"It is," said I, "to exercise the faith and the hope of a Christian, humbly to regard this life as what it is,—a scene of discipline and schooling, a pilgrimage to a better. It is an old remedy, but it has been often tried; and to millions of our race has made this world more than tolerable, and death tranquil, nay, triumphant. Do you remember Schiller's 'Walk among the Linden-Trees'?"
"Perfectly well."
"Do you not remember how the two youths differ in their estimate of the beautiful in nature? 'Is it possible,' says Edwin, 'you can thus turn from the cup of joy, sparkling and overflowing as it is?'—'Yes,' said Wollmar, 'when one finds a spider in it; and why not? In your eyes, to be sure, Nature decks herself out like a rosy-checked maiden on her bridal day. To me she appears an old, withered beldame, with sunken eyes, furrowed cheeks, and artificial ornaments in her hair. How she seems to admire herself in this her Sunday finery! But it is the same worn and ancient garment, put off and on some hundreds of thousands of times.' But how natural is the explanation of all given at the beautiful close of the dialogue! 'Here,' said the jocund Edwin, 'I first met my Juliet.'—'And it was under these linden-trees,' says Wollmar, 'that I lost my Laura' It was their mood of mind, and not the outward world, that made all the difference. All nature, innocent thing! must consent to take her hue from it. You have, I fear, lost your Laura,"—simply alluding to his early faith; "or shall I suppose, from your present mood, that you have just met with your Juliet?" I spoke, of course, of his philosophy.
He was looking out of the window; but on my turning my gaze towards him, I saw such a look of peculiar anguish, that I felt I had inadvertently touched a terrible chord indeed. I turned the conversation hastily, by remarking (almost without thinking of what I said) on the beautiful contrast between the light blue of the sky and the green of the lawn and trees; and proceeded to remark on the degree in which the mere organic or sensational pleasures of vision formed an ingredient in the pleasurable associations of the complex "beautiful."
He gradually resumed conversation; and we discussed the subject of the "beautiful" for some time. Yet I know not how it was, nor can I trace the steps by which we deviated,—only that Rousseau's summer -day dreams on the Lake of Bienne was a link in the chain,—we somehow soon found ourselves on the brink of the great controversy respecting the "origin of Evil." "I have read many books on that subject," said I; "but I intend to read no more; and I should think you have had enough of them."
"Why, yes," said he, laughing; "whatever philosophers may have thought of the origin of evil, it is a great aggravation of it to read their speculations. The best thing I know on the subject—and it exhausts it—is half a dozen lines in 'Robinson Crusoe.'"
"Robinson Crusoe!" said I.
"Certainly," he replied; "do you not remember that when he caught his man Friday, the 'intuitional consciousness'—the 'insight'—the 'inward revelation' of that worthy savage not being found quite so perfect as Mr. Parker would fancy, Robinson proceeds to indoctrinate him in the mysteries of theology? Friday is much puzzled, as many more learned savages have been before him, to find that the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God had made every thing good, and that good it would have continued had not been for the opposition of the Devil. 'Why God not kill Debbil?' asks poor Friday. On which says Robinson, 'Though I was a very old man, I found that I was but a young doctor in divinity.' Ah! if all doctors in divinity had been equally candid, the treatises on that dread subject would not have been quite so voluminous; for we close them all alike with the unavailing question, 'Why God not kill Debbil?'"
Observing this tendency to gravitate towards the abyss, I at last said to him, 'I think, if I were you, having decided that there is no religious truth to be found, I should dismiss the subject from my thoughts altogether. Do as the Indian did, who struggled as long as he could to right his canoe when he found he was in the stream of Niagara; but, finding his efforts unavailing, sat himself down with his arms folded, and went down the falls without stirring a muscle. Let us talk no more on the subject. Why should you perplex yourself, as you apparently do, about a thing so hopeless to be found out as truth? 'What is truth?' said Pilate; and, as Bacon says, 'he would not wait for an answer.' It was a question to which, most probably, he, like you, thought no answer could be given. If I were you, I should do the same. Why perplex yourself to no purpose?"
"I should answer," said he, "as Solon did when asked why he grieved for his son, seeing all grief was unavailing.' It is for that very reason that I grieve,' was the reply. And in like manner I dwell on the impossibility of discovering truth because it is impossible."