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Wisdom And Destiny

M >> Maurice Maeterlinck >> Wisdom And Destiny




After all, what is a humble life? It is thus we choose to term the
life that ignores itself, that drains itself dry in the place of its
birth--a life whose feelings and thoughts, whose desires and
passions, entwine themselves around the most insignificant things.
But it suffices to look at a life for that life to seem great. A
life in itself can be neither great nor small; the largeness is all
in the eye that surveys it; and an existence that all men hold to be
lofty and vast, is one that has long been accustomed to look loftily
on itself from within. If you have never done this, your life must
be narrow; but the man who watches you live will discern, in the
very obscurity of the corner you fill, an element of horizon, a
foothold to cling to, whence his thoughts will rise with surer and
more human strength. There is not an existence about us but at first
seems colourless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in
common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted ploughman, a
miser who worships his gold? Can any connection exist between such
as these and a deep-rooted feeling, a boundless love for humanity,
an interest time cannot stale? But let a Balzac step forward and
stand in the midst of them, with his eyes and ears on the watch; and
the emotion that lived and died in an old-fashioned country parlour
shall as mightily stir our heart, shall as unerringly find its way
to the deepest sources of life, as the majestic passion that ruled
the life of a king and shed its triumphant lustre from the dazzling
height of a throne. "There are certain little agitations," says
Balzac in the Cure de Tours, the most admirable of all his studies
of humble life--"there are certain little agitations that are
capable of generating as much passion within the soul as would
suffice to direct the most important social interests. Is it not a
mistake to imagine that time only flies swiftly with those whose
hearts are devoured by mighty schemes, which fret and fever their
life? Not an hour sped past the Abbe Troubert but was as animated,
as laden with its burden of anxious thought, as lined with pleading
hope and deep despair, as could be the most desperate hour of
gambler, plotter, or lover. God alone can tell how much energy is
consumed in the triumphs we achieve over men, and things, and
ourselves. We may not be always aware whither our steps are leading,
but are only too fully conscious of the wearisomeness of the
Journey. And yet--if the historian may be permitted to lay aside,
for one moment, the story he is telling, and to assume the role of
the critic--as you cast your eyes on the lives of these old maids
and these two priests, seeking to learn the cause of the sorrow
which twisted their heartstrings, it will be revealed to you,
perhaps, that certain passions must be experienced by man for there
to develop within him the qualities that make a life noble, that
widen its area, and stifle the egoism natural to all."

He speaks truly. Not for its own sake, always, should we love the
light, but for the sake of what it illumines. The fire on the
mountain shines brightly, but there are few men on the mountain; and
more service may often be rendered by the torchlight, there where
the crowd is. It is in the humble lives that is found the substance
of great lives; and by watching the narrowest feelings does
enlargement come to our own. Nor is this from any repugnance these
feelings inspire, but because they no longer accord with the
majestic truth that controls us. It is well to have visions of a
better life than that of every day, but it is the life of every day
from which elements of a better life must come. We are told we
should fix our eyes on high, far above life; but perhaps it is
better still that our soul should look straight before it, and that
the heights whereupon it should yearn to lay all its hopes and its
dreams should be the mountain peaks that stand clearly out from the
clouds that gild the horizon.

87. This brings us back once again to external destiny; but the
tears that external suffering wrings from us are not the only tears
known to man. The sage whom we love must dwell in the midst of all
human passions, for only on the passions known to the heart can his
wisdom safely be nourished. They are nature's artisans, sent by her
to help us construct the palace of our consciousness--of our
happiness, in other words; and he who rejects these workers, deeming
that he is able, unaided, to raise all the stones of life, will be
compelled for ever to lodge his soul in a bare and gloomy cell. The
wise man learns to purify his passions; to stifle them can never be
proof of wisdom. And, indeed, these things are all governed by the
position we take as we stand on the stairs of time. To some of us
moral infirmities are so many stairs tending downwards; to others
they represent steps that lead us on high. The wise man perchance
may do things that are done by the unwise man also; but the latter
is forced by his passions to become the abject slave of his
instincts, whereas the sage's passions will end by illumining much
that was vague in his consciousness. To love madly, perhaps, is not
wise; still, should he love madly, more wisdom will doubtless come
to him than if he had always loved wisely. It is not wisdom, but the
most useless form of pride that can flourish in vacancy and inertia.
It is not enough to know what should be done, not though we can
unerringly declare what saint or hero would do. Such things a book
can teach in a day. It is not enough to intend to live a noble life
and then retire to a cell, there to brood over this intention. No
wisdom thus acquired can truly guide or beautify the soul; it is of
as little avail as the counsels that others can offer. "It is in the
silence that follows the storm," says a Hindu proverb, "and not in
the silence before it, that we should search for the budding
flower."

