icate the desire
for expression.

And the same holds good of life. Those who have strong vital impulses
can learn restraint and choice; but the people who have no particular
impulses and preferences, who just live out of mere impetus and habit,
who plod along, doing in a dispirited way just what they find to do,
and lapsing into indolence and indifference the moment that prescribed
work ceases, those are the spirits that afford the real problem,
because they despise activity, and think energy a mere exhibition of
fussy diffuseness.

But the generous, eager, wilful nature, who has always some aim in
sight, who makes mistakes perhaps, gives offence, collides
high-heartedly with others, makes both friends and enemies, loves and
hates, is anxious, jealous, self-absorbed, resentful, intolerant--there
is always hope for such an one, for he is quick to despair, capable of
shame, swift to repent, and even when he is worsted and wounded, rises
to fight again. Such a nature, through pain and love, can learn to
chasten his base desires, and to choose the nobler and worthier way.

But what does really differentiate men and women is not their power of
fearing and suffering, but their power of caring and admiring. The only
real and vital force in the world is the force which attracts, the
beauty which is so desirable that one must imitate it if one can, the
wisdom which is so calm and serene that one must possess it if one may.

And thus all depends upon our discerning in the world a loving
intention of some kind, which holds us in view, and draws us to itself.
If we merely think of God and nature as an inflexible system of laws,
and that our only chance of happiness is to slip in and out of them, as
a man might pick his way among red-hot ploughshares, thankful if he can
escape burning, then we can make no sort of advance, because we can
have neither faith nor trust. The thing from which one merely flees can
have no real power over our spirit; but if we know God as a fatherly
Heart behind nature, who is leading us on our way, then indeed we can
walk joyfully in happiness, and undismayed in trouble; because troubles
then become only the wearisome incidents of the upward ascent, the
fatigue, the failing breath, the strained muscles, the discomfort which
is actually taking us higher, and cannot by any means be avoided.

But fear is the opposite of all this; it is the dread of the unknown,
the ghastly doubt as to whether there is an