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Wisdom and Destiny by Maurice Maeterlinck
page 123 of 165 (74%)
is not wise who will not confide in his friend, remembering always
that friendships may come to an end; nor the lover, who draws back
for fear lest he may find shipwreck in love. For here, were we
twenty times unfortunate, it is still only the perishable portion of
our energy for happiness that suffers; and what is wisdom after all
but this same energy for happiness cleansed of all that is impure?
To be wise we must first learn to be happy, that we may attach ever
smaller importance to what happiness may be in itself. We should be
as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as is
possible; for those who can finally issue forth from self by the
portal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who
pass through the gate of sadness. The joy of the sage illumines his
heart and his soul alike, whereas sadness most often throws light on
the heart alone. One might almost compare the man who had never been
happy with a traveller whose every journey had been taken by night.
Moreover, there is in happiness a humility deeper and nobler, purer
and wider, than sorrow can ever procure. There is a certain humility
that ranks with parasitic virtues, such as sterile self-sacrifice,
arbitrary chastity, blind submission, fanatic renouncement,
penitence, false shame, and many others, which have from time
immemorial turned aside from their course the waters of human
morality, and forced them into a stagnant pool, around which our
memory still lingers. Nor do I speak of a cunning humility that is
often mere calculation, or, taken at its best, a timidity that has
its root in pride--a loan at usury that our vanity of to-day extends
to our vanity of to-morrow. And even the sage at times conceives it
well to lower himself in his own self-esteem, and to deny superior
merits that are his when comparing himself with other men. Humility
of this kind may throw a charm around our ways of life, but yet,
sincere as it doubtless may be, it nevertheless attacks the loyalty
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