Stars in a Dark Night?

I was an inquisitive child who wanted to know everything and asked about everything going on around her. What were the men doing in the garden of the house? Why were they using those long ropes? That was what ran through my mind when the workmen's foreman answered me: "We are working to reach the stars." But my protest against his words was vigorous — the stars are above, in the sky, not in the depths of the earth. The man laughed and replied: "Not always; sometimes you find them in the mud." And when he had finished digging the well, he took me down to its bottom and said: look up. And indeed, I saw the stars.

This is a picture from the corner of memory, but how clear it is, and how pure its light. We look at the stars on cloudless nights, but sometimes the clouds bank up and spoil it for us. The further the days carry us on, the deeper the blackness grows and the sorrows gather, paralyzing our resolve, until we all but drown at the bottom of a darkness from which there is no escape. But we are mistaken in this belief, for we can free ourselves from even the deepest despair or failure.

Do you live in darkness? However thickly the clouds gather around you, look up: there is still, despite failure and human calamities, a star shining out of the heart of the darkness; and in the corner of your cares you will find a gleaming ray. Hope forever urges us to march forward.

I visited a friend who had lost her only son on the field of battle, and I did not know how to console her, so I kept up a continuous conversation about him all the while I stayed with her. What she said was that she would never get over that calamity. I persuaded her that nature does not deliberately injure us by taking these dear ones from among us; we must accept their absence with patience and long forbearance, and remember the sweet things about them, and in this way we put the calamity to death, together with the pains that come over us at its remembrance. She said that this was impossible for her. Yet two days ago I received a letter from her in which she indicates that she has accepted the calamity, and that her state of mind has improved.

There may be a painful event in your life: accept it as the reality from which there is no escape. If you have failed in an affair of the heart, free yourself from the memory, which only aggravates the situation; many have been struck as you have, and have gone back and built a happier life and a stronger love. And if you bear a grudge against life because you could not reach some ambition, whether through material or intellectual shortcoming, then pursue your aims if you are able; if not, accept your lot without fretting or regret.

Search in the corner of memory and you will find a success to take pride in; this restores your confidence and rouses fresh energy in you to struggle for another success, and you will wake from your deep brooding to find that hope and love and courage are within your reach.

However thick the clouds and however dense the fog, be assured that behind them there is a star shining!