indifference, call it cowardice--the matter is not mended. If one is
cold, one does not grow hot by pretending to perspire; if one is
indifferent, one does not become enthusiastic by indulging in hollow
rhetoric. If one is cowardly, one can only improve by facing a
necessary danger, not by thrusting oneself into perilous situations. To
marry without love, for the sake of the discipline, is as if a dizzy
man should adventure himself alone upon the Matterhorn; the rashness of
proved incapacity is not courage, but a detestable snobbishness. One
must make the best of the hard problem of God, not add to its
complexity, in order to increase one's patience. Neither men nor angels
have any patience with a fool, and it is the deed of a fool to
cultivate occasions of folly. One serves best by making the most of
one's faculties, not by choosing a life where one's disabilities have
full play, in order to correct them. I might as well tell the Pharisee,
who bids me let myself go, to take to drink, in order that he may learn
moral humility, or to do dishonest things for the discipline of
reprobation. I do not think so ill of God as not to believe that he is
trying to help me; as the old poet said, "The Gods give to each man
whatever is most appropriate to him. Man is dearer to the Gods than to
himself." God has sent me many gifts, both good and evil; but he has
not sent me a wife, perhaps in pity for a frail creature of his hand,
who might have had to bear that tedious fate! But I know what I miss,
and see that loveless self-interest is the dark bane of solitude. One
may call it a moral leprosy if one loves hard names; but no leper would
choose to be a leper if he could avoid it. Whatever happens in this dim
world, we should be tender and compassionate of one another. It is a
mere stupidity, that stupidity which is of the nature of sin, to
compassionate a man for being ill or poor, and not to compassionate him
for being cold and lonely. The solitary man must dwell within his own
shadow, and make what sport he can; and it is the saddest of all the
privileges of reasoning beings, that reason can thus debar a man from
wholesome experience. Even in the desolation of ruined Babylon the
satyr calls to his fellow and the great owl rears her brood; but the
narrow and shivering soul must sit in solitude, till perhaps on a day
of joy he may see the background of his dark heart all alive with a
tapestry of shining angels, bearing vials in their