No, that is not the end! The end is rather to live fully and ardently,
to recognise the indestructibility of the spirit, to strip off from it
all that wounds and disables it, not by drearily toiling against
haunting faults, but by rising as often as we can into serene ardour
and deep hopefulness. That is the principle of beauty, to feel that
there is something transforming and ennobling us, which we can lay
hold of if we wish, and that every time we see the great spirit at
work and clasp it close to our feeble will, we soar a step higher and
see all things with a wider and a clearer vision.
XXVII
LIFE
But in all this, and indeed beyond all this, we must not dare to
forget one thing; that it is life with which we are confronted, and
that our business is to live it, and to live it in our own way; and
here we may thankfully rejoice that there is less and less tendency in
the world for people to dictate modes of life to us; the tyrant and
the despot are not only out of date--they are out of fashion, which is
a far more disabling thing! There is of course a type of person in the
world who loves to call himself robust and even virile--heaven help us
to break down that bestial ideal of manhood!--who is of the stuff that
all bullies have been made since the world began, a compound of
courage, stupidity, and complacency; to whom the word 'living' has no
meaning, unless it implies the disturbing and disquieting of other
people. We are gradually putting him in his right place, and the
kindlier future will have little need of him; because a sense is
gradually shaping itself in the world that life is best lived on
peaceful and orderly lines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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