If I can by any means get
myself to consider myself alone without reference to others,
discontent will vanish. I walk this Old St. Pancras Road on foot--
another rides. Keep out of view him who rides and all persons
riding, and I shall not complain that I tramp in the wet. So also
when I think how small and weak I am.
How foolish it is to try and cure by argument what time will cure so
completely and so gently if left to itself. As I get older, the
anxiety to prove myself right if I quarrel dies out. I hold my
tongue and time vindicates me, if it is possible to vindicate me, or
convicts me if I am wrong. Many and many a debate too which I have
had with myself alone has been settled in the same way. The question
has been put aside and has lost its importance. The ancient Church
thought, and seriously enough, no doubt, that all the vital interests
of humanity were bound up with the controversies upon the Divine
nature; but the centuries have rolled on, and who cares for those
controversies now. The problems of death and immortality once upon a
time haunted me so that I could hardly sleep for thinking about them.
I cannot tell how, but so it is, that at the present moment, when I
am years nearer the end, they trouble me but very little.
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