108. And if it be a great love that you seek, how can you believe
that a soul shall be met with of beauty as great as you dream it to
be, if you seek it with nothing but dreams? Have you the right to
expect that definite words and positive actions shall offer
themselves in exchange for mere formless desire, and yearning, and
vision? Yet thus it is most of us act. And if some fortunate chance
at last accords our desire, and places us in presence of the being
who is all we had dreamed her to be--are we entitled to hope that
our idle and wandering cravings shall long be in unison with her
vigorous, established reality? Our ideal will never be met with in
life unless we have first achieved it within us to the fullest
extent in our power. Do you hope to discover and win for yourself a
loyal, profound, inexhaustible soul, loving and quick with life,
faithful and powerful, unconstrained, free: generous, brave, and
benevolent--if you know less well than this soul what all these
qualities mean? And how should you know, if you have not loved them
and lived in their midst, as this soul has loved and lived? Most
exacting of all things, unskilful, thick-sighted, is the moral
beauty, perfection, or goodness that is still in the shape of
desire.
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