But to the sage the hour must come when
every soul that exists claims his glance, his approval, his love--if
only because it possesses the mysterious gift of existence. The hour
must come when he sees that falsehood and weakness and vice are but
on the surface; when his eye shall pierce through, and discover the
strength, and the truth, and the virtue that lie underneath. Happy
and blessed hour, when wickedness stands forth revealed as goodness
bereft of its guide; and treachery is seen to be loyalty, for ever
astray from the highway of happiness; and hatred becomes only love,
in poignant despair, that is digging its grave. Then, unsuspected of
any, shall it be with all those who are near the good man as it was
with the penitent thief; into the humblest soul that will thus have
been saved by a look, or a word, or a silence, shall the true
happiness fall--the happiness fate cannot touch; that brings to all
men the oblivion it gave unto Socrates, and causes each one to
forget, until nightfall, that the death--giving cup had been drained
ere the sun went down.
36. The inner life, perhaps, is not what we deem it to be. There are
as many kinds of inner lives as there are of external lives.
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