Faithless? yes, of course it is
faithless! but the rational philosophy, which says that it will all
probably come right, does not penetrate to the deeper region in
which the mind says to itself that there is no hope of amendment.
Can one acquire, by any effort of the mind, this kind of patience?
I do not think one can. The most that one can do is to behave as
far as possible like one playing a heavy part upon the stage, to
say with trembling lips that one has hope, when the sick mind
beneath cries out that there is none.
Perhaps one can practise a sort of indifference, and hope that
advancing years may still the beating heart and numb the throbbing
nerve. But I do not even desire to live life on these terms. The
one great article of my creed has been that one ought not to lose
zest and spirit, or acquiesce slothfully in comfortable and
material conditions, but that life ought to be full of perception
and emotion. Here again lies my mistake; that it has not been
perception or emotion that I have practised, but the art of
expressing what I have perceived and felt. Of course, I wish with
all my heart and soul that it were otherwise; but it seems that I
have drifted so far into these tepid, sun-warmed shallows, the
shallows of egoism and self-centred absorption, that there is no
possibility of my finding my way again to the wholesome brine, to
the fresh movement of the leaping wave.
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