must be different, but not that their beauty is less, or their
vastness, or power to console. Till reality confront us, it is well,
it may be, to cherish ideals that we hold to surpass it in beauty;
but once face to face with reality, then must the ideal flame that
has fed on our noblest desires be content to throw faithful light on
the less fragile, less tender beauty of the mighty mass that crushes
these desires. Nor does this seem to me to imply a mere drowsy
fatalism, or servile acquiescence, or optimism shrinking from
action. The sage no doubt must many a time forfeit some measure of
the blind, the head-strong, fanatical zeal that has enabled some
men, whose reason was fettered and bound, to achieve results that
are nigh superhuman; but therefore none the less is it certain that
no man of upright soul should go forth in search of illusion or
blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a region inferior to that of his
noblest hours. To do our true duty in life, it must ever be done
with the aid of all that is highest in our soul, highest in the
truth that is ours. And even though it be permissible at times in
actual, every-day life to compromise with events, and not follow
impulse to the ruthless end--as did St. Just, for instance, who in
his admirable and ardent desire for universal peace, happiness,
justice, in all good faith sent thousands to the scaffold--in the
life of thought it is our unvarying duty to pursue our thought right
to the end.

Again, the knowledge that our actions still await the seal of final
truth can deter from action those only who would have remained no
less inert had no such knowledge been theirs. Thought that rises
encourages where it disheartens. And to those of a loftier vision,
prepared in advance to admire the truth that will nullify all they
have done, it seems only natural still to endeavour with all might