We must
have already acquired some not inconsiderable wisdom to be
undismayed at perceiving that happiness too has its sorrow, and to
be not induced by this sorrow to think that ours cannot be the
veritable happiness. The most precious gift that happiness brings is
the knowledge that springs up within us that it is not a thing of
mere ecstasy, but a thing that bids us reflect. It becomes far less
rare, far less inaccessible, from the moment we know that its
greatest achievement is to give to the soul that is able to prize it
an increase of consciousness, which the soul could elsewhere never
have found. To know what happiness means is of far more importance
to the soul of man than to enjoy it. To be able long to love
happiness great wisdom needs must be ours; but a wisdom still
greater for us to perceive, as we lie in the bosom of cloudless joy,
that the fixed and stable part of that joy is found in the force
which, deep down in our consciousness, could render us happy still
though misfortune wrapped us around. Do not believe you are happy
till you have been led by your happiness up to the heights whence
itself disappears from your gaze, but leaving you still, unimpaired,
the desire to live.
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