in vain, if only they be large enough. Not even in this world do all
disappointments breed only vain regrets. [Footnote:
"We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which, having been, must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."]

And as to keeping to that which is known and leaving the rest--how many
affairs of this world are so well-defined, so capable of being clearly
understood, as not to leave large spaces of uncertainty, whose very
correlate faculty is the imagination? Indeed it must, in most things,
work after some fashion, filling the gaps after some possible plan,
before action can even begin. In very truth, a wise imagination, which
is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or
woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that
influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of
something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have
far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things
may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not
the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by
faith, and not by sight. Put the question to our mathematicians--only be
sure the question reaches them--whether they would part with the
well-defined perfection of their diagrams, or the dim, strange, possibly
half-obliterated characters woven in the web of their being; their
science, in short, or their poetry; their certainties, or their hopes;
their consciousness of knowledge, or their vague sense of that which