(2) Now, however, many previously conceiving in imagination, that all that is present with, and imparted to them by nature and fortune, is better than it is, and not thinking it to be such as it is in reality, but such as it is able to become when it has arrived at the summit of excellence, they burden the soul with many great, nefarious, and stupid evils, when they are suddenly deprived of [these evanescent goods]. And thus it happens to them that they lead a most bitter and miserable life. But this takes place in the loss of riches, or the death of friends or children, or in the privation of certain other things, which are conceived by them to be most honorable possessions.

Afterwards, weeping and lamenting, they assert of themselves, that they alone are most unfortunate and miserable, not remembering that these things have happened, and even now happen, to many others; nor are they able to understand the life of those that are now in existence, and of those that have lived in former times, nor to see in what great calamities and waves of evils, many of the present time are, and of the past have been involved. Considering with ourselves therefore, that many having lost their property, have afterwards on account of this very loss been saved, since hereafter they might either have fallen into the hands of robbers, or into the power of a tyrant; that many also who have loved certain persons, and have been benevolently disposed towards them in the extreme, have afterwards greatly hated them;—considering all these things, which have been delivered to us by history, and likewise learning that many have been destroyed by their children, and by those that they have most dearly loved; and comparing our own life with that of those who have been more unhappy than we have been, and taking into account human casualties [in general] and not only such as happen to ourselves, we shall pass through life with greater tranquillity.

For it is not lawful that he who is himself a man, should think the calamities of others easy to be borne, and not his own, since he sees that the whole of life is naturally exposed to many calamities. Those however, that weep and lament, besides not being able to recover what they have lost, or recal to life those that are dead, impel the soul to greater perturbations, in consequence of its being filled with much depravity. It is requisite therefore, that, being washed and purified, we should by all possible contrivances wipe away our inveterate stains by the reasonings of philosophy. But we shall accomplish this by adhering to prudence and temperance, being satisfied with our present circumstances, and not aspiring after many things.

For men who procure for themselves a great abundance [of external goods], do not consider that the enjoyment of them terminates with the present life. We ought therefore to use the goods that are present; and by the assistance of the beautiful and venerable things of which philosophy is the source, we shall be liberated from the insatiable desire of depraved possessions.

(13) Joy and sorrow come and go, and over them I have no control. "Alas! the life of man is but as a stoppage at an inn. He knows that which comes within the range of his experience. Otherwise, he knows not. He knows that he can do what he can do, and that he cannot do what he cannot do. But there is always that which he does not know and that which he cannot do; and to struggle that it shall not be so,—is not this a cause for grief? "The best language is that which is not spoken, the best form of action is that which is without deeds. Spread out your knowledge and it will be found to be shallow."

(32) But the memory of friends, children, wife? Country too, and all that the better sort of man may reasonably remember?

All these, the one retains with emotion, the authentic man passively: for the experience, certainly, was first felt in that lower phase from which, however, the best of such impressions pass over to the graver soul in the degree in which the two are in communication.

The lower soul must be always striving to attain to memory of the activities of the higher: this will be especially so when it is itself of a fine quality, for there will always be some that are better from the beginning and bettered here by the guidance of the higher.

The loftier, on the contrary, must desire to come to a happy forgetfulness of all that has reached it through the lower: for one reason, there is always the possibility that the very excellence of the lower prove detrimental to the higher, tending to keep it down by sheer force of vitality. In any case the more urgent the intention towards the Supreme, the more extensive will be the soul's forgetfulness, unless indeed, when the entire living has, even here, been such that memory has nothing but the noblest to deal with: in this world itself, all is best when human interests have been held aloof; so, therefore, it must be with the memory of them. In this sense we may truly say that the good soul is the forgetful. It flees multiplicity; it seeks to escape the unbounded by drawing all to unity, for only thus is it free from entanglement, light-footed, self-conducted. Thus it is that even in this world the soul which has the desire of the other is putting away, amid its actual life, all that is foreign to that order. It brings there very little of what it has gathered here; as long as it is in the heavenly regions only, it will have more than it can retain.

The Hercules of the heavenly regions would still tell of his feats: but there is the other man to whom all of that is trivial; he has been translated to a holier place; he has won his way to the Intellectual Realm; he is more than Hercules, proven in the combats in which the combatants are the wise.

(1) Abreast, like oxen going in a yoke, I with that heavy-laden soul went on, As long as the sweet pedagogue permitted; But when he said, "Leave him, and onward pass, For here 'tis good that with the sail and oars, As much as may be, each push on his barque;" Upright, as walking wills it, I redressed My person, notwithstanding that my thoughts Remained within me downcast and abashed. I had moved on, and followed willingly The footsteps of my Master, and we both Already showed how light of foot we were, When unto me he said: "Cast down thine eyes; 'Twere well for thee, to alleviate the way, To look upon the bed beneath thy feet." As, that some memory may exist of them, Above the buried dead their tombs in earth Bear sculptured on them what they were before; Whence often there we weep for them afresh, From pricking of remembrance, which alone To the compassionate doth set its spur; So saw I there, but of a better semblance In point of artifice, with figures covered Whate'er as pathway from the mount projects.

(8) Stop to think a moment. If a certain man had not met a certain maid, away back in the dim period of the Stone Age--you who are now reading these lines would not now be here. And if, perhaps, the same couple had failed to meet, we who now write these lines would not now be here. And the very act of writing, on our part, and the act of reading, on yours, will affect not only the respective lives of yourself and ourselves, but will also have a direct, or indirect, affect upon many other people now living and who will live in the ages to come. Every thought we think, every act we perform, has its direct and indirect results which fit into the great chain of Cause and Effect.

(30) Thereon comes surcease from sorrow and the burden of toil.

