wert no longer quick to realize him. Then it was that thy passion made him for thee a shadow. Thou couldst not love him, because thou didst forget who he was. Thou didst believe in him enough to fear him, to hate him, to fight with him, to revenge thyself upon him, to use his wit as thy tool, but not enough to treat him as real, even as thou thyself art real. He seems to thee a little less living than thou. His life is dim, it is cold, it is a pale fire beside thy own burning desires. He is a symbol of passion to thee, and imperfectly, coldly, with dull assent, without full meaning to thy words, thou dost indeed say, when asked, that the symbol stands for something real, as real as thyself. But what those words mean, — hast thou realized it, as, through selfish feeling, thou dost realize thy equally external future Self?
If he is real like thee, then is his life as bright a light, as warm a fire, to him, as thine to thee; his will is as full of struggling desires, of hard problems, of fateful decisions; his pains are as hateful, his joys as dear. Take whatever thou knowest of desire and of striving, of burning love and of fierce hatred, realize as fully as thou canst what that means, and then with clear certainty add: Such as that is for me, so is it for him, nothing less. If thou dost that, can he remain to thee what he has been, a picture, a plaything, a comedy, or a tragedy, in brief a mere Show? Behind all that show thou hast indeed dimly felt that there is something. Know that truth thoroughly. Thou hast regarded his thought, his feeling, as somehow different in sort from thine. Thou hast said: “A pain in him is not like a pain
