by the experience of all mankind are due their conquests over the faiths which held out the allurements of material success and physical pleasure. The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of sadness. To it the house of mourning is ever better than the house of mirth. The Cross is the symbol of suffering; the steps are blood-stained that mount to Calvary; anguish and death are at its summit; for suffering and death are the signs, the admonitions, and the entrance to the Infinite.
Art acknowledges the same inspirations as its highest. Sad emotions attract most potently because they arise from the unplumbed depth of the soul, and suggest its limitless dimensions. They attest the words of the poet, that “Man’s grief is but his grandeur in disguise.” There is always a strange attraction about scenes of suffering; the appetite is always keen “to sup full of horrors;” our emotions are more profoundly stirred by the spectacle of pain and anguish than by that of any imaginable pleasure.
Therefore the works as well as the lives of great artists have been full of sadness. The group of the Laocoon struggling in the deadly coil of the serpent; the agony of the crucifixion; the tragedies of love and jealousy and devotion,—these have been the chosen themes of painters, sculptors and dramatists; chosen because they mark graphically the struggles of our common nature with its limits, ennobled by its ambition to leap beyond them.
Every soul knows, unconsciously and instinctively, that sorrow is the only teacher of what is most valuable in life.
It alone develops fortitude, and therefore it commands the respect of all; it alone teaches sympathy, and therefore it enlists the admiration of all. No character is ripe which has not crispened under its sharp breath; none is of finest temper but those forged by its heavy blows. The noblest lives are sad; but those who have quaffed the severe joy of sorrow care little for the light froth of pleasure.
The quality of high energy is developed only by affliction. Wrestling with it, the sinews of the mind are trained. We must go forth and seek new supports in life, when we have lost those which we loved and depended upon. By such an effort, we reconcile ourselves to the loss, gain a victory over fate, strengthen our minds, and reach an air of wider freedom. The blast may beat at the gate, but all is quiet within. There is a habit of sadness which is not gloomy, which may share and admire the delights of life, but which is ever ready to meet the storms of misfortune with serenity and fortitude. Such a habit of mind lifts one above the threats and disturbances of the ceaseless struggle for existence into the companionship of ideas and powers which the poet rightly calls celestial:—
“Wer nicht sein Brod mit Thränen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Lager weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.”