ourselves stronger than we know; and that is what God is bent upon showing us, and not upon proving to us that we are vile and base, in the spirit of the old Calvinist who said to his own daughter when she was dying of a painful disease, that she must remember that all short of Hell was mercy.  It is so; but Hell is rather what we start from, and out of which we have to find our way, than the waste-paper basket of life, the last receptacle for our shattered purposes.

XX

SERENITY

To achieve serenity we must have the power of keeping our hearts and minds fixed upon something which is beyond and above the passing incidents of life, which so disconcert and overshadow us, and which are after all but as clouds in the sky, or islets in a great ocean.  Think with what smiling indifference a man would meet indignation and abuse and menace, if he were aware that an hour hence he would be triumphantly vindicated and applauded.  How calmly would a man sleep in a condemned cell if he knew that a free pardon were on its way to him!  Of course the more eagerly and enjoyably we live, so much the more we are affected by little incidents, beyond which we can hardly look when they bring us so much pleasure or so much discomfort; and thus it is always the men and women of keen and highly-strung natures, who taste the quality of every moment, in its sweetness and its bitterness, who will most feel the influence of fear.  Edward FitzGerald once sadly confessed that, as life went on, days of perfect delight—­a beautiful scene, a melodious music, the society of those whom he loved best—­brought him less and less joy, because he felt that they were passing swiftly, and could not be recalled.  And of course the imaginative nature which lives tremulously in delight will be most apt to portend sadness in hours of happiness, and in sorrow to anticipate the continuance of sorrow.  That is an inevitable effect of temperament; but we must not give way helplessly to temperament, or allow ourselves to drift wherever the mind bears us.  Just as the skilled sailor can tack up against the wind, and use ingenuity to compel a contrary breeze to bring him to the haven of his desire, so we must be wise in trimming our sails to the force of circumstance; while there is an eager delight in making adverse conditions help us to realise our hopes.

The timid soul that loves delight is apt to say to itself, “I am happy now in health and circumstances and friends, but I lean out into the future, and see that health must fail and friends must drift away; death must part me from those I love; and beyond all this, I see the cloudy gate through which I must myself pass, and I do not know what lies beyond it.”  That is true enough!  It is like the story of the old prince, as told by Herodotus, who said in his sorrowful age that the Gods gave man only a taste of life, just enough to let him feel that life was sweet,