All experience seems to teach--does it not?--that no human arm or heart
can be to another soul what these words promise, and what we need. And
yet the men who have been disappointed and disenchanted a thousand
times do still look among their fellows for what their fellows, too,
are looking for, and none have ever found. Have _we_ found what we seek
among men? Have we ever known amongst the dearest that we have clung
to, one arm that was strong enough to keep us in all danger? Has there
ever been a human love to which we can run with the security that
_there_ is a strong tower where no evil can touch us? There have been
many delights in all our lives mediated and ministered to us by those
that we loved. They have taught us, and helped us, and strengthened us
in a thousand ways. We have received from them draughts of wisdom, of
love, of joy, of guidance, of impulse, of comfort, which have been, as
water in the desert is, more precious than gold. Our fellow-travellers
have shared their store with us, 'letting down their pitchers upon
their hand,' and giving us drink; but has the draught ever slaked the
thirst? They carry but a pitcher, and a pitcher is not a fountain. Have
there been any in all the round of those that we have loved and
trusted, to whom we have trusted absolutely, without having been
disappointed? They, like us, are hemmed in by human limitations. They
each bear a burdened and thirsty spirit, itself needing such supplies.
And to the truest, happiest, most soul-sufficing companionship, there
comes at last that dread hour which ends all sweet commerce of giving
and receiving, and makes the rest of life, for some of us, one
monotonous ashen-grey wilderness where no water is. These things make
it impossible for us to find anywhere amongst men our refuge and our
fruition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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