Therefore the works as well as the lives of great artists have been full of sadness. The group of the Laocoon struggling in the deadly coil of the serpent; the agony of the crucifixion; the tragedies of love and jealousy and devotion,――these have been the chosen themes of painters, sculptors and dramatists; chosen because they mark graphically the struggles of our common nature with its limits, ennobled by its ambition to leap beyond them. Every soul knows, unconsciously and instinctively, that sorrow is the only teacher of what is most valuable in life. It alone develops fortitude, and therefore it commands the respect of all; it alone teaches sympathy, and therefore it enlists the admiration of all. No character is ripe which has not crispened under its sharp breath; none is of finest temper but those forged by its heavy blows. The noblest lives are sad; but those who have quaffed the severe joy of sorrow care little for the light froth of pleasure. The quality of high energy is developed only by affliction. Wrestling with it, the sinews of the mind are trained. We must go forth and seek new supports in life, when we have lost those which we loved and depended upon. By such an effort, we reconcile ourselves to the loss, gain a victory over fate, strengthen our minds, and reach an air of wider freedom. The blast may beat at the gate, but all is quiet within. There is a habit of sadness which is not gloomy, which may share and admire the delights of life, but which is ever ready to meet the storms of misfortune with serenity and fortitude. Such a habit of mind lifts one above the threats and disturbances of the ceaseless struggle for existence into the companionship of ideas and powers which the poet rightly calls celestial:―― “Wer nicht sein Brod mit Thränen ass, Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Lager weinend sass, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.” There is a ministry of grief, a compensation in calamity, a remedial property in misfortune, sweet uses in adversity, which need but to be recognized and cherished for the sting to be blunted, and what seems at first a grief without an element of alleviation, to become in time the foundation of a higher happiness. How often may one exclaim with Cleopatra, in the midst of her immeasurable losses:―― “My desolation, Does begin to make a better life.” We need occasionally some violent and painful shock to waken us from the lethargy of pleasant custom, to break the shackles of agreeable and enervating habit, to tear us by the roots from the soil in which we lazily vegetate, and transplant us into fresh and richer fields. The beautiful elements in a noble character are woven together by the experience of afflictions, as the pearls which form the design of a brooch are held in place by the thread of iron on which they are strung.