vers' happiness will not be exactly the same, be their
union never so close; for the better of the two needs must love with a
love that is deeper; and the one that loves with a deeper love must be
surely the happier. Let your task be to render yourself worthy of
love--and this even more for your own happiness than for that of
another. For be sure that when love is unequal, and the hours come
clouded with sorrow, it is not the wiser of the two who will suffer the
most--not the one that shows more generosity, justice, more high-minded
passion. The one who is better will rarely become the victim deserving
our pity. For, indeed, to be truly a victim it must be our own faults,
our injustice, wrongdoing, beneath which we suffer. However imperfect
you be, you still may suffice for the love of a marvellous being; but
for your love, if you are not perfect, that being will never suffice.
If fortune one day should lead to your dwelling the woman adorned with
each gift of heart and of intellect--such a woman as history tells of,
a heroine of glory, happiness, love--you will still be all unaware if
you have not learned, yourself, to detect and to love these gifts in
actual life; and what is actual life to each man but the life that he
lives himself? All that is loyal within you will flower in the loyalty
of the woman you love; whatever of truth there abides in your soul will
be soothed by the truth that is hers; and her strength of character can
be only enjoyed by that which is strong in you. And when a virtue of
the being we love finds not, on the threshold of our heart, a virtue
that resembles it somewhat, then is it all unaware to whom it shall
give the gladness it brings.

112. And whatever the fate your affections may meet with, do you never
lose courage; above all, do not think that, love's happiness having
passed by you, you will never, right up to the end, know the great joy
of human life. For though happiness appear in the form of a torrent, or
a river that flows underground, of a whirlpool or tranquil lake, its
source still is ever the same that lies deep down in our heart; and the
unhappiest man of all men can conceive an idea of great joy. It is true
that in love there is ecstasy that he doubtless never will know; but
this ecstasy would leave deep melancholy only in the earnest and
faithful heart, if there were not in veritable love something more
stable than ecstasy, more profound and more steadfast; and all that in
lov