The Simple Life | Page 9

hope. Hope is at the root of things, and must be
reflected in the heart of man. No hope, no life. The same power which
brought us into being, urges us to go up higher. What is the meaning of
this persistent instinct which pushes us on? The true meaning is that
something is to result from life, that out of it is being wrought a good
greater than itself, toward which it slowly moves, and that this painful
sower called man, needs, like every sower, to count on the morrow.
The history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope; otherwise
everything would have been over long ago. To press forward under his
burdens, to guide himself in the night, to retrieve his falls and his

failures, to escape despair even in death, man has need of hoping
always, and sometimes against all hope. Here is the cordial that
sustains him. Had we only logic, we should have long ago drawn the
conclusion: Death has everywhere the last word!--and we should be
dead of the idea. But we have hope, and that is why we live and believe
in life.
Suso, the great monk and mystic, one of the simplest and best men that
ever lived, had a touching custom: whenever he encountered a woman,
were she the poorest and oldest, he stepped respectfully aside, though
his bare feet must tread among thorns or in the gutter. "I do that," he
said, "to render homage to our Holy Lady, the Virgin Mary." Let us
offer to hope a like reverence. If we meet it in the shape of a blade of
wheat piercing the furrow; a bird brooding on its nest; a poor wounded
beast, recovering itself, rising and continuing its way; a peasant
ploughing and sowing a field that has been ravaged by flood or hail; a
nation slowly repairing its losses and healing its wounds--under
whatever guise of humanity or suffering it appears to us, let us salute it!
When we encounter it in legends, in untutored songs, in simple creeds,
let us still salute it! for it is always the same, indestructible, the
immortal daughter of God.
We do not dare hope enough. The men of our day have developed
strange timidities. The apprehension that the sky will fall--that acme of
absurdity among the fears of our Gallic forefathers--has entered our
own hearts. Does the rain-drop doubt the ocean? the ray mistrust the
sun? Our senile wisdom has arrived at this prodigy. It resembles those
testy old pedagogues whose chief office is to rail at the merry pranks or
the youthful enthusiasms of their pupils. It is time to become little
children once more, to learn again to stand with clasped hands and wide
eyes before the mystery around us; to remember that, in spite of our
knowledge, what we know is but a trifle, and that the world is greater
than our mind, which is well; for being so prodigious, it must hold in
reserve untold resources, and we may allow it some credit without
accusing ourselves of improvidence. Let us not treat it as creditors do
an insolvent debtor: we should fire its courage, relight the sacred flame
of hope. Since the sun still rises, since earth puts forth her blossoms

anew, since the bird builds its nest, and the mother smiles at her child,
let us have the courage to be men, and commit the rest to Him who has
numbered the stars. For my part, I would I might find glowing words to
say to whomsoever has lost heart in these times of disillusion: Rouse
your courage, hope on; he is sure of being least deluded who has the
daring to do that; the most ingenuous hope is nearer truth than the most
rational despair.
* * * * *
Another source of light on the path of human life is goodness. I am not
of those who believe in the natural perfection of man, and teach that
society corrupts him. On the contrary, of all forms of evil, the one
which most dismays me is heredity. But I sometimes ask myself how it
is that this effete and deadly virus of low instincts, of vices inoculated
in the blood, the whole assemblage of disabilities imposed upon us by
the past--how all this has not got the better of us. It must be because of
something else. This other thing is love.
Given the unknown brooding above our heads, our limited intelligence,
the grievous and contradictory enigma of human destiny, falsehood,
hatred, corruption, suffering, death--what can we think, what do? To all
these questions a sublime and mysterious voice has answered: Love
your fellow-men. Love must indeed be divine, like faith and hope, since
she cannot die when so many powers are arrayed against