Does life deserve from us this galling reproach —
that we sleep on hunger
and swallow down our chokings
and our dreams sink away into the abyss of the vanished past,
then we wake...
and behold, the sun has set,
and the still clouds have covered the horizon,
and behold, life —
with all its lights that ring the radiant days of childhood and guileless youth,
and its ambitions and its blossoming hopes —
has been scattered, all of it, with all the rest, beyond recall;
and behold, the soul is worn out, exhausted,
finding no rest in repose,
turning aside for nothing,
never bending toward the delights of life?...
No, by the truth of it all.
•
An old Arab poet says:
"Do a kindness, though in the wrong place;
no kindness is ever lost, wherever it be placed."
And the modern psychologists, arguing by their foolish, wrangling theories, say in effect:
If a man wishes to be happy,
he can be;
and if he wishes not to fall ill,
it is impossible
that the hand of disease should touch him, or knock at his door.
They even go so far as to say
that he whose soul does not yearn for death
will not die.
O you there... and you others —
you are floundering.
The first theory no longer has any place in men's reckoning;
and the second theory
is refuted at its very root —
this theory that cost me — alas — believing what is not to be believed,
and imagining what has no foundation in truth,
and bringing this soul of mine down
to stations which the nature of one
molded of dignity and pride cannot approve —
yes, pride without pretension...
And so it was decreed for me
to give more than I take,
to forgive and to overlook —
first, because overlooking is my disposition,
and second, because in forbearance lies the happiness of others;
and upon the happiness of these others
I built my illusory happiness.
