The soul of man has passed through a great education, and has
immensely profited by it; but its elemental qualities and forces
remain unchanged. Two things men have always craved,--to come to close
quarters with life, and to do something positive and substantial.
Self-expression is the prime need of human nature; it must know, act,
and suffer by virtue of its deepest instincts. The greater and richer
that nature, the deeper will be its need of seeing life on many sides,
of sharing in many kinds of experience, of contending with multiform
difficulties. To drink deeply of the cup of life, at whatever cost,
appears to be the insatiable desire of the most richly endowed men and
women; and with such natures the impulse is to seek, not to shun,
experience. And that which to the elect men and women of the race is
necessary and possible is not only comprehensible to those who cannot
possess it: it is powerfully and permanently attractive. There is a
spell in it which the dullest mortal does not wholly escape.[1]
1. Reprinted in part, by permission, from the "Forum."
Chapter XXI.
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