st years, thou hast
been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account
of? Say it in a word: is it not because thou art not HAPPY? Because
the THOU (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honored, nourished,
soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! What Act of
Legislature was there that _thou_ shouldst be Happy? A little while
ago thou hadst no right to _be_ at all. What if thou wert born and
predestined not to be Happy, but to be Unhappy! Art thou nothing other
than a Vulture, then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after
somewhat to _eat_; and shrieking dolefully because carrion enough is not
given thee? Close thy _Byron_; open thy _Goethe_."

"_Es leuchtet mir ein_, I see a glimpse of it!" cries he elsewhere:
"there is in man a HIGHER than Love of Happiness: he can do without
Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach
forth this same HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest,
in all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life
and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike
only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspiredd Doctrine art thou
also honored to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful
Afflictions, even till thou become contrite and learn it! Oh, thank thy
Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need
of them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant
fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease,
and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not
engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure;
love God. This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is
solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him."

And again: "Small is it that thou canst trample the Earth with its
injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee: thou canst love
the Earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for
this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he too was sent. Knowest thou
that '_Worship of Sorrow_'? The Temple thereof, founded some eighteen
centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation
of doleful creatures: nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt,
arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the Altar still there, and
its sacred Lamp perennially burning."

Without pretending to comment on which strange utter