Into quiet & tender joy by Fyodor Dostoevsk

But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery
of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy;
instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age:

I bless the sun's rising each day and my heart sings to
it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long
slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories,
dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life--and
over all is God's truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!
Fyodor Dostoevsky

You would not be without friends by harlotte Bronte

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked,
while your own conscience approved you, and absolved
you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
Charlotte Bronte,Jane Eyre

When We love by Oscar Wild

EXCERPT FROM "An Ideal Husband"
Oscar Wilde

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN:

"We have all feet of clay, women as well as men;
but when we men love women, we love them knowing
their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections,
love them all the more, it may be, for that reason.

It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love.
It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others,
that love should come to cure us - else what use is love at all?

Women think that they are making ideals of men.
What they are making of us are false idols merely.
You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage
to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses.
I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.

Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put
them on alters and bow before them...

LADY CHILTERN:

"Robert, men can love what is beneath them - things unworthy,
stained, dishonoured. We women worship when we love; and
when we lose our worship, we lose everything.
Oh! don't kill my love for you, don't kill that!"

"Robert,You are different. All your life you have stood apart from others.
You have never let the world soil you. To the world, as to myself,
you have been an ideal always. Oh! be that ideal still.
That great inheritance throw not away - that tower of ivory do not destroy".

Literature and Life by Phillips Brooks

Literature and Life
Phillips Brooks

LIFE comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work.
The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues.
The forests are full of trees before the sea is thick with ships.
So the world abounds in life before men begin to reason and describe
and analyze and sing, and literature is born.

The fact and the action must come first. This is true in every kind
of literature. The mind and its workings are before the metaphysician.
Beauty and romance antedate the poet.

The nations rise and fall before the historian tells their story.
Nature’s profusion exists before the first scientific book is written.
Even the facts of mathematics must be true before the first diagram
is drawn for their demonstration.

There will come a time by Maxim Gorky

Excerpt from" Mother"
Maxim Gorky

Raising his hand and shaking it, he began slowly
in a solemn tone of assurance with faith and with strength:

"There will come a time, I know, when people will take delight
in one another, when each will be like a star to the other,
and when each will listen to his fellow as to music.

The free men will walk upon the earth, men great in their freedom.
They will walk with open hearts, and the heart of each will be pure
of envy and greed, and therefore all mankind will be without malice,
and there will be nothing to divorce the heart from reason.
Then life will be one great service to man! His figure will be
raised to lofty heights-- for to free men all heights are attainable.

Then we shall live in truth and freedom and in beauty, and those
will be accounted the best who will the more widely embrace
the world with their hearts, and whose love of it will be
the profoundest; those will be the best who will be the freest;
for in them is the greatest beauty. Then will all life be great,
and the people will be great who live that life."

To Each His Dulcinea (To Every Man His Dream) lyrics

To Each His Dulcinea (To Every Man His Dream) lyrics
From"Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote)"

To each his Dulcinea
That he alone can name...
Where he can find the haunting face
To light his secret flame.

For with his Dulcinea Beside him so to stand,
A man can do quite anything,
Outfly the bird upon the wing,
Hold moonlight in his hand.
Yet if you build your life on dreams
It's prudent to recall,
A man with moonlight in his hand
Has nothing there at all.

There is no Dulcinea,
She's made of flame and air,
And yet how lovely life would seem
If ev'ry man could weave a dream
To keep him from despair.
To each his Dulcinea...
Though she's naught but flame and air!

"You Can't Go Home Again" by Thomas Wolfe

Excerpts from"You Can't Go Home Again"
Thomas Wolfe

Child, child, have patience and belief,for life is many days,
and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been
mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair,
and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we.

You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your
brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them -
but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness,
you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered,
you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth.

And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will
grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed
the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been
maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered
after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now
sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall
touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that
these things pass.

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood,
back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory
and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land,
back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home
to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and
the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to
the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage
in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world,

back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for,
back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden
for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which
once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back
home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
Thomas Wolfe,You can't go home again

The power of love by Miguel de Cervantes

Love is influenced by no consideration,
recognizes no restraints of reason,
and is of the same nature as death,
that assails alike the lofty palaces
of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds;
and when it takes entire possession of a heart,
the first thing it does is to banish
fear and shame from it.

'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies;
runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third
into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one,
another it kills: like lightning it begins
and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield
at night which it besieged but in the morning;
for there is no force able to resist it.
Miguel de Cervantes

Some famous Quotes From The Novel "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche

Excerpts from The novel
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra"
Friedrich Nietzsche

You look up when you wish to be exalted.
And I look down because I am exalted.