88. The earnest wayfarer along the paths of life does but become the
more deeply convinced, as his travels extend, of the beauty, the
wisdom, and truth of the simplest and humblest laws of existence.
Their uniformity, the mere fact of their being so general, such
matter of every day, are in themselves enough to compel his
admiration. And little by little he holds the abnormal ever less
highly, and neither seeks nor desires it; for it is soon borne home
to him, as he reflects on the vastness of nature, with her slow,
monotonous movement, that the ridiculous pretensions our ignorance
and vanity put forth are the most truly abnormal of all. He no
longer vexes the hours as they pass with prayer for strange or
marvellous adventure; for these come only to such as have not yet
learned to have faith in life and themselves. He no longer awaits,
with folded arms, the chance for superhuman effort; for he feels
that he exists in every act that is human. He no longer requires
that death, or friendship, or love should come to him decked out
with garlands illusion has woven, or escorted by omen, coincidence,
presage; but they come in their bareness and simpleness, and are
always sure of his welcome. He believes that all that the weak, and
the idle, and thoughtless consider sublime and exceptional, that the
fall equivalent for the most heroic deed, can be found in the simple
life that is bravely and wholly faced. He no longer considers
himself the chosen son of the universe; but his happiness,
consciousness, peace of mind, have gained all that his pride has
lost. And, this point once attained, then will the miraculous
adventures of a St. Theresa or Jean-de-la-Croix, the ecstasy of the
mystics, the supernatural incidents of legendary loves, the star of
an Alexander or a Napoleon--then will all these seem the merest
childish illusions compared with the healthy wisdom of a loyal,
earnest man, who has no craving to soar above his fellows so as to
feel what they cannot feel, but whose heart and brain find the light
that they need in the unchanging feelings of all. The truest man
willnever be he who desires to be other than man. How many there are
that thus waste their lives, scouring the heavens for sight of the
comet that never will come; but disdaining to look at the stars,
because these can be seen by all, and, moreover, are countless in
number! This craving for the extraordinary is often the special
weakness of ordinary men, who fail to perceive that the more normal,
and ordinary, and uniform events may appear to us, the more are we
able to appreciate the profound happiness that this uniformity
enfolds, and the nearer are we drawn to the truth and tranquillity
of the great force by which we have being. What can be less abnormal
than the ocean, which covers two-thirds of the globe; and yet, what
is there more vast? There is not a thought or a feeling, not an act
of beauty or nobility, whereof man is capable, but can find complete
expression in the simplest, most ordinary life; and all that cannot
be expressed therein must of necessity belong to the falsehoods of
vanity, ignorance, or sloth.

89. Does this mean that the wise man should expect no more from life
than other men; that he should love mediocrity and limit his
desires; content himself with little and restrict the horizon of his
happiness, because of the fear lest happiness escape him? By no
means; for the wisdom is halting and sickly that can too freely
renounce a legitimate human hope. Many desires in man may be
legitimate still, notwithstanding the disapproval of reason,
sometimes unduly severe. But the fact that our happiness does not
seem extraordinary to those about us by no means warrants our
thinking that we are not happy. The wiser we are, the more readily
do we perceive that happiness lies in our grasp; that it has no more
enviable gift than the uneventful moments it brings. The sage has
learnt to quicken and love the silent substance of life. In this
silent substance only can faithful joys be found, for abnormal
happiness never ventures to go with us to the tomb. The day that
comes and goes without special whisper of hope or happiness should
be as dear to us, and as welcome, as any one of its brothers. On its
way to us it has traversed the same worlds and the self-same space
as the day that finds us on a throne or enthralled by a mighty love.
The hours are less dazzling, perhaps, that its mantle conceals; but
at least we may rely more fully on their humble devotion. There are
as many eternal minutes in the week that goes by in silence, as in
the one that tomes boldly towards us with mighty shout and clamour.
And indeed it is we who tell ourselves all that the hour would seem
to say; for the hour that abides with us is ever a timid and nervous
guest, that will smile if its host be smiling, or weep if his eyes
be wet. It has been charged with no mission to bring happiness to
us; it is we who should comfort the hour that has sought refuge
within our soul. And he is wise who always finds words of peace that
he can whisper low to his guest on the threshold. We should let no
opportunity for happiness escape us, and the simplest causes of
happiness should be ever stored in our soul. It is well, at first,
to know happiness as men conceive it, so that, later, we may have
good reason for preferring the happiness of our choice. For, herein,
it is not unlike what we are told of love. To know what real love
should be we must have loved profoundly, and that first love must
have fled. It is well to know moments of material happiness, since
they teach us where to look for loftier joys; and all that we gain,
perhaps, from listening to the hours that babble aloud in their
wantonness is that we are slowly learning the language of the hours
whose voice is hushed. And of these there are many; they come in
battalions, so close on the heels of each other that treachery and
flight cannot be; wherefore it is on them alone that the sage should
depend. For he will be happy whose eyes have learned to detect the
hidden smile and mysterious jewels of the myriad, nameless hours;
and where are these jewels to be found, if not in ourselves?

