itself in others, whereas it is in others that the strong soul
discovers itself. Here we have the essential distinction. There is a
thing that is loftier still than to love our neighbour as we love
ourselves; it is to love ourselves in our neighbour. Some souls
there are whom goodness walks before, as there are others that
goodness follows. Let us never forget that, in communion of soul,
the most generous by no means are they who believe they are
constantly giving. A strenuous soul never ceases to take, though it
be from the poorest; a weak soul always is giving, even to those
that have most; but there is a manner of giving which truly is only
the gesture of powerless greed; and we should find, it may be, if
reckoning were kept by a God, that in taking from others we give,
and in giving we take away. Often indeed will it so come about that
the very first ray of enlightenment will descend on the commonplace
soul the day it has met with another which took all that it had to
give.

71. Why not admit that it is not our paramount duty to weep with all
those who are weeping, to suffer with all who are sad, to expose our
heart to the passer-by for him to caress or stab? Tears and
suffering and wounds are helpful to us only when they do not
discourage our life. Let us never forget that whatever our mission
may be in this world, whatever the aim of our efforts and hopes, and
the result of our joys and our sorrows, we are, above all, the blind
custodians of life. Absolutely, wholly certain is that one thing
only; it is there that we find the only fixed point of human
morality. Life has been given us--for a reason we know not--but
surely not for us to enfeeble it, or carelessly fling it away. For
it is a particular form of life that we represent on this planet--
the life of feeling and thought; whence it follows perhaps that all