Then, too, it acts like a frost not merely upon personal, but upon national ambition, and so keeps the wellspring from the root. Its assumption of a superhuman fortitude accords but ill with scientific truth, for if with one bound every man may become as God, he will despise that infinitely slow upward progression which is the only real advance. But, above all, it lives estranged from tenderness, in which alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires; but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the Divine are one perfection.
There is a favourite mediæval legend depicted in one of the windows of the cathedral at Bourges, which exposes in a characteristic fashion this weakness of the Stoic's creed. The Evangelist St John, when at Ephesus, remarked in the forum the philosopher Cratinus giving a lesson of abnegation to certain rich young men. At the teacher's bidding the youths had converted all their wealth into precious stones, and these they were now bidden crush to dust with a heavy hammer in the presence of the assembled people, that so they might make public profession of their contempt for riches. But St John was angered at so wasteful a renunciation. "It is written," he said, "that whoso would be perfect should not destroy his possessions, but sell them, and give the proceeds to the poor." "If your master is the true God," replied Cratinus scornfully, "restore these gems again to their original form, and then they shall be bestowed according to your desire." St John prayed, and the precious stones lay there once more perfect in all their brilliance and splendour. The moral of the old tale is clear--that all virtue without charity is nothing worth; and that of virtue without charity, the Stoic's cold renunciation is the chief type and ensample.
The insight into this higher truth did not come by inspiration, but was gradually imparted during long summer days, when I wandered from dawn to dark among the fields and woods. Hoping at first no more than to tire the mind with the body and so win a whole repose, I became by degrees receptive of a new learning from nature, which created new sympathies and kindled fresh ambitions. Naturally I again read Wordsworth, and now for the first time since childhood I knew what joys intimacy brings. I was one of a brotherhood, and wherever I went was sure of a friendly salutation. Things that grew in silence became my friends; I was with them at all hours, in light and shadow, in warmth and cold, watching their gracious and responsive existences, which reject no good gift, but radiantly grow towards the light while it endures. Insensibly the spirit of this gentle expansive life was infused within me, until the heart which I had deemed useless and outworn, began to open like a flower scathed by frost, at the full coming of spring. The plants and trees were human to me, the brooks spoke with articulate voice; by that ancient witchery of animism, old as the relationship of man and nature, I was put to school again: until at last, absorbed in the vicissitudes of small things and surrendering reason to a host of pathetic fallacies, I was taught the great secret that life may not be centred in itself, but in the going out of the heart is wisdom. And as among human friends there are some to whom a man is bound by deeper and tenderer links than to the rest, so it is with these other friends which have no language, but only the wild-wood power of growing about the heart. Among their gracious company each man will discover his own affinity, and having found it will look on the rest of nature with brighter eyes. Some learn the great lessons from mountains, lakes, and sounding cataracts; others from broad rivers peacefully flowing to the sea. To me there spoke no such romantic voices. My wanderings led me through a country of simple rural charm, and the friends that became dearest to me were just our English elms.