should ever be different
from what our vague hopes were expecting. So too when the ideal takes
shape, as it comes into contact with life, will it soften, expand, and
lose its rigidity, incessantly growing more noble. And then will you
readily perceive, in the creature you love, all that which is eternally
true in yourself, and solidly righteous, and essentially beautiful; for
only the good in our heart can advise us of the goodness that hides by
our side. Then, at last, will the imperfections of others no longer
seem of importance to you, for they will no longer be able to wound
your vanity, selfishness, and ignorance; imperfections, that is, which
have ceased to resemble your own; for it is the evil that lies in
ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within
others.

109. Let us have the same confidence in love that we have in life; for
confidence is of our essence; and the thought that works the most harm
in all things is the one that inclines us to look with mistrust on
reality. I have known more than one life that love broke asunder; but
if it had not been love, these lives would no doubt have been broken no
less by friendship or apathy, by doubt, hesitation, indifference,
inaction. For that only which in itself is fragile can be rent in the
heart by love; and where all is broken that the heart contains, then
must all have been far too frail. There exists not a creature but must
more than once have believed that his life was crushed; but they whose
life has indeed been shattered, and has fallen to ruin, owe their
misfortune often to some strange vanity of the very ruin. Fortunate and
unfortunate hazards there must of necessity be in love as in all the
rest of our destiny. It may so come about that one whose spirit and
heart are abounding with tenderness, energy, and the noblest of human
desires, shall meet, on his first setting forth, all unsought, the soul
that shall satisfy each single craving of love in the ecstasy of
permanent joy; the soul that shall content the loftiest yearning no
less than the lowliest: the vastest, the mightiest no less than the
daintiest, sweetest: the most eternal no less than the most evanescent.
He, it may be, shall instantly find the heart whereto he can give--the
heart which will ever receive--all that is best in himself. It may
happen that he shall at once have attained the soul that perchance is
unique; the soul that is satisfied always, and always filled with