(12) The burden of bondage to sorrow has its root in these hindrances. It will be felt in this life, or in a life not yet manifested.

(12) Besides such cautious discrimination before acting, a man should call himself strictly to account for his past actions. Every evening he should examine his heart as to what he has done to see whether he has gained or lost in his spiritual capital. This is the more necessary as the heart is like a treacherous business partner, always ready to cajole and deceive; sometimes it presents its own selfishness under the guise of obedience to God, so that a man supposes be has gained, whereas he has really lost.

(5) We can in our Misery never know where our Spirit abides when the Body breaks, and comes to be a Carcase, except we be again new-born out of this World, so we may dwell in this World as to our Body, and as to our Mind in another eternal perfect new Life, wherein our Spirit and Mind put on a new Man, wherein it must and shall live eternally; and then we first know what we are, and where our Home is.

(18) But the soul - she who has tasted these things - realized that sweet passions are transitory. She had learned about evil; she went away from them and she entered into a new conduct. Afterwards she despises this life, because it is transitory. And she looks for those foods that will take her into life, and leaves behind her those deceitful foods. And she learns about her light, as she goes about stripping off this world, while her true garment clothes her within, (and) her bridal clothing is placed upon her in beauty of mind, not in pride of flesh. And she learns about her depth and runs into her fold, while her shepherd stands at the door. In return for all the shame and scorn, then, that she received in this world, she receives ten thousand times the grace and glory.

(1) Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more; But of the good to treat, which there I found, Speak will I of the other things I saw there. I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way. But after I had reached a mountain's foot, At that point where the valley terminated, Which had with consternation pierced my heart, Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders, Vested already with that planet's rays Which leadeth others right by every road. Then was the fear a little quieted That in my heart's lake had endured throughout The night, which I had passed so piteously. And even as he, who, with distressful breath, Forth issued from the sea upon the shore, Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

(90) There is no suffering for him who has finished his journey, and abandoned grief, who has freed himself on all sides, and thrown off all fetters.

(17) You have given these strength, hidden in the heart, and you came forth to them and from them.

(3) A passer-by, who saw a mother weeping over her daughter's grave said: 'This woman is superior to us men, for she knows whom she has lost and from whom she is parted. Happy the woman, or man, who knows w'hom he has lost, and for whom he weeps. As for me, though I sit in mourning and my tears flow like rain, I do not know for whom I weep. This woman carries away the ball of excellence from thousands like me, for she has found the perfume of the being she has lost.'-

(26) Earnest prayer in this form will be sure to guide thee along; thou mayst rest assured that thou wilt not be deceived. Of great importance is this: through that being recited, again recollection cometh; and recognition and liberation will be achieved.

(73) Only Man (who is proceeded out of another Principle) has in both those [forementioned] Principles, Woe, Misery, Sorrow, and Distress; for he is not in his native Country; and none of these two Principles can attain his native Country. Therefore the poor Soul must be thus plagued and tormented, that it may attain its native Country again; it must go again through the Gate of the deep Anguish of Death; it must break through two Kingdoms, and it sticks here between the Door and the Hinges, and is continually infected with those Things which keep it back and plague it; it sticks as it were in a Press.

(5) Man in his limitations had not power To satisfy, not having power to sink In his humility obeying then, Far as he disobeying thought to rise; And for this reason man has been from power Of satisfying by himself excluded. Therefore it God behoved in his own ways Man to restore unto his perfect life, I say in one, or else in both of them. But since the action of the doer is So much more grateful, as it more presents The goodness of the heart from which it issues, Goodness Divine, that doth imprint the world, Has been contented to proceed by each And all its ways to lift you up again; Nor 'twixt the first day and the final night Such high and such magnificent proceeding By one or by the other was or shall be; For God more bounteous was himself to give To make man able to uplift himself, Than if he only of himself had pardoned; And all the other modes were insufficient For justice, were it not the Son of God Himself had humbled to become incarnate.

(21) Through grief my days are as labor and sorrow, My days move on, hand in hand with anguish. Yet,, though my days vanish thus, 'tis no matter, Do thou abide, O Incomparable Pure One! But all who are not fishes are soon tired of water; And they who lack daily bread find the day very long; So the "Raw" comprehend not the state of the "Ripe;" Arise, O son! burst thy bonds and be free! How long wilt thou be captive to silver and gold? Though thou pour the ocean into thy pitcher,

(604) thing is of serious importance, and grief stands in the way of that which at the moment is most required. What is most required? he asked. That we should take counsel about what has happened, and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best; not, like children who have had a fall, keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl, but always accustoming the soul forthwith to apply a remedy, raising up that which is sickly and fallen, banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art. Yes, he said, that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune. Yes, I said; and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason? Clearly. And the other principle, which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation, and can never have enough of them, we may call irrational, useless, and cowardly? Indeed, we may. And does not the latter—I mean the rebellious principle—furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament, being always nearly equable, is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre. For the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers.

(21) The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when compared with that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the thyrsus. For "speak," it is said, "to a wise man, and he will grow wiser; and to him that hath, and there shall be added to him." And we profess not to explain secret things sufficiently - far from it - but only to recall them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten. Whence, to aid the weakness of my memory, and provide for myself a salutary help to my recollection in a systematic arrangement of chapters, I necessarily make use of this form. There are then some things of which we have no recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great. There are also some things which remained unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are effaced, having faded away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking: not grudging - for that were wrong - but fearing for my readers, lest they should stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found "reaching a sword to a child." For it is impossible that what has been written should not escape, although remaining unpublished by me. But being always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they answer nothing to him that makes inquiries beyond what is written; for they require of necessity the aid of some one, either of him who wrote, or of some one else who has walked in his footsteps.