"I once talked with a Rosicrucian about the Great Secret," said Addison. "He talked of it as a spirit that lived in an emerald, and converted everything that was near it to the highest perfection. 'It gives lustre to the sun,' said he, 'and water to the diamond. It irradiates every metal, and enriches lead with the property of gold. It brightens smoke into flame, flame into light, and light into glory. A single ray dissipates pain and care from the person on whom it falls.' Then I found his great secret was Content."
My crown is in my heart, not on my head:
Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.
—Shakespeare.
Yet, with a heart that's ever kind,
A gentle spirit gay,
You've spring perennial in your mind,
And round you make a May.
—Thackeray.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOLD UP YOUR HEAD.
Thoroughly to believe in one's own self, so one's self were thorough, were to do great things. —Tennyson.
If there be a faith that can remove mountains, it is faith in one's own power. —Marie Ebner-Eschenbach.
Let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness. —Kossuth.
It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. * * * Trust thyself; every breast vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place that divine Providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so. * * * Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. —Emerson.