It was no wonderful case. Men of large mind are very rarely happy men.
It is your little animal-minded individual who can be happy. Thus women,
who reflect less, are as a class much happier and more contented than
men. But the large-minded man sees too far, and guesses too much of
what he cannot see. He looks forward, and notes the dusty end of his
laborious days; he looks around and shudders at the unceasing misery of
a coarse struggling world; the sight of the pitiful beggar babe craving
bread on tottering feet, pierces his heart. He cannot console himself
with a reflection that the child had no business to be born, or that if
he denuded himself of his last pound he would not materially help the
class which bred it.
And above the garish lights of earthly joys and the dim reek of earthly
wretchedness, he sees the solemn firmament that veils his race's
destiny. For such a man, in such a mood, even religion has terrors as
well as hopes, and while the gloom gathers about his mind these are
with him more and more. What lies beyond that arching mystery to whose
horizon he daily draws more close--whose doors may even now be opening
for him? A hundred hands point out a hundred roads to knowledge--they
are lost half way.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300