And, God! what a seething hell of misery it looks upon!
The youth shut the second book of the wisdom of Schopenhauer, his brows set, and gazed with sad eyes at the Tragedy of Existence. He was overwhelmed with the sorrow of the world.
This untameable never-satisfied urging to fulness of life that stirs at the heart of all things, what had it wrought? Seen glumly through the spectacles of Pessimism the light went out of the heavens. The youth flinched from the welter of the universe.
What a welter it was! what a shambles!
The hawk preying on the exquisite design that is the body of the small feathered songster—the tiger slaying for daily food the timid deer that is innocent of malignity to him—the wolf flying at the throat of the lamb—the rabbit taking fearfully to the earth to be cruelly slain in his hiding-place by the ferret. Everywhere life taking life. No refuge from the brutal struggle. Man battening on his fellow-man. The cruel and the unscrupulous, in war, in commerce, in Church and State, treading under foot their gentler companions—self-interest the one god. Man going to church of a Sunday to listen with bowed head to a plan of life which it is his sole aim to evade for the rest of the week—and, as crown to his hypocrisies, marching to battle with songs of the Prince of Peace to slay his fellows.
Tssh! the brutality of it! the cursed cruelty of it! the bestiality of it!
Success in life! what was it but the record of other hearts broken, other spirits crushed, other homes rendered desolate?
Everywhere was aggression, pursuit, sorrow, suffering. The rich trampling down the poor. The beautiful body built only to decay. The love of life given, to be baffled by death. At the end of all our hopes and strivings and ambitions yawns the grave.
Everywhere sorrow and pain.
We remember pain. The agonies cling in the recollection—the joys are forgot. Health is not realized until it is gone—nor youth—nor liberty. Yet these are amongst the greatest good. Even enjoyment is damped by habit. Opposition and disappointment were sure—and always—and everywhere.