up power when he feared that his glory was leading his people astray—­the happiness of these will differ by far from that of some mean-souled, venomous creature who might (if such a thing may be assumed) by mere chance have discovered some extraordinary natural law.  Long is the road that leads from the satisfied brain to the heart at rest, and only such joys will nourish there as are proof against winter’s storms.  Happiness is a plant that thrives far more readily in moral than in intellectual life.  Consciousness—­the consciousness of happiness, above all—­will not choose the intellect as a hiding-place for the treasure it holds most dear.  At times it would almost seem as if all that is loftiest in intellect, fraught with most comfort, is transformed into consciousness only when passed through an act of virtue.  It suffices not to discover new truths in the world of thought or of fact.  For ourselves, a truth only lives from the moment it modifies, purifies, sweetens something we have in our soul.  To be conscious of moral improvement is of the essence of consciousness.  Some beings there are, of vigorous intellect, whose intellect never is used to discover a fault, or foster a feeling of charity.  And this happens often with women.  In cases where a man and a woman have equal intellectual power, the woman will always devote far less of this power to acquiring moral self-knowledge.  And truly the intellect that aims not at consciousness is but beating its wings in the void.  Loss and corruption needs must ensue if the force of our brain be not at once gathered up in the purest vase of our heart.  Nor can such an intellect ever know happiness; nay, it seems to invite misfortune.  For intellect may be of the loftiest, mightiest, and yet perhaps never draw near unto joy; but in the soul that is gentle, and pure, and good, sorrow cannot for ever abide.  And even though the boundary line between intellect and consciousness be not always as clearly defined as here we seem to assume, even though a beautiful thought in itself may be often a goodly action—­yet, none the less will a beautiful thought, that springs not from noble deed, or wherefrom noble deed shall not spring, add but little unto our felicity; whereas a good deed, though it father no thought, will ever fall like soft bountiful rain on our knowledge of happiness.

54.  “How final must his farewell to happiness have been,” exclaims Renan, speaking of the renouncement of Marcus Aurelius—­“how final must his farewell to happiness have been, for him to be capable of such excess!  None will ever know how great was the suffering of that poor, stricken heart, or the bitterness the waxen brow concealed, calm always, and even smiling.  It is true that the farewell to happiness is the beginning of wisdom, and the surest road to happiness.  There is nothing sweeter than the return of joy that follows the renouncement of joy, as there is nothing more exquisite, of keener, deeper delight, than the enchantment of the disenchanted.”