On Devient Moral De' S Qu'on Est

...that Melancholy Which We Feel When We Cease To Obey Orders Which, From One Day To Another, Keep The Future Hidden, And Realise That We Have At Last Begun To Live In Real Earnest, As A Grown-up Person, The Life, The Only Life That Any Of Us Has At His Disposal.

We Do Not Succeed In Changing Things According To Our Desire, But Gradually Our Desire Changes. The Situation That We Hoped To Change Because It Was Intolerable Becomes Unimportant. We Have Not Managed To Surmount The Obstacle, As We Were Absolutely Determined To Do, But Life Has Taken Us Round It, Led Us Past It, And Then If We Turn Round To Gaze At The Remote Past, We Can Barely Catch Sight Of It, So Imperceptible Has It Become.

The Reason Why A Work Of Genius Is Not Easily Admired From The First Is That The Man Who Has Created It Is Extraordinary, That Few Other Men Resemble Him. It Is His Work Itself That, By Fertilising The Rare Minds Capable Of Understanding It, Will Make Them Increase And Multiply.

We May, Indeed, Say That The Hour Of Death Is Uncertain, But When We Say This We Think Of That Hour As Situated In A Vague And Remote Expanse Of Time; It Does Not Occur To Us That It Can Have Any Connexion With The Day That Has Already Dawned And Can Mean That Death -- Or Its First Assault And Partial Possession Of Us, After Which It Will Never Leave Hold Of Us Again -- May Occur This Very Afternoon, So Far From Uncertain, This Afternoon Whose Time-table, Hour By Hour, Has Been Settled In Advance.

We Are Less Justified In Saying That The Thinking Life Of Humanity Is A Miraculous Perfectioning Of Animal And Physical Life Than That It Is An Imperfection In The Organization Of Spiritual Life As Rudimentary As The Communal Existence Of Protozoa In Colonies.