90. But there is a kind of ignoble discretion that has least in
common, of all things, with the wisdom we speak of here; for we had
far better spend our energy round even fruitless happiness, than
slumber by the fireside awaiting joys that never may come. Only the
joys that have been offered to all, and none have accepted, will
knock at his door who refuses himself to stir forth. Nor is the
other man wise who holds the reins too tight on his feelings, and
halts them when reason commands, or experience whispers. The friend
is not wise who will not confide in his friend, remembering always
that friendships may come to an end; nor the lover, who draws back
for fear lest he may find shipwreck in love. For here, were we
twenty times unfortunate, it is still only the perishable portion of
our energy for happiness that suffers; and what is wisdom after all
but this same energy for happiness cleansed of all that is impure?
To be wise we must first learn to be happy, that we may attach ever
smaller importance to what happiness may be in itself. We should be
as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as is
possible; for those who can finally issue forth from self by the
portal of happiness, know infinitely wider freedom than those who
pass through the gate of sadness. The joy of the sage illumines his
heart and his soul alike, whereas sadness most often throws light on
the heart alone. One might almost compare the man who had never been
happy with a traveller whose every journey had been taken by night.
Moreover, there is in happiness a humility deeper and nobler, purer
and wider, than sorrow can ever procure. There is a certain humility
that ranks with parasitic virtues, such as sterile self-sacrifice,
arbitrary chastity, blind submission, fanatic renouncement,
penitence, false shame, and many others, which have from time
immemorial turned aside from their course the waters of human
morality, and forced them into a stagnant pool, around which our
memory still lingers. Nor do I speak of a cunning humility that is
often mere calculation, or, taken at its best, a timidity that has
its root in pride--a loan at usury that our vanity of to-day extends
to our vanity of to-morrow. And even the sage at times conceives it
well to lower himself in his own self-esteem, and to deny superior
merits that are his when comparing himself with other men. Humility
of this kind may throw a charm around our ways of life, but yet,
sincere as it doubtless may be, it nevertheless attacks the loyalty
due to ourselves, which we should value high above all. And it
surely implies a certain timidity of conscience; whereas the
conscience of the sage should harbour neither timidity nor shame.
But by the side of this too personal humility there exists another
humility that extends to all things, that is lofty and strong, that
has fed on all that is best in our brain and our heart and our soul.
It is a humility that defines the limit of the hopes and adventures
of men; that lessens us only to add to the grandeur of all we
behold; that teaches us where we should look for the true importance
of man, which lies not in that which he is, but in that which his
eyes can take in, which he strives to accept and to grasp. It is
true that sorrow will also bring us to the realm of this humility;
but it hastens us through, branching off on the road to a mysterious
gate of hope, on whose threshold we lose many days; whereas
happiness, that after the first few hours has nothing else left to
do, will lead us in silence through path after path till we reach
the most unforeseen, inaccessible places of all. It is when the sage
knows he possesses at last all man is allowed to possess, that he
begins to perceive that it is his manner of regarding what man may
never possess, that determines the value of such things as he truly
may call his own. And therefore must we long have sunned ourselves
in the rays of happiness before we can truly conceive an independent
view of life. We must be happy, not for happiness' sake, but so that
we may learn to see distinctly that which vain expectation of
happiness would for ever hide from our gaze.

