The thought expanded before me. What if we ourselves, in this world of ours, which seems to us so complete, may really be creatures lacking some further sense, which would make all our difficulties plain? We knock up against all sorts of unintelligible and inexplicable things, injustice, disease, pain, evil, of which we cannot divine the meaning or the use. Yet they are undoubtedly there! Perhaps it is only that we cannot discern the simplicity and the completeness of the heavenly house of which they are the furniture. Fanciful, of course; but I am inclined to think not wholly fanciful.
May 10, 1891.
The question is this: Is there a kind of peace, of tranquillity, attainable in this world, which is proof against all calamities, sufferings, sorrows, losses, doubts? Is it attainable for one like myself, who is sensitive, apprehensive, highly strung, at once confident and timid, alive to impressions, liable to swift changes of mood? Or is it a mere matter of mental, moral, and physical health, depending on some balance of qualities, which may or may not belong to a man, a balance which hundreds cannot attain to?
By this peace, I do not mean a chilly indifference, or a stoical fortitude. I do not mean the religious peace, such as I see in some people, which consists in holding as a certainty a scheme of things which I believe to be either untrue or uncertain—and about which, at all events, no certainty is logically and rationally possible.
The peace I mean is a frame of mind which a man would have, who loved passionately, who suffered acutely, who desired intensely, who feared greatly; and yet for whom, behind love and pain, desire and fear, there existed a sort of inner citadel, in which his soul was entrenched and impregnable.
Such a security could not be a wholly rational thing, because reason cannot solve the enigmas with which we are confronted; but it must not be an irrational intuition either, because then it would be unattainable by a man of high intellectual gifts; and the peace that I speak of ought to be consistent with any and every constitution—physical, moral, mental. It must be consistent with physical weakness, with liability to strong temptations, with an incisive and penetrating intellectual quality; its essence would be a sort of vital faith, a unity of the individual heart with the heart of the world. It would rise like a rock above the sea, like a lighthouse, where a guarded flame would burn high and steady, however loudly the surges thundered below upon the reefs, however fiercely the spray was dashed against the glasses of the casements.
If it is attainable, then it is worth while to do and to suffer anything to attain it; if it is not attainable, then the best thing is simply to be as insensible as possible, not to love, not to admire, not to desire; for all these emotions are channels along which the bitter streams of suffering can flow.
Prudence bids one close these channels; meanwhile a fainter and remoter voice, with sweet and thrilling accents, seems to cry to one not to be afraid, urges one to fling open every avenue by which impassioned experiences, uplifting thoughts, noble hopes, unselfish desires, may flow into the soul.
This peace I have seen, or dream that I have seen, in the faces and voices of certain gracious spirits whom I have known. It seemed to consist in an unbounded natural gratitude, a sweet simplicity, a childlike affectionateness, that recognised in suffering the joy of which it was the shadow, and in desperate catastrophes the hope that lay behind them.
Such a peace must not be a surrender of anything, a feeble acquiescence; it must be a strong and eager energy, a thirst for experience, a large tolerance, a desire to be convinced, a resolute patience.