you readily perceive, in the creature you love, all that which is eternally true in yourself, and solidly righteous, and essentially beautiful; for only the good in our heart can advise us of the goodness that hides by our side.  Then, at last, will the imperfections of others no longer seem of importance to you, for they will no longer be able to wound your vanity, selfishness, and ignorance; imperfections, that is, which have ceased to resemble your own; for it is the evil that lies in ourselves that is ever least tolerant of the evil that dwells within others.

109.  Let us have the same confidence in love that we have in life; for confidence is of our essence; and the thought that works the most harm in all things is the one that inclines us to look with mistrust on reality.  I have known more than one life that love broke asunder; but if it had not been love, these lives would no doubt have been broken no less by friendship or apathy, by doubt, hesitation, indifference, inaction.  For that only which in itself is fragile can be rent in the heart by love; and where all is broken that the heart contains, then must all have been far too frail.  There exists not a creature but must more than once have believed that his life was crushed; but they whose life has indeed been shattered, and has fallen to ruin, owe their misfortune often to some strange vanity of the very ruin.  Fortunate and unfortunate hazards there must of necessity be in love as in all the rest of our destiny.  It may so come about that one whose spirit and heart are abounding with tenderness, energy, and the noblest of human desires, shall meet, on his first setting forth, all unsought, the soul that shall satisfy each single craving of love in the ecstasy of permanent joy; the soul that shall content the loftiest yearning no less than the lowliest:  the vastest, the mightiest no less than the daintiest, sweetest:  the most eternal no less than the most evanescent.  He, it may be, shall instantly find the heart whereto he can give—­the heart which will ever receive—­all that is best in himself.  It may happen that he shall at once have attained the soul that perchance is unique; the soul that is satisfied always, and always filled with desire; the soul that can ever receive many thousand times more than is given, and that never fails to return many thousand times more than it receives.  For the love that the years cannot alter is built up of exchanges like these, of sweet inequality; and naught do we ever truly possess but that which we give in our love; and whatever our love bestows, we are no longer alone to enjoy.