91. Economy avails us nothing in the region of the heart, for it is
there that men gather the harvest of life's very substance, it were
better that nothing were done there than that things should be done
by halves; and that which we have not dared to risk is most surely
lost of all. To limit our passions is only to limit ourselves, and
we are the losers by just so much as we hoped to gain. There are
certain fastnesses within our soul that lie buried so deep that love
alone dare venture down; and it returns laden with undreamed-of
jewels, whose lustre can only be seen as they pass from our open
hand to the hand of one we love. And indeed it would seem that so
clear a light springs from our hands as they open thus to give, that
it penetrates substance too opaque to yield to the mysterious rays
just discovered.

92. It avails us nothing unduly to bemoan our errors or losses. For
happen what may to the man of simple faith, still, at the last
minute of the sorrow-laden hour, at the end of the week or year,
still will he find some cause for gladness as he turns his eyes
within. Little by little he has learned to regret without tears. He
is as a father might be who returns to his home in the evening, his
day's work done. He may find his children in tears perhaps, or
playing dangerous, forbidden games; the furniture scattered, glasses
broken, a lamp overturned; but shall he therefore despair? It would
certainly have been better had the children been more obedient, had
they quietly learned their lessons---this would have been more in
keeping with every moral theory; but how unreasonable the father
who, in the midst of his harsh rebuke, could withhold a smile as he
turned his head away! The children have acted unwisely, perhaps, in
their exuberance of life; but why should this distress him? All is
well, so long as he return home at night, so long as he ever keep
about him the key of the guardian dwelling. As we look into
ourselves, and pass in review what our heart, and brain, and soul
have attempted and carried through while we were away, the benefit
lies far more in the searching glance itself than in the actual
inspection. And if the hours have not once let fall their mysterious
girdle on their way past our threshold; if the rooms be as empty as
on the day of departure, and those within have but sat with folded
arms and worked not at all---still, as we enter, shall something be
learned from our echoing footsteps, of the extent, and the
clearness, and the fidelity, of our home.

93. No day can be uneventful, save in ourselves alone; but in the
day that seems most uneventful of all, there is still room for the
loftiest destiny; for there is far more scope for such destiny
within ourselves than on the whole continent of Europe. Not by the
extent of empire is the range of destiny governed, but, indeed, by
the depth of our soul. It is in our conception of life that real
destiny is found; when at last there is delicate balance between the
insoluble questions of heaven and the wavering response of our soul.
And these questions become the more tranquil as they seem to
comprise more and more; and to the sage, whatever may happen will
still widen the scope of the questions, still give deeper confidence
to the reply. Speak not of destiny when the event that has brought
you joy or sadness has still altered nothing in your manner of
regarding the universe. All that remains to us when love and glory
are over, when adventures and passions have faded into the past, is
but a deeper and ever-deepening sense of the infinite; and if we
have not that within us, then are we destitute indeed. And this
sense of the infinite is more than a mere assemblage of thoughts,
which, indeed, are but the innumerable steps that thither lead.
There is no happiness in happiness itself, unless it help our
comprehension of the rest, unless it help us in some measure to
conceive that the very universe itself must rejoice in existence.
The sage who has attained a certain height will find peace in all
things that happen; and the event that saddens him, as other men,
tarries but an instant ere it goes to strengthen his deep perception
of life. He who has learned to see in all things only matter for
unselfish wonder, can be deprived of no satisfaction whatever
without there spring to sudden life within him, from the mere
feeling that this joy can be dispensed with, a high protecting
thought that enfolds him in its light. That destiny is beautiful
wherein each event, though charged with joy or sadness, has brought
reflection to us, has added something to our range of soul, has
given us greater peace wherewith to cling to life. And, indeed, the
accident that robs us of our love, that leads us along in triumph,
or even that seats us on a throne, reveals but little of the
workings of destiny; which, indeed, lie far more in the thoughts
that arise in our mind as we look at the men around us, at the woman
we love; as we dwell on the feelings within us; as we fix our eyes
on the evening sky with its crown of indifferent stars.