German text:
Ihr seht nach oben, wenn ihr nach Erhebung verlangt.
Und ich sehe hinab, weil ich erhoben bin.


But it is the same with man as with the tree.
The more one seeks to rise into height and light,
the more vigorously do ones roots struggle earthward,
downward, into the dark, the deep — into evil.

German text:
Es ist mit dem Menschen wie mit dem Baume.
Je mehr er hinauf in die Höhe und Helle will,
um so stärker streben seine Wurzeln erdwärts,
abwärts, in's Dunkle, Tiefe, — in's Böse.

I know of the hatred and envy of your hearts.
You are not great enough not to know hatred and envy.
Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!

German text:
Ich weiss um den Hass und Neid eures Herzens.
Ihr seid nicht gross genug, um Hass und Neid nicht zu kennen.
So seid denn gross genug, euch ihrer nicht zu schämen!

This is the manner of noble souls: they do not want to have
anything for nothing; least of all, life.

Whoever is of the mob wants to live for nothing; we others,
however, to whom life gave itself, we always think about
what we might best give in return.
One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy.

German text:
Also will es die Art edler Seelen: sie wollen Nichts umsonst
haben, am wenigsten das Leben.

Wer vom Pöbel ist, der will umsonst leben; wir anderen aber,
denen das Leben sich gab – wir sinnen immer darüber, was wir
am besten dagegen geben!

Best & famous Quotes from Don Quijote de la mancha by Miguel de Cervante

Get the better of yourself -
this is the best kind of victory.

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.

Where there's music there can be no evil.

Sleep is the best cure for waking troubles.

Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

Experience is the universal mother of sciences.

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.

Can we ever have too much of a good thing?

Well, there's a remedy for all things but death,
which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.

There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate,
nor pain which death does not terminate.

We ought to love our Maker for His own sake,
without either hope of good or fear of pain.

He who loses wealth loses much;
he who loses a friend loses more;
but he that loses his courage loses all.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly;
and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to
the offspring of the mind.

It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow,
and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.

Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man;
to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little;
to presume much, and be worth little.

It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether
the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounte
on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this
distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight's sole
responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes
only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds.

My peace is gone /Excerpt from "Faust" by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Excerpt from Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Margaret (Alone at her spinning wheel)

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

Where I do not have him,
That is the grave,
The whole world
Is bitter to me.

My poor head
Is crazy to me,
My poor mind
Is torn apart.

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

For him only, I look
Out the window
Only for him do I go
Out of the house.

His tall walk,
His noble figure,
His mouth's smile,
His eyes' power,

And his mouth's
Magic flow,
His handclasp,
and ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

My bosom urges itself
toward him.
Ah, might I grasp
And hold him!

And kiss him,
As I would wish,
At his kisses
I should die!

GERMAN TEXT

Meine Ruh' ist hin
Auszug aus der Tragödie "Faust"
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Gretchens Stube.
Gretchen (am Spinnrad, allein).

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer;
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Wo ich ihn nicht hab,
Ist mir das Grab,
Die ganze Welt
Ist mir vergällt.

Mein armer Kopf
Ist mir verrückt,
Meiner armer Sinn
Ist mir zerstückt.

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Nach ihm nur schau ich
Zum Fenster hinaus,
Nach ihm nur geh ich
Aus dem Haus.

Sein hoher Gang,
Sein edle Gestalt,
Seines Mundes Lächeln,
Seiner Augen Gewalt,

Und seiner Rede
Zauberfluß,
Sein Händedruck,
Und ach! sein Kuß!

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
und nimmermehr.

Mein Busen drängt
Sich nach ihm hin,
Ach dürft ich fassen
Und halten ihn,

Und küssen ihn,
So wie ich wollt,
An seinen Küssen
Vergehen sollt!

How can one blush for what one adores? George Sand

Once my heart was captured,reason was shown the door,
deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy.

I accepted everything,I believed everything,without struggle,
without suffering,without regret,without false shame.

How can one blush for what one adores?
George Sand,The Story Of My Life

Bound to You by Charlotte Brontë

Vladimir Volegov ART

You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you
with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent,
a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you
to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and,
kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
Charlotte Brontë,Jane Eyre

When man walks alone with God by Jack london

When man walks alone with God
Excerpt from"the white silence"
by Jack london

Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity--
the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock
of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artillery--but
the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive
phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears,
the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege,
and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice.

Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of
a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his
is a maggot's life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise
unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance.

