long time to come, shall be laden with deep consolation. It is
needful, but not all-sufficient, to have reflected deeply and boldly
on man, and nature, and God; for the profoundest thought is of
little avail if it contain no germ of comfort. Indeed, it is only
thought that the thinker, as yet, does nor wholly possess; as the
other thoughts are, too, that remain outside our normal, everyday
life. It is easier far to be sad and dwell in affliction than at
once to do what time in the end will always compel us to do: to
shake ourselves free from affliction. He who spends his days
gloomily, in constant mistrust of his fellows, will often appear a
profounder thinker than the other, who lives in the faith and honest
simplicity wherein all men should dwell. Is there a man can believe
he has done all it lay in his power to do if, as he meditates thus,
in the name of his brethren, on the sorrows of life, he hides from
them--anxious, perhaps, not to weaken his grandiose picture of
sorrow--the reasons wherefore he accepts life, reasons that must be
decisive, since he himself continues to live? The thought must be
incomplete surely whose object is not to console. It is easier for
you to tell me the cause of your sorrow than, very simply, to speak
of the deeper, the weightier reasons that induce your instinct to
cling to this life whose distress you bemoan. Which of us finds not,
unsought, many thousands of reasons for sorrow? It is doubtless of
service that the sage should point out those that are loftiest, for
the loftiest reasons for sorrow must be on the eve of becoming
reasons for gladness and joy. But reasons that have not within them
these germs of greatness and happiness--and in moral life open
spaces abound where greatness and happiness blend--these are surely
not worthy of mention. Before we can bring happiness to others, we
first must be happy ourselves; nor will happiness abide within us
unless we confer it on others. If there be a smile upon our lips,