the unfortunate ones who brood over the dregs of a life of
wretchedness. Whatever was one day and has now ceased to be, makes for
sadness; above all, whatever was very happy and very beautiful. The
object of our regrets--whether these revolve around what has been or
might have been--is therefore more or less the same for all men, and
their sorrow should be the same. It is not, however; in one case it
will reign uninterruptedly, whereas in another it will only appear at
very long intervals. It must therefore depend on things other than
accomplished facts. It depends on the manner in which men will deal
with these facts. The conquerors in this world--those who waste no
time setting up an imaginary irreparable and immutable athwart their
horizon, those who seem to be born afresh every morning in a world that
for ever awakes anew to the future--these know instinctively that what
appears to exist no longer is still existing intact, that what appeared
to be ended is only completing itself. They know that the years time
has taken from them are still in travail; still, under their new
master, obeying the old. They know that their past is for ever in
movement; that the yesterday which was despondent, decrepit and
criminal, will return full of joyousness, innocence, youth, in the
track of to-morrow. They know that their image is not yet stamped on
the days that are gone; that a decisive deed, or thought, will suffice
to break down the whole edifice; that however remote or vast the shadow
may be that stretches behind them, they have only to put forth a
gesture of gladness or hope for the shadow at once to copy this
gesture, and, flashing it back to the remotest, tiniest ruins of early
childhood even, to extract unexpected treasure from all this wreckage.
They know that they have retrospective action on all bygone deeds; and
that the dead themselves will annul their verdicts in order to judge
afresh a past that to-day has transfigured and endowed with new life.

They are fortunate who find this instinct in the folds of their cradle.
But may the others not imitate it who have it not; and is not human
wisdom charged to teach us how we may acquire the salutary instincts
that nature has withheld?

11

Let us not lull ourselves to sleep in our past; and if we find that it
tends to spread like a vault over our life, instead of incessantly
changing beneath our eye; if the present grow into the habit of
visiting it, not lik