and strong character is the one
who is ever ready to sacrifice the present pleasure for the future good.
He who will thus follow his highest ideals as they present themselves to
him day after day, year after year, will find that as Dante, following
his beloved from world to world, finally found her at the gates of
Paradise, so he will find himself eventually at the same gates. Life is
not, we may say, for mere passing pleasure, but for the highest
unfoldment that one can attain to, the noblest character that one can
grow, and for the greatest service that one can render to all mankind.
In this, however, we will find the highest pleasure, for in this the
only real pleasure lies. He who would find it by any short cuts, or by
entering upon any other paths, will inevitably find that his last state
is always worse than his first; and if he proceed upon paths other than
these he will find that he will never find real and lasting pleasure at
all. The question is not, What are the conditions in our lives? but, How
do we meet the conditions that we find there? And whatever the
conditions are, it is unwise and profitless to look upon them, even if
they are conditions that we would have otherwise, in the attitude of
complaint, for complaint will bring depression, and depression will
weaken and possibly even kill the spirit that would engender the power
that would enable us to bring into our lives an entirely new set of
conditions.

In order to be concrete, even at the risk of being personal, I will say
that in my own experience there have come at various times into my life
circumstances and conditions that I gladly would have run from at the
time--conditions that caused at the time humiliation and shame and
anguish of spirit. But invariably, as sufficient time has passed, I have
been able to look back and see clearly the part which every experience
of the type just mentioned had to play in my life. I have seen the
lessons it was essential for me to learn; and the result is that now I
would not drop a single one of these experiences from my life,
humiliating and hard to bear as they were at the time; no, not for the
world. And here is also a lesson I have learned: whatever conditions are
in my life to-day that are not the easiest and most agreeable, and
whatever conditions of this type all coming time may bring, I will take
them just as they come, without complaint, without depression, and meet
them in the wisest possible way; kno