n corrupt, And should there be one more cruel than
the rest, that for an instant prostrates you, do not murmur to yourself
through your tears that life is less beautiful than you had dreamed it
to be, but rather that in your dream there must have been something
lacking, since real life has failed to approve. And indeed the
much-vaunted strength of the strenuous soul is built up of disillusions
only, that this soul has cheerfully welcomed. Every deception and love
disappointed, every hope that has crumbled to dust, is possessed of a
strength of its own that it adds to the strength of your truth; and the
more disillusions there are that fall to the earth at your feet, the
more surely and nobly will great reality shine on you--even as the rays
of the sun are beheld the more clearly in winter, as they pierce
through the leafless branches of the trees of the forest.

108. And if it be a great love that you seek, how can you believe that
a soul shall be met with of beauty as great as you dream it to be, if
you seek it with nothing but dreams? Have you the right to expect that
definite words and positive actions shall offer themselves in exchange
for mere formless desire, and yearning, and vision? Yet thus it is most
of us act. And if some fortunate chance at last accords our desire, and
places us in presence of the being who is all we had dreamed her to
be--are we entitled to hope that our idle and wandering cravings shall
long be in unison with her vigorous, established reality? Our ideal
will never be met with in life unless we have first achieved it within
us to the fullest extent in our power. Do you hope to discover and win
for yourself a loyal, profound, inexhaustible soul, loving and quick
with life, faithful and powerful, unconstrained, free: generous, brave,
and benevolent--if you know less well than this soul what all these
qualities mean? And how should you know, if you have not loved them and
lived in their midst, as this soul has loved and lived? Most exacting
of all things, unskilful, thick-sighted, is the moral beauty,
perfection, or goodness that is still in the shape of desire. If it be
your one hope to meet with an ideal soul, would it not be well that you
yourself should endeavour to draw nigh to your own ideal? Be sure that
by no other means will you ever obtain your desire. And as you approach
this ideal it will dawn on you more and more clearly how fortunate and
wisely ordained it has been that the ideal