We seem to imagine that the sage, whose terrible
death is written in history, spent all his life in sad anticipation
of the end his wisdom prepared; whereas in reality, the thought of
death troubles the wise far less than it troubles the wicked.
Socrates had far less cause than Macbeth to dread an unhappy end.
And unhappy as his death may have been, it at least had not darkened
his life; he had not spent all his days in dying preliminary deaths,
as did the Thane of Cawdor. But it is difficult for us not to
believe that a wound, that bleeds a few hours, must crumble away
into nothingness all the peace of a lifetime.
51. I do not pretend that destiny is just, that it rewards the good
and punishes the wicked. What soul that were sure of reward could
ever claim to be good? But we are less just than destiny even, when
it is destiny that we judge. Our eyes see only the sage's
misfortune, for misfortune is known to us all; but we see not his
happiness, for to understand the happiness of the wise and the just
whose destinies we endeavour to gauge, we must needs be possessed of
wisdom and justice that shall be fully equal to theirs. When a man
of inferior soul endeavours to estimate a great sage's happiness,
this happiness flows through his fingers like water; yet is it heavy
as gold, and as brilliant as gold, in the hand of a brother sage.
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