That masculine heart ceases not to curse itself for resorting to such hasty and violent methods by which to obtain for itself an ephemeral and pa.s.sing pleasure;
This feminine heart eats out its life with remorse for because it gave itself so unthinkingly when asked; though of a survey it thought that asking was a thing prompted by impulses as n.o.ble as they seemed divine; and
That masculine heart, when the tidal wave of heated pa.s.sion has subsided, wonders how it was led captive by lures so deceptive and untried.
M regrets, and regrets in vain, that he did not await a purer and more permanent pa.s.sion; and
N chews for a life-time the cud of persistent remorse for an hour"s poignant pleasure.
Ach! this human heart knows nothing of itself nor anything of its fellow beating hearts. If it follows its bent, it is cracked; if it holds itself in leash, it aches. If it calls reason to aid, its soaring hopes are dashed, its romance spoiled, and it itself reduced to the level of a machine that calculates. If it acts on impulse and, meeting a heart that beats, so it thinks, in unison, unites itself with it, often enough that other soon palpitates to a different rhythm, or itself cannot keep time, and all things go awry.
Poor aching, beating, human heart! It cannot reason; it cannot count the cost. To it seems that impulse, divine and mighty impulse, is the sole law of the earth; in time it learns that impulse, the mightiest, the divinest, though it may be law in heaven, is sometimes a veritable nemesis on earth: it gives freely, gladly, without compunction; it finds the gift rewarded by consequences too pitiful for tears.
Alas, this human heart! Can no one advise it Is there no advice will help it? Must it always go wrong, and always suffer?--Well, --If one loves, one dare not reason; if one reasons, it is difficult to love.
There seems to be something cosmic, something transcending the bounds of the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in s.p.a.ce; a pygmy in comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the ultra-telescopic confines of vision.
What it makes the desires and cravings of this human heart more important, more importunate, to its owner than the measuring of the vastest s.p.a.ce? Why is it that the longings, the hopes, the disappointments, the desperate aspirations, and the pa.s.sionate loves of little human hearts should cause to their possessors such prepotent commotions, such poignant qualms? Rigel and Betelgeuse and Algol rush through s.p.a.ce, and about them probably circle numerous planets inhabited by countless and curious beings, each and all, perhaps, possessing hearts as perturbable as our own. And yet, if our own little earthly Jack cannot get our own little earthly Jill, what cares Jack what happens to Vega or Capella or to the great nebula in Orion? Jack wants Jill; and that want is to Jack the only thing in the sidereal heavens that matters.
The curious and perhaps semi-comical but wholly-pathetic thing about the whole matter is this: that though undoubtedly our little planet is part of and has a place in this great sidereal universe, and consequently all our Jacks and Jills are related to all the Jacks and Jills everywhere else, yet each little human heart behaves as it were the only heart in the sum-total of created things: if it enjoys, it calls upon all that is, to congratulate it; if it suffers, it cries aloud to high heaven to avenge its wrongs: it comports itself as if it and it alone were the only sensitive things in existence.--That is curious. That it wrongs may have been wrought by itself; that is fate may have been determined in the reign of Chaos and Old Night, or ere even cosmic nebulae were born, it does not dream: if Jill is indifferent or Jack morose,--either is enough to cause Jack or Jill to curse G.o.d and die. Is there some archetypal and arca.n.a.l secret in this the extreme, the supernal egoism of the human heart?
Of all of which, what is the moral?--Humph! Frankly, I do not know what is the moral. Only this I see: that each little heart creates its own little universe: the bee"s, the that of its hive and the fields; man"s, that of his earth and the stars. What may be above or beyond the stars, man no more knows than the bee knows what is beyond the fields. The heart--be it man"s or a bee"s--is the centre of its self-made sphere.
Some day, perhaps, man"s sphere will extend as far beyond the stars as today it extends beyond the fields. Then--who knows?--perhaps unlimited senses and an uncirc.u.mcised intellect may find themselves commensurate with this high-aspiring heart, and an emanc.i.p.ated and ecstatic Jack unite with a congenial Jill.
That there is a Universe, is apparent; that it is one and complete, we suppose; that there are in it Jacks and Jills, is indubitable; that these Jacks and Jills crave mutual support, sympathy, love, friendship, wifehood, sistership, companionship, brotherhood, is also indubitable.
If therefore the whole scheme of the Universe is not a farce, what does this craving of Love for Lover mean? And yet,
It is quite impossible to conceive of a Universe of Love, in which all the claims of Heart and Soul and Senses shall be eternally and infinitely satisfied? Nevertheless, on this little earth, perhaps
Ill betides the heart that leans overmuch on another. For, alas!
Not even the entire immolation of one heart for another will satisfy that other.--Indeed, indeed,
In this life, would one seek comfort and solace, one must seek it--in one"s own self, or in one"s G.o.d. For
Only one of two things can comfort: To put the world under one"s feet; or, to keep a G.o.d over one"s head: only
He who is "captain of his soul", or he who commits his soul to G.o.d, can rise above fate.
There is a vacuum in every human heart. And the human heart abhors it as much as nature.
What will fill this cardiac void no mortal to this moment has found out.
Art cries, "Beauty", and tries to depict it; Philosophy cries, "Truth, and strives to define it; Religion cries, "Good", and does its best to embody it; and numberless lesser voices in the wilderness cry, "Power", or "Gold", or "Work",--which is a narcotic, or "Excitement",--which is an intoxicant; and a many-toned changeful siren with sweetly-saddening music cries, "Love". And one pursues a phantom, and another clasps a shadow, and a third cloaks his eyes with a transparent veil, or steeps his senses in floods that will not drown.--No, what the human heart wants it does not know. And, what is more,
Pathetic problem amongst problems pathetic, often it puzzles this human heart to distinguish between the things which it is right and proper to seek wherewith to fill that void, and the things which are wrong and improper. Furthermore:
How apt is the heart to seek in the illegitimate for the satisfaction which the legitimate fails to give!--Problems ancient as Eden.
What does it want, this human heart, what does it so earnestly desire, so strenuously seek? All about it and about are beauty, friendship, mirth, and gladness; the sea and the earth and the sky; color and music and song; and to each, if he wills it, wife, or husband, and children and home.--Wanting is--what?--Ah!
One lesson this human heart has to learn, so easy to put into words, so difficult to carry out by deed; is this:
To get, the human heart must give.
The heart eats out itself; causes its own emptiness; creates its own void.
The selfish and egoistical life breeds always the vapid and vacuous heart.
Would you appease your own hunger? Feed the hungry hearts around you.
Do you crave fullness of joy? Give joy to the joyless.
Would you fill your own cavity, satisfy your craving, attain your desire, find what you seek? Give--give--give. The more the better, for
The greater the donation, the greater the repletion.
Nature gives, gives lavishly, wantonly, unquestioningly.
Every atom of soil, every drop of sap, goes to produce flowers and fruit and seed: root and branch and leaf are but carefully constructed means by which to trans.m.u.te sunshine and soil and flower and fruit and seed. No tree lives for itself.
Shall, then, this human heart live for itself; gather and store up for its own delectation, for its own good?
There is no such thing as one"s own good:
Goodness is mutual, is communal; is only guided by giving and receiving.
Wherefore
O frail, weak, human heart, seek thou out carefully constructed means by which to trans.m.u.te sunshine and soil and showers into flowers and fruit.