And the fear of death, of God, of the universe comes over him--
the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for
immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence--
it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God.

keep rebuilding your dreams by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the end, you feel that your much-vaunted, inexhaustible fantasy
is growing tired, debilitated, exhausted, because you're bound to
grow out of your old ideals; they're smashed to splinters and turn
to dust, and if you have no other life, you have no choice but to
keep rebuilding your dreams from the splinters and dust. But the heart
longs for something different! And it is vain to dig in the ashes
of your old fancies, trying to find even a tiny spark to fan into
a new flame that will warm the chilled heart and bring back to life
everything that can send the blood rushing wildly through the body,
fill the eyes with tears--everything that can delude you so well!
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

Contemplation On Man & Nature :The Prelude Poem (Excerpt) by William Wordsworth

Music:
Secret Garden - Silence speaks

Excerpt From THE PRELUDE
William Wordsworth

OH there is blessing in this gentle freezer,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,
Free as a bird to settle where I will.

What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale
Shall be my harbour? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!

Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day
Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life),
Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course?

Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
But for a gift that consecrates the joy?
For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within
A correspondent breeze, that gently moved
With quickening virtue, but is now become
A tempest, a redundant energy,
Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
And their congenial powers, that, while they join
In breaking up a long-continued frost,
Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
Of active days urged on by flying hours,--
Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
Matins and vespers of harmonious verse!

Thus far, O Friend! did I, not used to make
A present joy the matter of a song,
Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
That would not be forgotten, and are here
Recorded: to the open fields I told
A prophecy: poetic numbers came
Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
A renovated spirit singled out,
Such hope was mine, for holy services.
My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's
Internal echo of the imperfect sound;
To both I listened, drawing from them both
A cheerful confidence in things to come.

One end at least hath been attained; my mind
Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
Through later years the story of my life.
The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme
Single and of determined bounds; and hence
I choose it rather at this time, than work
Of ampler or more varied argument,
Where I might be discomfited and lost:
And certain hopes are with me, that to thee
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!

For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--

If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Anywhere Out of the World/N'importe où hors du monde by Charles Baudelaire

Music:
David Garrett - Io Ti Penso Amore

Anywhere Out of the World
Charles Baudelaire

This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire
to change beds; one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and
another believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not,
and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my soul.

'Tell me, my soul, poor chilled soul, what do you think of going to live
in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and there you would invigorate yourself
like a lizard. This city is on the sea-shore; they say that it is built
of marble and that the people there have such a hatred of vegetation that
they uproot all the trees. There you have a landscape that corresponds to
your taste! a landscape made of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!'
My soul does not reply.

'Since you are so fond of stillness, coupled with the show of movement,
would you like to settle in Holland, that beatifying country? Perhaps you
would find some diversion in that land whose image you have so often
admired in the art galleries. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love
forests of masts, and ships moored at the foot of houses?'
My soul remains silent.

'Perhaps Batavia attracts you more? There we should find, amongst other
things,the spirit of Europe married to tropical beauty.'
Not a word. Could my soul be dead?

'Is it then that you have reached such a degree of lethargy that you
acquiesce in your sickness? If so, let us flee to lands that are
analogues of death.

I see how it is, poor soul! We shall pack our trunks for Tornio.
Let us go farther still to the extreme end of the Baltic; or farther
still from life, if that is possible; let us settle at the Pole.
There the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation
of light and darkness suppresses variety and increases monotony,
that half-nothingness.

There we shall be able to take long baths of darkness, while for
our amusement the aurora borealis shall send us its rose-coloured
rays that are like the reflection of Hell's own fireworks!'

At last my soul explodes, and wisely cries out to me:

'No matter where! No matter where!
As long as it's out of the world!'

The Original Text In French

N'importe où hors du monde
Charles Baudelaire

Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir
de changer de lit. Celui-ci voudrait souffrir en face du poêle,
et celui-là croit qu'il guérirait à côté de la fenêtre.
Il me semble que je serais toujours bien là où je ne suis pas,
et cette question de déménagement en est une que je discute
sans cesse avec mon âme.

" Dis-moi mon âme, pauvre âme refroidie,
que penserais-tu d'habiter Lisbonne?
Il doit y faire chaud et tu t'y ragaillardirais comme un lézard.
Cette ville est au bord de l'eau ; on dit qu'elle est bâtie en
marbre et que le peuple y a une telle haine du végétal,qu'il
arrache tous les arbres.
Voilà un paysage fait selon ton goût, un paysage fait avec
la lumière et le minéral et le liquide pour les réfléchir !
Mon âme ne répond pas.

" Puisque tu aimes tant le repos, avec le spectacle du mouvement,
veux tu venir habiter la Hollande, cette terre béatifiante ?
Peut-être te divertiras-tu dans cette contrée dont tu as souvent
admiré l'image dans les musées. Que penserais-tu de Rotterdam, toi
qui aimes les forêts de mats et les navires amarrés au pied des maisons.
Mon âme reste muette.

