our thoughts rest on fate, at such times as happiness enfolds us, we
feel that no great misfortune can be suddenly burst upon us. The
proportions will change, it is true, when the blow falls; but it is
equally true that before the misfortune can wholly destroy the
abiding courage within us, it first must triumph in our heart over
all we adore, over all we admire, and love. And what alien power can
expel from our soul a feeling and thought that we hurl not our
selves from its throne? Physical suffering apart, not a single
sorrow exists that can touch us except through our thoughts; and
whence do our thoughts derive the weapons wherewith they attack or
defend us? We suffer but little from suffering itself; but from the
manner wherein we accept it overwhelming sorrow may spring. "His
unhappiness was caused by himself," said a thinker of one whose eyes
never looked over the brutal messenger's shoulder--"his unhappiness
was caused by himself; for all misery is inward, and caused by
ourselves. We are wrong in believing that it comes from without. For
indeed we create it within us, out of our very substance."

40. It is only in the manner of our facing the event that its active
force consists. Assemble ten men who, like Paulus Aemilius, have
lost both their sons at the moment when life seemed sweetest, then
will the misfortune appear to vary in every one. Misfortune enters
within us, but must of necessity yield obedience to all our
commands. Even as the order may be that it finds inscribed on the
threshold, so will it sow, or destroy, or reap. If my neighbour, a
commonplace man, were to lose his two sons at the moment when fate
had granted his dearest desires, then would darkness steal over all,
unrelieved by a glimmer of light; and misfortune itself,
contemptuous of its too facile success, would leave naught behind
but a handful of colourless cinders. Nor is it necessary for me to