Many men to whom the law allows the gross, official possession of a statue, a gem, a beautiful horse or a province wear themselves out fulfilling a rôle to which no human being has received a call. Every moment they perceive with bitterness that men who have no legal title whatever to these material goods draw from them a delight that is superior to the enjoyment they themselves get from them as absolute owners. They often find, in this way, that a friend appreciates their beautiful pictures better than they do, that a groom is a better judge of their own stables, that a passer-by draws out of “their landscape” a purer joy than theirs and more original ideas. They take their revenge by obstinately confusing the usage of a thing with its possession.
Jesus said that the rich man renounced the kingdom of God. He renounces many other things as well. For if he shuts himself up within his proud walls, he abandons the marvelous universe for a small fragment of it; and if he is actually curious about the universe, if he appreciates its significance, how can he consent without guilt to hide a portion of it away from the contemplation of others?
In order to express the gross and exclusive possession of things society has invented various words and phrases that betray the weak efforts of men to appropriate for themselves, in spite of everything, in spite of the laws of love, the riches that remain the prerogative of all. They speak, for example, of “disposing of a piece of property,” which means having it subject to our pleasure, being able to do as we choose with it. The sacrilegious vanity of this view of the world gives the possessor, as his supreme right, the power to destroy his own treasure. He could not, indeed, have a greater right than that. But what sort of desperate possession is it, I ask, that considers the destruction of the object possessed as the supreme manifestation of power?
The world has long known and still knows slavery. Lords and masters claimed the extravagant right of disposing of other human beings. They all insisted, as a mark of authority, on their right of dealing death to their slaves. But truly, what was the power of these despots compared with the deep, sensitive, voluntary bond that united Plato to Socrates, or John to Christ?
Epictetus suffered at the hands of Epaphroditus. For all that, Epaphroditus was not able to prevent his slave from reigning, through his thought, over the centuries. Epaphroditus’ right of possession seems to us ridiculous and shameful. Who can fairly envy him when so many centuries have passed judgement on him?
VI
Every philosophy has given magnificent expression to these immortal truths. What can we add to the words of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius, of Christ in regard to the vanity of those riches which alone society admits to be of value?
But the poets have said to us, “Do not abandon the world, for it abounds in pure and truly divine joys that will be lost if you do not harvest them!”
The road that ought to be sweet for us to follow crosses now that of the Christians, now that of the Stoics. We may stop now at the Garden of Olives, now at the threshold of that small house without a door, without furnishings, where the master of Arrien used to live.
Our road will lead us even more often through wild, solitary places, or to the pillow of some man who sleeps in the earth, or to the smiling dwelling of some humble friend, or again into the melodious shadow where the souls of Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach forever dwell.