THE QUEST OF THE IDEAL.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3377, 18 November 1911, Page 4

THE QUEST OF THE IDEAL.

By E. A. P.

• There is no man or woman with a normal mind and with a soul clear .amd undisturbed by any outside influence but lids, at some.. period of life, felt an eager, longing after an ideal. We all experience a desire to meet face to face with some being' who has an: affinity with ourselves, and one whose character shall bear for us a meaning greater than any other One in the world.. We are always reaching ou,t our hands in the dark to catch a phantom figure, and, as the traveller in the desert is attracted by the seeming cool waters and verdant vegetation only to find a mirage, so we grope our way in life, ever buoying ourselves up with hopes that often prove delusive and bring but bitter disappointments. LIFE WITHOUT AN IDEAL. Life would indeed be a dreary existence were it not, for these hopes—these yearnings after the ideal; or even thought we may not find the treasure that we dream of, yet the quest is not without its rapture and its charm, nor is it without its power in helping to raise the moral senses to a higher degree of perfection. If we never had this soul-longing, we should perhaps become too self-centred, not caring whether our life with anyone or not; but with it, we experience hopes of a life of self-sacrifice and service, a life wherein “self” sinks to a mere nothing, and where our best is given .to another ano not kept to ourselves. To those whose yearnings end in the realisation of their highest hopes, the world assumes an added beautv. Everything around them becomes endued with a deeper meaning the commonplace things of life become gilded with a splendor never before seen, and even the tiring duties of every day seem to merge into ,new pleasures. The world, as seen tlmmgh the eyes of those who have found a soul -whose thoughts and ideas are amenable to their own, is a very different place from the world as known by those lonely, isolated beings whose hopes have been frustrated and hearts embittered by the crushing disappointments they haw met with. The man or woman who has never experienced the joy of sweet companionship which love affords is as the lonely Arab out in the wilderness places of the earth, a soul apart, with a vast awful expanse of solitude stretching in every direction around him. LIFE WITHOUT LOVE. The loveless heart is an imperfect creation. It is like a chill autumn evening when the sun has departed; the dull grey shadows and falling leaves lie thick around, like dead hopes, and as the mists grow thicker, the heart like the autumn evening sinks into a profound sleep, and becomes no longer the thing of beauty it had been before. How many of us have futile hopes, which we cannot suppress. V T e may have tried to bury them, yet their forms keep rising up out of the grave to haunt us, and although we thought we had placed the stone securely over them, yet they still arise and flaunt themselves mockingly before our mind's eye, to torture us, .and ever will our hearts cease from beating and are at rest. IMAGINATION. Imagination is a great factor in life, it is as refreshing to the soul as the summer rain to dry land. If the imagination becomes dulled then the lustre of life departs, and onlv the colorless background remains. Each one of us forms his own special ideal, and no two are just alike. The character which appeals to one would have no attractive beauty for another, and so we each keep sacred to ourselves the shrine which we have erected, and no man can intrude on the precincts of another's temple of worship. We are able to withdraw ourselves from the rough world with its ugliness and sin, we can leave behind for a time its fret and strife, and can enter into a world of our own into which the vulgar gaze of the crowd outside cannot penetrate, and where our thoughts can hace full play and memory is the only intruder. THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY. We cannot quarrel with memory or try to send her out, for she comes to us with arms laden with earth’s choicest flowers, and bids us take them to ourselves with their sweet fragrance. Here she has rosemary, that for remembrance, and pansies, with their little human faces, emblems of sweet thoughts. And see, here are forget-me-nots, whose very name endears them to our hearts. When we withdraw the soul from the world into the temple of worship we gather fresh strength for the outsulo life. O.ur thoughts and imaginations work out upon the ordinary affaire of life and infuse them with a great force, which men may indeed stand and voairder at. We get a firmer grip of life, and we seem to possess a new vigor for. duty. Let us cherish these times of remembrance—those golden breaks in the leaden sky— these shafts of lignt which steal through the prison bars into the dark cells. It may be merely a portrait, a letter found in a disused desk, a flower found faded between the pages of a long unopened] book, or even the visiting of some old spot once dear to us in the old days. But whatever the instrument by which we are led back into the old days, Heaven be thanked for it 1 . Keep your ideals then —keep them unspotted, let them go to the uplifting of the soul from all that is mean and sordid. They will keep you from grovelling in the dust, they will make the soul a fruitful and ever-greear garden, until we have to leave the things of earth behind, and, go on the long ouest into .the Great Unknown, that land the other side of the sunset glow, where all our mind’s ideals will ho merged into one great ideal, one vast enternity of happiness and love.