NATURE IN THE LOUVRE, 265 



all care, and to make this life seem the life of the im- 

 mortals. 



Returning the next morning, my thoughts went on, 

 and found that this ideal of nature required of us some- 

 thing beyond good. The conception of moral good did 

 not satisfy one while contemplating it. The highest form 

 known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing 

 of good, not for any reward, now or hereafter, nor for the 

 completion of an imaginary scheme. This is the best we 

 know. But how unsatisfactory ! Filled with the aspira- 

 tions called forth by the ideal before me, it appeared as 

 if even the saving of life is a little work compared to what 

 the heart would like to do. An outlet is needed more 

 fully satisfying to its inmost desires than is afforded by 

 any labour of self-abnegation. It must be something 

 in accord with the perception of beauty and of an ideal. 

 Personal virtue is not enough. The works called good 

 arc dry and jejune, soon consummated, often of question- 

 able value, and leaving behind them when finished a sense 

 of vacuity. You give a sum of money to a good object 

 and walk away, but it does not satisfy the craving of the 

 heart. You deny yourself pleasure to sit by the bedside 

 of an invalid — a good deed ; but when it is done there 

 remains an emptiness of the soul. It is not enough— it 

 is casuistry to say that it is. I often think the reason 

 the world is so cold and selfish, so stolid and indifferent, 

 is because it has never yet been shown how to be any- 

 thing else. Listening to the prophets of all times and 

 climes, it has heard them proclaim their ordinances, and 

 has seen these observances punctually obeyed for hun- 

 dreds of years, and nothing has come of it all. To-day 

 it listens to the prophets of humanity, and it sees much 

 real benevolence actually carried out. But the result is 

 infinitesimal Nothing comes of it ; it does not satisfy 



