Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/364

328 —How happy we are when fed like the birds by the hands of one who distributes to the birds without closely examining them or testing their worth! Happy to live like a bird that comes and flies away and carries no name in its beak! I think it delightful to sit and partake of the banquet of many. —All that is excitable, noisy, inconsistent, nervous, forms the contrast to the great passion, which, burning in the heart as a quiet gloomy flame, gathering all that is fervent and ardent, gives to man a cold and indifferent appearance and stamps a certain impassiveness on the features. Men like these may occasionally be capable of charity,—but this charity is distinct from that of the lovers of society and admiration : it is a mild, contemplative, placid kindness ;—they, as it were, look out of the windows of their castle which is their stronghold, and consequently their prison :—the outlook into the far away, the open air, into another world, is so delightful to them! —A: But why are you unwilling to justify yourself ?—B: I might do it in this case as well as in many others; but I scorn the pleasure Which lies in justification, for I do not attach sufficient