There is no hope that death will work an immediate moral change in
us; it may set us free from some sensual and material temptations,
but the innermost motives will indeed survive, that instinct which
makes us again and again pursue what we know to be false and
unsatisfying.
The more that we shrink from self-knowledge, the more excuses that
we make for ourselves, the more that we tend to attribute our
failures to our circumstances and to the action of others, the more
reason we have to fear the revelation of death. And the only way to
face that is to keep our minds open to any light, to nurture and
encourage the wish to be different, to pray hour by hour that at
any cost we may be taught the truth; it is useless to search for
happy illusions, to look for short cuts, to hope vaguely that
strength and virtue will burst out like a fountain beside our path.
We have a long and toilsome way to travel, and we can by no device
abbreviate it; but when we suffer and grieve, we are walking more
swiftly to our goal; and the hours we spend in fear, in sending the
mind in weariness along the desolate track, are merely wasted, for
we can alter nothing so.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225