" Batavia te sourirait peut-être davantage, nous y trouverions l'esprit
de l'Europe marié à la beauté tropicale. "
Pas un mot. - Mon âme serait-elle morte ?

" En es-tu donc venue à ce point d'engourdissement que tu ne te plaises
que dans ton mal ? S'il en est ainsi, fuyons vers les pays qui sont
les analogies de la Mort.

Je tiens notre affaire, pauvre âme !
nous ferons nos malles pour Tornéo. Allons plus loin encore, à l'extrême
bout de la Baltique ; encore plus loin de la vie, si c'est possible ;
installons-nous au pôle. Là le soleil ne frise qu'obliquement la terre,
et les lentes alternatives de la lumière et de la nuit suppriment
la variété et augmentent la monotonie, cette moitié du néant...

Là,nous pourrons prendre de longs bains de ténèbres cependant que, pour
nous divertir les aurores boréales nous enverrons de temps en temps
leurs gerbes roses, comme des reflets d'un feu d'artifice de l'enfer!

Enfin, mon âme fait explosion et sagement elle me crie :
" N'importe où ! n'importe où ! pourvu que ce soit hors de ce monde ! "

THE DREAM BY Fyodor Dostoyevsky/Excerpt From"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Music:
Can Atilla - Hamamda Ilk Gözyaslari

The dream
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Excerpt From"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Yes, I dreamed a dream.They tease me now,
telling me it was only a dream. But does it
matter whether it was a dream or reality,
if the dream made known to me the truth? ...

Let it be a dream, so be it, but that real life of which you make so much
I had meant to extinguish by suicide, and my dream, my dream — oh, it
revealed to me a different life, renewed, grand and full of power!

Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented
with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish
of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing
them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem to be
spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart,
and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams,
what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!

The children of the sun, the children of their sun — oh, how beautiful
they were!Never had I seen on our own earth such beauty in mankind.
Only perhaps in our children, in their earliest years, one might find,
some remote faint reflection of this beauty. The eyes of these happy
people shone with a clear brightness.Their faces were radiant with
the light of reason and fullness of a serenity that comes of perfect
understanding, but those faces were gay; in their words and voices
there was a note of childlike joy.

Oh, from the first moment, from the first glance at them, I understood
it all! It was the earth untarnished by the Fall;...
They lived just in such a paradise as that in which, according to all
the legends of mankind, our first parents lived...
the only difference was that all this earth was the same paradise.

These people, laughing joyfully, thronged round me and caressed me;
they took me home with them, and each of them tried to reassure me.
Oh, they asked me no questions, but they seemed, I fancied, to know
everything without asking, and they wanted to make haste to smoothe
away the signs of suffering from my face.

Well, granted that it was only a dream, yet the sensation of the love
of those innocent and beautiful people has remained with me for ever,
and I feel as though their love is still flowing out to me from over there.
I have seen them myself, have known them and been convinced; I loved them,
I suffered for them afterwards.

Oh, I understood at once even at the time that in many things I could
not understand them at all … But I soon realised that their knowledge
was gained and fostered by intuitions different from those of us on earth,
and that their aspirations, too,were quite different...

They showed me their trees, and I could not understand the intense
love with which they looked at them; it was as though they were
talking with creatures like themselves.And perhaps I shall not be
mistaken if I say that they conversed with them. Yes, they had found
their language, and I am convinced that the trees understood them.

They looked at all Nature like that — at the animals who lived in
peace with them and did not attack them, but loved them, conquered
by their love. They pointed to the stars and told me something about
them which I could not understand, but I am convinced that they were
somehow in touch with the stars, not only in thought, but by some
living channel.

They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense
of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they
had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits
of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for
the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe.
They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining
for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which
they talked to one another.

They sang the praises of nature, of the sea, of the woods. They liked
making songs about one another, and praised each other like children;
they were the simplest songs,but they sprang from their hearts and went
to one's heart. And not only in their songs but in all their lives
they seemed to do nothing but admire one another.
It was like being in love with each other,
but an all-embracing,universal feeling.

I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be
beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth.
I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind.
And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at.

I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be
a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes
as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now,
even when they laugh at me — and, indeed, it is just then that they
are particularly dear to me.

I could join in their laughter — not exactly at myself, but through
affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them.
Sad because they do not know the truth and I do know it.
Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth!
But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.

A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream?
I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass
(that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it.

And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything
could be arranged at once!

The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing,
and that's everything;nothing else is wanted — you will find out at
once how to arrange it all.