desire; the soul that can ever receive many thousand times more than is
given, and that never fails to return many thousand times more than it
receives. For the love that the years cannot alter is built up of
exchanges like these, of sweet inequality; and naught do we ever truly
possess but that which we give in our love; and whatever our love
bestows, we are no longer alone to enjoy.

110. Destinies sometimes are met with that thus are perfectly happy;
and each man, it may be, is entitled to hope that such may one day be
his; yet must his hope be never permitted to fasten chains on his life.
All he can do is to make preparation one day to deserve such a love;
and he will be most patient and tranquil who incessantly strives to
this end. It might so have happened that he whom we spoke of just now
should, day after day, from youth to old age, have passed by the side
of the wall behind which his happiness lay waiting, enwrapped in too
secret a silence. But if happiness lie yonder side of the wall, must
despair and disaster of necessity dwell on the other? Is not something
of happiness to be found in our thus being able to pass by the side of
our happiness? Is it not better to feel that a mere slender
chance--transparent, one almost might call it--is all that extends
between us and the exquisite love that we dream of, than to be divided
for ever therefrom by all that is worthless within us, undeserving,
inhuman, abnormal? Happy is he who can gather the flower, and bear it
away in his bosom; yet have we no cause to pity the other who walks
until nightfall, steeped in the glorious perfume of the flower no eyes
can behold. Must the life be a failure, useless and valueless, that is
not as completely happy as it possibly might have been? It is you
yourself would have brought what was best in the love you regret; and
if, as we said, the soul at the end possess only what it has given,
does not something already belong to us when we are incessantly seeking
for chances of giving? Ah yes--I declare that the joy of a perfect,
abiding love is the greatest this world contains; and yet, if you find
not this love, naught will be lost of all you have done to deserve it,
for this will go to deepen the peace of your heart, and render still
braver and purer the calm of the rest of your days.

111. And, besides, we always can love. If our own love be admirable,
most of the joys of admirable love will be ours. In the most perfect
love, the lo