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It would, perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whose life was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a fferent sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape of his selfish old Mentor: and those who have any interest in his character must have perceived ere now, that this lad was very weak as well as very impetuous, very vain as well as very frank, and if of a generous disposition, not a little selfish in the midst of his profuseness, and also rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of self-gratification are.
As long as sexual activity is regarded in a dualistic and contradictory light, in which it is revealed either as the instrument by which men and women "cooperate with the Creator" to bring children into the world, on the one hand; and on the other, as the sinful instrument of self-gratification, lust and sensuality, there is bound to be an endless conflict in human conduct, producing ever increasing misery, pain and injustice.
If, viewing the narrow conditions under which the workman ordinarily lives, it should be claimed that during a period of unusual earnings self-gratification would be not only natural but measurably justifiable, the reply could be made that this is merely specious, involving assumption not in accord with the facts.
Love is God in man, for "God is love," and "every one that loveth is born of God;" but love is not merely veneration, nor respect, nor justice, nor passion, nor jealousy, nor sympathy, nor pity, nor self-gratification; to love something as our own is but a form of self-love; to love something in order to win it for ourselves is just a perpetration of the same mistake. Dr.
In Flaubert's melancholy books, even perfection of style and painstaking truth of detail do not dissipate the deadly dulness of an unreal world, where no one rises above the low level of self-gratification; while Zola considers man so completely in his physical aspect, that he ends by degrading him below the animal world.
Many a young woman, of fine genius and elevated sentiment, finds a charm in Lord Byron's writings, because they present a glowing picture of what, to a certain extent, must be felt by every well-developed mind which has no nobler object in life than the pursuit of self-gratification.
The query is pertinent and the desire is natural; the doubt of its reality is consistent, yet we are constrained to say that in the very nature of such inquiry the disciple of the Hidden Wisdom voices his unreadiness for Illumination. The desire for self-gratification, though right and natural to the sense-conscious plane, is yet inimical to attainment of spiritual consciousness.
As Christopher stood bareheaded in the rain that windy March morning, his heart swept clear for the time of all personal pride or self-gratification, he offered himself in unconscious surrender again to the Power that had used him, craving only to be used, divining clearly that achievement is but the starting post to new endeavour.
God should be the object upon which the child's thoughts are taught to dwell for the minds even of children turn to the beautiful, and the beautiful is the Divine. All thoughts and actions should be raised to this standard; and the child would raise above the feelings of self-gratification and vanity, and the panting for applause, to the favor and love of God.
But the unselfishness of love had become a habit with him. Even in his extreme youth he had instinctively saved up, moved, no doubt, by an inherent desire to have as large a gift as possible ready when the moment for giving came. If he lived on he must live for himself; he must reverse all his rules of conduct; he must fling himself into the life of self-gratification.
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