those around us will soon smile too; and our happiness will become
the truer and deeper as we see that these others are happy. "It is
not seemly that I, who, willingly, have brought sorrow to none,
should permit myself to be sad," said Marcus Aurelius, in one of his
noblest passages. But are we not saddening ourselves, and learning
to sadden others, if we refuse to accept all the happiness offered
to man?

59. The humble thought that connects a mere satisfied glance, an
ordinary, everyday act of simple kindness, or an insignificant
moment of happiness, with something eternal, and stable, and
beautiful, is of far greater value, and infinitely nearer to the
mystery of life, than the grand and gloomy meditation wherein
sorrow, love, and despair blend with death and destiny and the
apathetic forces of nature. Appearances often deceive us. Hamlet,
bewailing his fate on the brink of the gulf, seems profounder,
imbued with more passion, than Antoninus Pius, whose tranquil gaze
rests on the self-same forces, but who accepts them and questions
them calmly, instead of recoiling in horror and calling down curses
upon them. Our slightest gesture at nightfall seems more momentous
by far than all we have done in the day; but man was created to work
in the light, and not to burrow in darkness.

60. The smallest consoling idea has a strength of its own that is
not to be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisite
expression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with it
nothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness to
throw light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought of
hope, or of cheerful acceptance of inevitable law, in itself already
is action in search of a foothold wherefrom to take flight into