"Then drink the cup. Buddha turned it upside down so that it could hold nothing. He emptied it of the sweetness as well as the bitterness. But thou, hold it up to be filled and drink."
"I shall have sorrow, Timothy?"
"Yes, child."
"Pain and disappointment."
"It is the lot of those who would dig to find the riches of their own nature."
"The soil might be poor, and suffering turn up nought but dead ashes."
"Tears fertilize it, Barbara."
"Do you think that's the reason we have so much to bear? Should we be like weakly flowers, things that would wither up with the heat of the sun, or the cold winds o' winter, if suffering did not set us to deep trenching?"
All the vehemence had died out of her voice now. Speech had sunk to the meditative tones of every day life.
"Contentment leads to shallowness," said the old man. "If you had been born in a great house instead of an upland farm, I doubt if you would have striven so hard to know and understand things that lie far out of your beaten track."