In a chaos of the elements, can a smiling sky be always seen? Lay
asleep all unruly elements in the spirit, and a pure heaven of
brightness will then greet the uplifted glance."
"But how can all this be done, grandfather? hath unruly elements do
you speak of? What can I do; for instance? I certainly am willing
and glad to see my kind happy--if my soul be in disorder, I do not
know in what it consists, or how to bring it to order. I am weary of
its unsatisfied desires; it is, continually in search of something
which it has never caught sight of,--and the fear, that that
unknown, yet powerfully desired something may never come to quench
my thirst, falls with the coldness of death upon my bosom."
"That something may be found by every human being, if sought for in
the right way. Those yearnings are not given us, that they may fall
back and wither the fountain from which they spring. But the
question is, do we seek for happiness in the right way? Do we not
rather ask for an impossibility, when we ask for permanent bliss,
before we have laid a foundation in our souls for it? You wish to
take this life too easy by far, my son; rouse up all your strength,
look around you with the keenness of a resolved spirit, and seek to
regenerate your whole being,--let that be your object, and let the
desire for happiness be subservient to it.
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