c and the transcendental,
reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial
war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my
intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily
nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to
such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.

*****

It may be argued again that dissatisfaction with our life's endeavour
springs in some degree from dulness. We require higher tasks because
we do not recognise the height of those we have. Trying to be kind and
honest seems an affair too simple and too inconsequential for gentlemen
of our heroic mould; we had rather set ourselves something bold,
arduous, and conclusive; we had rather found a schism or suppress a
heresy, cut off a hand or mortify an appetite. But the task before us,
which is to co-endure with our existence, is rather one of microscopic
fineness, and the heroism required is that of patience. There is no
cutting of the Gordian knots of life; each must be smilingly unravelled.

*****

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting
shells than to be born a millionaire. Although neither is to be
despised, it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make
a thousand pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may
feel no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and
ever new. To become a botanist, a geologist, a social philosopher, an
antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge one's possessions in the universe
by an incalculably higher degree, and by a far surer sort of property,
than to purchase a farm of many acres.

*****

He who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up riches
against the day of riches; if prosperity come, he will not enter poor
into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap
of money, or spend his hours in counting idle treasures, but be up and
briskly doing; he will have the true alchemic touch, which is not
that of Midas, but which transmutes dead money into living delight and
satisfaction. ETRE ET PAS AVOIR--to be, not to possess--that is the
problem of life. To be wealthy, a rich nature is the first requisite and
money but the second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in
all honourable curiosities, to be rich in admiration and free from envy,
to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such g