I have taken this example from Xavier de Maistre.  Let me give you another from scenes more familiar to ourselves.  You know those pure summer mornings, when one may truly say that the Alp smiles and that the mountain invites.  A young man quits his dwelling at the first dawning of the day, in his hand the tourist’s staff, and his countenance beaming with joy.  He starts on a mountain excursion.  All day long he quaffs the pure air with delight, revels in the freedom of the pasture-grounds, in the view of the lofty summits and of the distant horizons.  He reposes in the shade of the forest, drinks at the spring from the rock, and when he has gazed on the Alpine chain resplendent in the radiance of the setting sun, he lingers still to see—­

     Twilight its farewell to the hills delaying.[177]

Noble enjoyments!  This young man enjoys because he loves.  The spectacle of the creation speaks to his heart and elevates his thoughts.  He loves that enchanting nature, which blends in a marvellous union the impressions which in human relations are produced by the strong man’s majesty and the maiden’s sweetest smile.

On this same summer-day, another man has also risen before the sun.  He is devoted to the assuaging of human miseries, and he has had much to do.  He has mounted gloomy staircases; he has entered dark chambers; he has spent time in hospitals, in the midst of the pains of sickness; he has come, in prisons, to the relief of pains which are sadder still.  Day, as it dawned, gilded the summits of the Alps, but he saw not that pure light of the morning.  Day, as it advanced, penetrated into the valleys, but he did not notice its progress.  The sun set in his glory, but he had no opportunity to admire either the bright reflection of the waters, or the rosy tint of the mountains.  And yet he too is joyful because he loves.  He loves the fulfilment of stern duty, he loves poverty solaced, and suffering alleviated.

Here are the two kinds of love.  The disciple of Plato rises, far from the vulgarities of life, into the lofty regions of the ideal, and feeds on beauty.  Vincent de Paul takes the place of a convict at the galleys that he may restore a father to his children.  These two kinds of love seem to us to be contrary one to the other:  the one seeks itself, and the other gives itself.  Still they are both necessary to life, for in order to give we must receive.  In the accomplishment of the works of goodness, the soul would be impoverished and would end by drying up in a purely mechanical exercise of beneficence, had it no spring from which to draw forth the living waters.  Man must himself find joy in order to diffuse it amongst his fellows.  But mark the incomparable marvel of the spiritual order of things!  The love which gives itself is able to find its worthiest object and its purest satisfaction in the very act of kindness.  There is joy in self-devotion; there is happiness in self-sacrifice:  the fountain furnishes its own supplies.  Thus are harmonized the two contrary tendencies of the heart of man.  “It is more blessed to give than to receive;” words these, of Jesus Christ, which, forgotten by the Evangelists, have been recorded by the Apostle St. Paul.  And since the thought is a beautiful one, it has adorned the strains of the poets:  says Lamartine—­