But my fire is in a glow, a pleasant glow, throwing a tranquil, steady light to the farthest corner of my garret. How unlike it is to the flashing play of the sea-coal!—unlike as an unsteady, uncertain-working heart to the true and earnest constancy of one cheerful and right.
After all, thought I, give me such a heart; not bent on vanities, not blazing too sharp with sensibilities, not throwing out coquettish jets of flame, not wavering, and meaningless with pretended warmth, but open, glowing and strong. Its dark shades and angles it may have; for what is a soul worth that does not take a slaty tinge from those griefs that chill the blood. Yet still the fire is gleaming; you see it in the crevices; and anon it will give radiance to the whole mass.
—It hurts the eyes, this fire; and I draw up a screen painted over with rough but graceful figures.
The true heart wears always the veil of modesty (not of prudery, which is a dingy, iron, repulsive screen). It will not allow itself to be looked on too near—it might scorch; but through the veil you feel the warmth; and through the pretty figures that modesty will robe itself in, you can see all the while the golden outlines, and by that token, you _know_ that it is glowing and burning with a pure and steady flame.
With such a heart the mind fuses naturally—a holy and heated fusion; they work together like twins-born. With such a heart, as Raphael says to Adam:
Love hath his seat In reason, and is judicious.
But let me distinguish this heart from your clay-cold, lukewarm, half-hearted soul; considerate, because ignorant; judicious, because possessed of no latent fires that need a curb; prudish, because with no warm blood to tempt. This sort of soul may pass scatheless through the fiery furnace of life; strong, only in its weakness; pure, because of its failings; and good, only by negation. It may triumph over love, and sin, and death; but it will be a triumph of the beast, which has neither passions to subdue, or energy to attack, or hope to quench.
Let us come back to the steady and earnest heart, glowing like my anthracite coal.
I fancy I see such a one now; the eye is deep and reaches back to the spirit; it is not the trading eye, weighing your purse; it is not the worldly eye, weighing position; it is not the beastly eye, weighing your appearance; it is the heart’s eye weighing your soul!