Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/69

 his whole life passes in these alternations of strength and weakness, courage and fear, joys and sorrows indescribable. This is the type of those organizations which fill themselves with life in a moment, and may also lose it in a moment. They are to-day on the borders of the tomb, and to-morrow rejuvenated as though regenerated.

"These natures, with characters so variable, which give the diapason in all degrees to human passion, — now full of strength and vigor, now cold and glacial, — are what the vulgar term melancholy characters; but the close observer will recognize in them the impress of choice natures, — those alone capable of great things. These especially need to study the hygiene suited to them, and the wisdom which will give them strength to restrain and subdue their characters; then they may make the saints and heroes, the great men of every description. These natures alone are susceptible of sublime enjoyments and sublime sorrows, and of experiencing all that human life comprises. In their ranks are found the great martyrs of humanity; the geniuses and poets, who see the truth and feel its expression; the beautiful in every art, — music, design, literature, etc. "Nature entire is a language which these natures know by heart, and which reveals to them utterable secrets unknown to vulgar natures. The splendors of a beautiful night, the shades of the forest, the shuddering of the foliage in the breeze, the roaring waves of the sea, speak a language known to them.

"It is very unfortunate if these natures go astray and are careless to curb their evil passions; for it is these alone who are capable of becoming the greatest and most corrupt profligates, or the most pure and noble philanthropists. If all the individuals belonging to this category are not endowed with an intelligence sufficiently vast to be marked out in the multitude, they have, nevertheless, a certain stamp which enables them to be recognized as belonging, more or less, to this noble class.

"From the individual who is the most imperfect conductor of life, to him who is the best, there is an infinity of degrees, where each energy of character, with all its consequences, finds its place. It is not astonishing, then, that the atmospheric condition of the globe operates so much upon the persons of whom we are speaking, when we know the relations which exist between electricity