And with another it is different.  The world is not his; he is the world’s, and all his petty doings have its gaudy stencil blotched upon them.  Yet haply even he has a heart, and somewhere in its fruitless fallows stands a poor ruin, that never was of much dignity at its best,—­poor and broken, and half choked with weeds and briers; but even thus the weeds are fragrant herbs, and the briers are wild roses, of few and misshapen petals, but sweet, nevertheless.  For this ruin was once a shrine too, that his mean hands and sterile soul did try most ineffectually to build up as a shelter for all that was ever worthy in him.

Now, therefore, I say, Love, and love truly and long,—­even for ever; and if you can do other things well, do them; but if not, at least learn to do that, for it is a very gentle thing and sweet in the learning.  Some of you laugh at me, and say, Behold, this old-fashioned driveller, who does not even know that love is no longer in the fashion!  By Saint Peter, Heaven will soon be out of the fashion too, and Messer Satanas will rake in the just and the unjust alike, so that he need no longer fast on Fridays, having a more savoury larder!  And no doubt some of you will say that hell is really so antiquated that it should be put in the museum at the University of Rome, for a curious old piece of theological furniture.  Truth! it is a wonder it is not worn out with digesting the tough morsels it gets, when people like you are finally gotten rid of from this world!  But it is made of good material, and it will last, never fear!  This is not the gospel of peace, but it is the gospel of truth.

Loving hearts and gentle souls shall rule the world some day, for all your pestiferous fashions; and old as I am,—­I do not mean aged, but well on in years,—­I believe in love still, and I always will.  It is true that it was not given to me to love as Nino loves Hedwig, for Nino is even now a stronger, sterner man than I. His is the nature that can never do enough; his the hands that never tire for her; his the art that would surpass, for her, the stubborn bounds of possibility.  He is never weary of striving to increase her joy of him.  His philosophy is but that.  No quibbles of “being” and “not being,” or wretched speculations concerning the object of existence; he has found the true unity of unities, and he holds it fast.

Meanwhile, you object that I am not proceeding with my task, and telling you more facts, recounting more conversations, and painting more descriptions.  Believe me, this one fact, that to love well is to be all man can be, is greater than all the things men have ever learned and classified in dictionaries.  It is, moreover, the only fact that has consistently withstood the ravages of time and social revolution; it is the wisdom that has opened, as if by magic, the treasures of genius, of goodness, and of all greatness, for everyone to see; it is the vital elixir that has made men of striplings, and giants of cripples, and heroes of the poor in heart though great in spirit.  Nino is an example; for he was but a boy, yet he acted like a man; a gifted artist in a great city, courted by the noblest, yet he kept his faith.