And out of the perplexities and corruptions and misunderstandings of human affairs we have in Nature, which ever over-canopies and surrounds us, a retreat into the beautiful, where we can evermore refresh our sense and conviction of the holy. The sun, stars, woods, grasses, shells, birds, and wild creatures, are not corrupt, or at least do not suggest to man, when he contemplates them as a whole (æsthetically and not scientifically)—do not suggest images of corruption; but the poor besotted wretch beholds a perfect splendor in the sun, the prey of ruinous appetites looks into an eye of innocence in the flowers, the bankrupt gazes around and above him, and wonders why in a royal palace he should be a blot and disgrace.
As soon as the man rises above his desires, and throws the roots of his being beyond the narrow confines of his egoism into the spiritual realm, where his own individual self sinks in other individuals, where other individuals become as much his proper interest as himself, then the soul becomes one with the universal soul, and perfect reconciliation is enjoyed. The man's past pains are healed, his very sins and sorrows yield themselves to him as experience and instruction and romance.
The devil himself is subdued into good. Job's latter days are more beautiful than his early days. Through his sorrows and errors, Faust at last attains to a wider and holier life. The attraction to Gretchen, notwithstanding the sensuous illusions, has, in the heart of it, a soul of love and sacredness, and through the deep welter of sin and suffering is purified at last into sanctity. Do you think Faust in the end would annihilate his experience of Gretchen if it were possible? No, the earth and heaven are dearer because of her. Gretchen is universalized, and the universal is Gretchenized; the world is all a sacred, pathetic Gretchen.
That an unhappy life may be happier than a happy one is indeed a paradox, but is meant in earnest. A tragedy is more delightful than a comedy. Or a comedy is better for a mixture, and strong mixture, of tragedy, so the tragedy only get digested in the end. Black is necessary not only to the relief, but even to the very composition of white. I should not choose a life of uninterrupted pleasure, were the world to engage its utmost to secure it me. The lightning is born of the darkness; and the battle, joy, and splendor of life are to be measured by the amount of opposition overcome.
"They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad."
Let us with assured hearts trust the Cause of all, who has created the good and the evil, but has, we believe, made the evil to be ultimately subservient to the good.—Macmillan's Magazine.
