El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-02-08

HHOSE who11abe1 love and life as
empty farces are the ones who
imagine that these should give
them something more than they can ac-
quire for themselves.
Love, like all else, claims the highest
ideal; but every ideal that conforms
not with some strenuous inward reali-
ty is nothing but sterile, futile and
obseouious fa1sehood. Two or three
ideals, that lie out of our reach, VIII
suffice to paralyze life.
It is wrong to believe that 1oftiness
Of soul is governed by the loftiness of
desires or dreams. The dreams Of the
weak will be often more numerous,
lovlier. than are those of the strong;
for these dreams absorb all their en-
ergy, all their activity.
The perpetual craving for loftiness
does not count in our moral advance
ment II it be not the shadow thrown
by the life we have lived, by the firm
and experienced will that has come In
close kinship with man.
Then, indeed, as one places a rod at
the foot Of the steeple to tell Of its
height by the shadow, so may we lead
forth this craving Of ours to the midst
of the plain that is lit by the sun Of
external reality; and in this way guage
the relation between the shadow thrown
by our ideal and the dome Of eternity.
It is well that noble heart should
await q great love; better. still, that
this heart, all expectant, should cease
not from loving; and that. as IT loves.
1t should scarcely be conscious OF its
desire for more exquisite love.
Expectation AvaiIs Little.
In love. as IN life, expectation avails
US but little; through loving we learn
TO love; and it is the socalled disillus-
ions Of pettier love that feed the i'm
movable flame OF the mightier love
that shall come, it may be, to illumine
the rest of our life.
We treat disillusions often with
scantiest justice. We conceive them of
sorrowful countenance, pale and dis
couraged; whereas they are really the
very first smiles Of trutt Why should
disillusion distress you if you are a
man Of honest intention. if you strive
to be just, and Of service; if you seek
to be happy and wise? Would you
rather live on in the world of your
dreams and your errors than in the
world that is real?
Too often does many a promising
nature waste its most precious hours
in the struggle Of beautiful dreams
against the inevitable laws whose
beauty is only perceived when every
the exquisite dream.
II love has deceived you, do you
think that 1t would have been better
for you all your life to regard love as
something it is net, and never can be?
Would such an illusion not warp your
most significant actions; would II not
for many days hide from you some
part of the truth that you seek? Or If
you imagined that greatness lay in
you back to your place in the second
rank; have you the right, for the rest
Of your life, to curse the envoy Of
truth? For, after all, was it not truth
your illusion was seeking, assuming It
to have been sincere?
DisfIlusfOns Mysterious.
We should try to regard disillusions
as mysterious, faithful friends as
counse1lors none can corrupt And
should there be one more cruel than
the rest, that for an instant prostrates
you, do not murrnur to yourself through
your tears that life is less beautiful
than you had dreamed it to be, but
rather that in your dream there must
have been something lacking, since real
life has failed 10 approve.
And indeed the much Wanted
strength of the strenuous soul is built
up Of disillusions that this soul has
cheerfully welcomed. Every deception,
and love disappointed, every hope that
has crumbled TO dust. is possessed Of a
strength Of its own that it
adds to the strength of your
truth; and the more disillusions
there are that fall to the earth at your
feet. the more surely and nobIy will
great reality shine on you even as the
rays of the sun are beheld the more
clearly IN winter, as they pierce
through the leafless branches of the
trees Of the forest
And if it be a great love that you