- A soldier’s doing! What atones?
- They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
- My riding is better by their leave.”
As statesman, soldier, poet, sculptor, musician thus in succession pass before the lover’s contemplation, he sees the common problem of their labors, whether their task be heroic or studious; and he sees this problem as identical with his own. It is the absolutely universal problem of being consciously finite. And the lover states the case with an almost technical exactness, when he asks: “What act proved all its thought had been?” “What will but felt the fleshly screen?”
Thoughts, ideas, inner contents as far as they come with a presented meaning, are, as you know from modern psychology, already nascent deeds. To conceive clearly, is to construct an object that is already, at the instant of its construction, more or less fully present to your inner observation as an embodiment of your meaning. But this embodiment is so far partial. Hence what we call outer acts, deeds that involve what the outer eyes can see, and what, as you accomplish such deeds, warms your muscles with the immediate glow of partially successful effort, — such outer deeds are, for your consciousness, at the instant, only more vivid thoughts, more brilliantly clear ideal expressions of your longing, so that in them, as they arise, you find what you also comprehend, as well as win what you seek. Herein lies the true unity of our thinking and our willing. That all our thoughts are not at once thus presented to our consciousness with the vividness of our external deeds, this defect is due in part to the triviality of our
