The main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand. The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it. Ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat. Health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy! Silence is as deep as eternity; speech, shallow as time. No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men. Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world. Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite. Men's hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only. Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness. Life is a little gleam of time between two eternities. |