He perceives this truth in the
serenity of his soul and in the elevation of his mind. He expresses his
convictions with measure, restraint and harmony, which are indeed
princely qualities. He is a great analyst of illusions. He searches and
probes their innermost recesses as if they were realities made of an
eternal substance. And therein consists his humanity; this is the
expression of his profound and unalterable compassion. He will flatter
no tribe no section in the forum or in the market-place. His lucid
thought is not beguiled into false pity or into the common weakness of
affection. He feels that men born in ignorance as in the house of an
enemy, and condemned to struggle with error and passions through endless
centuries, should be spared the supreme cruelty of a hope for ever
deferred. He knows that our best hopes are irrealisable; that it is the
almost incredible misfortune of mankind, but also its highest privilege,
to aspire towards the impossible; that men have never failed to defeat
their highest aims by the very strength of their humanity which can
conceive the most gigantic tasks but leaves them disarmed before their
irremediable littleness.
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