physical calamity has fallen. But speak
not lightly of this happiness. There is no other. He is the happiest
man who best understands his happiness; for he is of all men most fully
aware that it is only the lofty idea, the untiring, courageous, human
idea, that separates gladness from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful
to speak, and as often as may be; not with the view of imposing our own
idea upon others, but in order that they who may listen shall, little
by little, conceive the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in
no two men is it the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no
comfort to me; nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs of
my life. Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; but you
unconsciously make this the easier for me, by telling of the idea that
is yours. It may happen that I shall find solace in that which brings
sorrow to you, and that which to you speaks of gladness may be fraught
with affliction for me. But no matter; into my grief will enter all
that you saw of beauty and comfort, and into my joy there will pass all
that was great in your sadness, if indeed my joy be on the same plane
as your sadness. It behoves us, the first thing of all, to prepare in
our soul a place of some loftiness, where this idea may be lodged; as
the priests of ancient religions laid the mountain peak bare, and
cleared it of thorn and of root for the fire to descend from heaven.
There may come to us any day, from the depths of the planet Mars, the
infallible formula of happiness, conveyed in the final truth as to the
aim and the government of the universe. Such a formula could only bring
change or advancement unto our spiritual life in the degree of the
desire and expectation of advancement in which we might long have been
living. The formula would be the same for all men, yet would each one
benefit only in the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness,
knowledge, that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all study
of justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation,
provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, a
stepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable day
of all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute truth,
in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is given us to
live in a truth more important still, the truth of our soul and our
character; and some wise men have proved that thi