Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/72

 and choke the spiritual autumn bloom of humanity in nations and classes. All these conditions of terrestrial existence must be fulfilled ere the soul may claim its due. To the unhappy, therefore, who must be the business men and carriers of their bodily wants, the whole inner world seems but as an imaginary gilt cobweb, like the man who, breathing only the electrical atmosphere, instead of feeling the spark, thinks to grasp an invisible web. But when our necessary animal servitude is over, when the barking inner dog-kennel is fed, and the dog-fight finished, then the inner man demands his nectar and ambrosia, and if he is turned off with earth-food only, he changes to an angel of Death, and a Hellfiend, driving himself to suicide, or makes of him a poison-mixer who destroys all joy. The eternal hunger in man, the insatiability of his heart, wants not a richer, but a different food, fruit, not grass. If our wants referred but to the degree, not to the quality, then the imagination, at least, might paint a degree of satiety. But imagination cannot make us happy, by showing us innumerable heaps of treasures, if they be other than Virtue, Truth, and Beauty."

"But the more beautiful soul?" asked Nadine. I answered, "This discrepancy between our wishes and our circumstances, the heart and the earth, will remain an enigma, if we are immortal, and would be a blasphemy if