'The saddest part is, that she does _not wish_ for death. She
clings to this sordid existence. Her soul is now so habitually
enwrapt in the meanest cares, that if she were to be lifted
two or three steps upward, she would not know what to do with
life; how, then, shall she soar to the celestial heights?
Yet she ought; for she has ever been good, and her narrow and
crushing duties have been performed with a self-sacrificing
constancy, which I, for one, could never hope to equal.
'While I listened to her,--and I often think it good for me
to listen to her patiently,--the expressions you used in your
letter, about "drudgery," occurred to me. I remember the time
when I, too, deified the "soul's impulses." It is a noble
worship; but, if we do not aid it by a just though limited
interpretation of what "Ought" means, it will degenerate into
idolatry. For a time it was so with me, and I am not yet good
enough to love the _Ought_.
'Then I came again into the open air, and saw those
resplendent orbs moving so silently, and thought that they
were perhaps tenanted, not only by beings in whom I can see
the germ of a possible angel, but by myriads like this poor
creature, in whom that germ is, so far as we can see, blighted
entirely, I could not help saying, "O my Father! Thou, whom
we are told art all Power, and also all Love, how canst Thou
suffer such even transient specks on the transparence of
Thy creation? These grub-like lives, undignified even by
passion,--these life-long quenchings of the spark divine.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210