The individual who suffers has a mysterious counterbalance to that
condition, which, to us who look upon her, appears to be attended
with no alleviating circumstance." Analogous supplies are made to
those individuals whose character leads them to vast exertions of
body and mind. Napoleon said to one of his friends at St. Helena,
"Nature seems to have calculated that I should have great reverses to
endure, for she has given me a temperament like a block of marble.
Thunder cannot move it; the shaft merely glides along. The great
events of my life have slipped over me without making any impression
on my moral or physical nature."
The intellect is a consoler, which delights in detaching, or
putting an interval between a man and his fortune, and so converts
the sufferer into a spectator, and his pain into poetry. It yields
the joys of conversation, of letters, and of science. Hence also the
torments of life become tuneful tragedy, solemn and soft with music,
and garnished with rich dark pictures. But higher still than the
activities of art, the intellect in its purity, and the moral sense
in its purity, are not distinguished from each other, and both ravish
us into a region whereinto these passionate clouds of sorrow cannot
rise.
Pages:
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284