If there is no reward for them, then
we all of us have cause for bitter disappointment. But the forlorn
hope of goodness never trouble themselves about rewards; they face the
shadows of doom only as they face the squalor of their daily
martyrdom. A certain philosopher said that he could not endure so
sombre an existence because his nerves and sinews were frail and the
pain would have mastered him; but he gladly owned that the enthusiasts
had conquered his admiration and taken it for their permanent
possession. The cool keen eye of the scoffer divined the strength of
sorrow, and he admired the men whom he durst not imitate.
There are others who pass through life enwrapped by the veil of a
noble sorrow; and, when I see them, I am minded to wonder whether any
one was ever the worse for encountering the touch of the chilly
Mistress whom most children of earth dread. When I think the matter
over I become convinced that no one who has once felt a noble and
gentle sorrow can ever become wholly bad; and I fancy that even the
bad, when once a real sorrow has pierced them, have a chance of
becoming good. So in strange ways the things that seem hard to bear
steadily tend to make the world better.
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