94. A woman of extraordinary beauty and talent, possessed of the
rarest qualities of mind and soul, was one day asked by a friend, to
whom she seemed the most perfect creature on earth: "What are your
plans? Can any man be worthy of your love? Your future puzzles me. I
cannot conceive a destiny that shall be lofty enough for a soul such
as yours." He knew but little of destiny. To him, as to most men, it
meant thrones, triumphs, dazzling adventures: these things seemed to
him the sum of a human destiny; whereby he did but prove that he
knew not what destiny was. And, in the first place, why this disdain
of to-day? To disdain to-day is to prove that yesterday has been
misunderstood. To disdain to-day is to declare oneself a stranger,
and what can you hope to do in a world where you shall ever pass as
a stranger? To-day has this advantage over yesterday, that it exists
and was made for us. Be to-day what it will, it has wider knowledge
than yesterday; and by that alone does it become more beautiful, and
vaster. Why should we think that the woman I speak of would have
known a more brilliant destiny in Venice, Florence, or Rome? Her
presence might have been sought at magnificent festival, and her
beauty have found a fitting surrounding in exquisite landscape. She
might have had princes and kings, the elect of the world, at her
feet; and perhaps it had needed but one of her smiles to add to a
great nation's gladness, to ennoble or chasten the thought of an
epoch. Whereas here all her life will be spent among four or five
people--four or five souls that know of her soul, and love her. It
may be that she never shall stir from her dwelling; that of her
life, of her thoughts, and the strength that is in her, there will
remain not a trace among men. It may be that her beauty, her force
and her instinct for good, will be buried within her: in her heart
and the hearts of the few who are near. And even then, and if this
be so, the soul of this woman doubtless shall find its own thing to
do. The mighty gates through which we must pass to a helpful and
noteworthy life no longer grate on their hinges with the deafening
clamour of old. They are smaller, perhaps, than they were; less vast
and imposing; but their number is greater to-day, and they admit us,
in silence, to paths that extend very far. And even though the home
of this woman be not brightened by one single gleam from without,
will she have failed to fulfil her destiny because her life is lived
in the shade? Cannot destiny be beautiful and complete in itself,
without help from without? As the soul that has truly conquered
surveys the triumphs of the past, it is glad of those only that
brought with them a deeper knowledge of life and a nobler humility;
of those that lent sweeter charm to the moments when love, glory,
and enthusiasm having faded away, the fruit that a few hours of
boiling passion had ripened was gathered in meditation and silence.
When the feasting is over: when charity, kindness and valorous deed
all lie far behind us: what is there left to the soul but some stray
recollections, a gain of some consciousness, and a feeling that
helps us to look on our place in the world with more knowledge and
less apprehension--a feeling blent with some wisdom, from the
numberless things it has learned? When the hour for rest has
sounded--as it must sound every night and at every moment of
solitude--when the gaudy vestments of love, and glory, and power
fall helplessly round us; what is it we can take with us as we seek
refuge within ourselves, where the happiness of each day is measured
by the knowledge the day has brought us, by the thoughts and the
confidence it has helped us to acquire? Is our true destiny to be
found in the things which take place about us, or in that which
abides in our soul?" Be a man's power or glory never so great," said
a philosopher, "his soul soon learns how to value the feelings that
spring from external events; and as he perceives that no increase
has come to his physical faculties, that these remain wholly
unchanged, neither altered nor added to, then does the sense of his
nothingness burst full upon him. The king who should govern the
world must still, like the rest of his brothers, revolve in a
limited circle, whose every law must be obeyed; and on his
impressions and thoughts must his happiness wholly depend." The
impressions his memory retains, we might add, because they have
chastened his mind; for the souls that we deal with here will retain
such impressions only as have quickened their sense of goodness, as
have made them a little more noble. Is it impossible to find--it
matters not where, nor how great be the silence--the same
undlssolvable matter that lurks in the cup of the noblest external
existence? and seeing that nothing is truly our own till it
faithfully follow us into the darkness and silence, why should the
thing that has sprung to life there be less faithful in silence and
darkness? But we will pursue this no farther, for it leads to a
wisdom of over-much theory. For all that a brilliant exterior
destiny is not indispensable, still should we always regard it as
wholly desirable, and pursue it as keenly as though we valued it
highly. It behoves the sage to knock at the door of every temple of
glory, of every dwelling where happiness, love, and activity are to
be found. And if his strenuous effort and long expectation remain
unrewarded, if no door fly open, still may he find, perhaps, in the
mere expectation and effort an equivalent for all the emotions and
light that he sought. "To act," says Barres, "is to annex to our
thoughts vaster fields of experience." It is also, perhaps, to think
more quickly than thought, as more completely; for we no longer
think with the brain alone, but with every atom of life. It is to
wrap round with dream the profoundest sources of thought, and then
to confront them with fact. But to act is not always to conquer. To
attempt, to be patient, and wait--these, too, may be action; as
also, to hear, to watch, and be silent.

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