Page:The treasure of the humble (IA cu31924072557063).pdf/214

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

The Treasure of the Humble

near the gates I spoke of, that you can discover the divine in the soul. Then will you be able to say with the great Jean Paul: 'When I desire to love most tenderly one who is dear to me, and wish to forgive him everything, I have but to look at him for a few moments in silence.' To learn to love, one must first learn to see. 'I lived for twenty years by my sister's side,' said a friend to me, one day, 'and I saw her for the first time at the moment of our mother's death.' Here, too, it had been necessary that death should violently fling open an eternal gate, so that two souls might behold each other in a ray of the primeval light. Is there one amongst us who has not near to him sisters he has never seen?

Happily, even in those whose vision is most limited, there is always something that acts in silence as though they had seen. It is possible, perhaps, that to be

192