"
"But is a great position in the world," I said, "whether inherited or
attained, a dangerous thing?"
"Nothing is _dangerous_, child," he said. "You must put all that out of
your mind. But men in high posts and stations are often not progressing
evenly, only in great jogs and starts. They learn very often, with a
sudden surprise, which is not always painful, and sometimes is very
beautiful and sweet, that all the ceremony and pomp, the great house,
the bows and the smiles, mean nothing at all--absolutely nothing, except
the chance, the opportunity of not being taken in by them. That is the
use of all pleasures and all satisfactions--the frame of mind which made
the old king say, 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have
builded?'--they are nothing but the work of another class in the great
school of life. A great many people are put to school with
self-satisfaction, that they may know the fine joy of humiliation, the
delight of learning that it is not effectiveness and applause that
matters, but love and peacefulness. And the great thing is that we
should feel that we are growing, not in hardness or indifference, nor
necessarily even in courage or patience, but in our power to feel and
our power to suffer.
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