is doubtless that I may learn to love those whom I love not yet."

43. And let us not think that these are mere empty words wherewith
they console themselves, words that in vain seek to hide the wound
that bleeds but the more for the effort. But if it were so, if empty
words could console, that surely were better than to be bereft of
all consolation. And further, if we have to admit that all this is
illusion, must we not, in mere justice, also admit that illusion is
the solitary thing that the soul can possess; and in the name of
what other illusion shall we venture to rate this illusion so
lightly? Ah, when the night falls and the great sages I speak of go
back to their lonely dwelling, and look on the chairs round the
hearth where their children once were, but never shall be again--
then, truly, can they not escape some part of the sorrow that comes,
overwhelming, to those whose suffering no noble thought chastens.
For it were wrong to attribute to beautiful feeling and thought a
virtue they do not possess. There are, external tears that they
cannot restrain; there are holy hours when wisdom cannot yet
console. But, for the last time let us say it, suffering we cannot
avoid for suffering there ever must be; still does it rest with
ourselves to choose what our suffering shall bring. And let us not
think that this choice, which the eye cannot see, is truly a very
small matter, and helpless to comfort a sorrow whose cause the eyes
never cease to behold. Out of small matters like these are all moral
joys built up, and these are profounder far than intellectual or
physical joys. Translate into words the feeling that spurs on the
hero, and how trivial it seems! Insignificant too does the idea of
duty appear that Cato the younger had formed, when compared with the
enormous disturbance it caused in a mighty empire, or the terrible
death it brought on. And yet, was not Cato's idea far greater than