And round the mere physical life
group a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises which
belong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral part
of us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness of
physical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort,
the delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of all
these is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth its
most generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggested
powers and unaccomplished possibilities.
But yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Mere
health is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathy
in it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of suffering
in others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full blood
sings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is careless
of God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfish
with a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in its
forms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God.
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