But moral conscientiousness, crystalline, without flaw,
not Godlike only, entirely human, awes and enchants forever. Great is
emotional love, even in the order of the rational universe. But, if we
must make gradations, I am clear there is something greater. Power,
love, veneration, products, genius, esthetics, tried by subtlest
comparisons, analyses, and in serenest moods, somewhere fail, somehow
become vain. Then noiseless, withflowing steps, the lord, the sun, the
last ideal comes. By the names right, justice, truth, we suggest, but
do not describe it. To the world of men it remains a dream, an idea as
they call it. But no dream is it to the wise--but the proudest, almost
only solid, lasting thing of all. Its analogy in the material universe
is what holds together this world, and every object upon it, and
carries its dynamics on forever sure and safe. Its lack, and the
persistent shirking of it, as in life, sociology, literature, politics,
business, and even sermonizing, these times, or any times, still leaves
the abysm, the mortal flaw and smutch, mocking civilization to-day,
with all its unquestion'd triumphs, and all the civilization so far
known.[30]
Present literature, while magnificently fulfilling certain popular
demands, with plenteous knowledge and verbal smartness, is profoundly
sophisticated, insane, and its very joy is morbid. It needs tally and
express Nature, and the spirit of Nature, and to know and obey the
standards. I say the question of Nature, largely consider'd, involves
the questions of the esthetic, the emotional, and the religious--and
involves happiness.
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