The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth,
and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal
man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man
cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped. With books the same.
The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest
of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine
hammered steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful
world hath not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet.
But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast
crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of operas than hell;
calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men;
and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais
as passing wise, and therefore jolly;--not that man is fitted
to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould
with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.
But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of
the way of understanding shall remain" (i.e. even while living)
"in the congregation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then, to fire,
lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me.
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.
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