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The Inner Beauty

you will profit thereby? What if you are among men of the valley, is that sufficient reason for checking the instinctive movement of your soul towards the mountain peaks? Does darkness rob deep feeling of its power? Have the blind nought but their eyes wherewith the distinguish those who love them from those who love them not? Can the beauty not exist that is not understood, and is there not in every man something that does understand—in regions far beyond what he seems to understand, far beyond, too, what he believes he understands? 'Even to the very wretchedest of all,' said to me one day the loftiest minded creature it has ever been my happiness to know, 'even to the very wretchedest of all I never have the courage to say anything in reply that is ugly or mediocre.' I have for a long time followed that man's life, and have seen the inexplicable power he exercised over the most obscure, the most

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