108. And if it be a great love that you seek, how can you believe that a soul shall be met with of beauty as great as you dream it to be, if you seek it with nothing but dreams? Have you the right to expect that definite words and positive actions shall offer themselves in exchange for mere formless desire, and yearning, and vision? Yet thus it is most of us act. And if some fortunate chance at last accords our desire, and places us in presence of the being who is all we had dreamed her to be--are we entitled to hope that our idle and wandering cravings shall long be in unison with her vigorous, established reality? Our ideal will never be met with in life unless we have first achieved it within us to the fullest extent in our power. Do you hope to discover and win for yourself a loyal, profound, inexhaustible soul, loving and quick with life, faithful and powerful, unconstrained, free: generous, brave, and benevolent--if you know less well than this soul what all these qualities mean? And how should you know, if you have not loved them and lived in their midst, as this soul has loved and lived? Most exacting of all things, unskilful, thick-sighted, is the moral beauty, perfection, or goodness that is still in the shape of desire. If it be your one hope to meet with an ideal soul, would it not be well that you yourself should endeavour to draw nigh to your own ideal? Be sure that by no other means will you ever obtain your desire. And as you approach this ideal it will dawn on you more and more clearly how fortunate and wisely ordained it has been that the ideal should ever be different from what our vague hopes were expecting. So too when the ideal takes shape, as it comes into contact with life, will it soften, expand, and lose its rigidity, incessantly growing more noble. And then will you readily perceive, in the creature you love, all that which is eternally true in yourself, and solidly righteous, and essentially beautiful; for only the good in our heart can advise us of the goodness that hides by our side. Then, at last, will the imperfections of others no longer seem of importance to you, for they will no longer be able to wound your vanity, selfishness, and ignorance; imperfections, that is, which have ceased to resemble your own; for it is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within others.