Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/357

Rh —This is a very rare but most delightful thing: to wit, the man with a nobly-framed intellect, who is at the same time endowed with the character, inclinations, nay, experiences consonant to such an intellect. —Rousseau and Schopenhauer were both proud enough to inscribe on their lives the motto, (Life imposes upon truth). And again—how intensely must their pride have suffered when they did not succeed in imposing truth upon life!—truth as each of them understood it—when their lives coursed alongside their knowledge like an uncouth bass which is not in tune with the melody. But knowledge would be in a sorry plight if it were doled out to every thinker only in proportion as it happens to suit his person. And thinkers would be in a sorry plight if their vanity were so great that they could only endure this. For the noblest virtue of the great thinker is resplendent in his generosity which urges him, the discerner, to sacrifice himself and his life unshrinkingly, often blushingly, often with sublime scorn and smiling. —Persons and