To be happy is only to have freed one's soul from the unrest
of happiness. It were well if, from time to time, there should come
to us one to whom fortune had granted a dazzling, superhuman
felicity, that all men regarded with envy; and if he were very
simply to say to us, "All is mine that you pray for each day: I have
riches, and youth, and health; I have glory, and power, and love;
and if to-day I am truly able to call myself happy, it is not on
account of the gifts that fortune has deigned to accord me, but
because I have learned from these gifts to fix my eyes far above
happiness. If my marvellous travels and victories, my strength and
my love, have brought me the peace and the gladness I sought, it is
only because they have taught me that it is not in them that the
veritable gladness and peace can be found. It was in myself they
existed, before all these triumphs; and still in myself are they
now, after all my achievement; and I know full well that had but a
little more wisdom been mine, I might have enjoyed all I now enjoy
without the aid of so much good fortune. I know that today I am
happier still than I was yesterday, because I have learned at last
that I stand in no need of good fortune in order to free my soul, to
bring peace to my thoughts, to enlighten my heart.
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