of beauty or nobility, whereof man is capable, but can find complete
expression in the simplest, most ordinary life; and all that cannot
be expressed therein must of necessity belong to the falsehoods of
vanity, ignorance, or sloth.

89. Does this mean that the wise man should expect no more from life
than other men; that he should love mediocrity and limit his
desires; content himself with little and restrict the horizon of his
happiness, because of the fear lest happiness escape him? By no
means; for the wisdom is halting and sickly that can too freely
renounce a legitimate human hope. Many desires in man may be
legitimate still, notwithstanding the disapproval of reason,
sometimes unduly severe. But the fact that our happiness does not
seem extraordinary to those about us by no means warrants our
thinking that we are not happy. The wiser we are, the more readily
do we perceive that happiness lies in our grasp; that it has no more
enviable gift than the uneventful moments it brings. The sage has
learnt to quicken and love the silent substance of life. In this
silent substance only can faithful joys be found, for abnormal
happiness never ventures to go with us to the tomb. The day that
comes and goes without special whisper of hope or happiness should
be as dear to us, and as welcome, as any one of its brothers. On its
way to us it has traversed the same worlds and the self-same space
as the day that finds us on a throne or enthralled by a mighty love.
The hours are less dazzling, perhaps, that its mantle conceals; but
at least we may rely more fully on their humble devotion. There are
as many eternal minutes in the week that goes by in silence, as in
the one that tomes boldly towards us with mighty shout and clamour.
And indeed it is we who tell ourselves all that the hour would seem
to say; for the hour that abides with us is ever a timid and nervous