem the merest
childish illusions compared with the healthy wisdom of a loyal,
earnest man, who has no craving to soar above his fellows so as to
feel what they cannot feel, but whose heart and brain find the light
that they need in the unchanging feelings of all. The truest man
willnever be he who desires to be other than man. How many there are
that thus waste their lives, scouring the heavens for sight of the
comet that never will come; but disdaining to look at the stars,
because these can be seen by all, and, moreover, are countless in
number! This craving for the extraordinary is often the special
weakness of ordinary men, who fail to perceive that the more normal,
and ordinary, and uniform events may appear to us, the more are we
able to appreciate the profound happiness that this uniformity
enfolds, and the nearer are we drawn to the truth and tranquillity
of the great force by which we have being. What can be less abnormal
than the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the globe; and yet, what
is there more vast? There is not a thought or a feeling, not an act