He saw the infallible, eternal, that lay the other side of that
tragical moment; he knew how to be humane and benevolent still,
through all those terrible days when humanity and benevolence seemed
the bitterest enemies of the ideal of justice, whereto he had
sacrificed all; and in his great and noble doubt he marched bravely
onwards, turning neither to right nor to left of him, going
infinitely further than seemed to be reasonable, practical, just.
The violent death that was not unexpected came towards him, with
half his road yet untravelled; to teach us that often in this
strange conflict between man and his destiny, the question is not
how to save the life of our body, but that of our most beautiful
feelings, of our loftiest thoughts,
"Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?"
there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer,
"What becomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit
must die, that my life may be saved?" And are not almost all the
morals, and heroism, and virtue of man summed up in that single
choice?
24. But what may this wisdom be that we rate thus highly? Let us not
seek to define it too closely; that were but to enchain it.
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