Wednesday, April 13, 2011

A large source of human misery

No one who loves and chooses a secret can be pure in heart

Half the misery in the world comes from trying to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not. I would that not God only but all good men and women might see me through and through. They would not be pleased with everything they saw, but then neither am I, and I would have no coals of fire in my soul's pockets! But my very nature would shudder at the thought of letting one person that loved a secret see into it. Such a one never sees things as they are – would not indeed see what was there, but something shaped and colored after his own likeness. No one who loves and chooses a secret can be of the pure in heart that shall see God.

George MacDonald, “Mrs. Day Begins the Story,” Flight of the Shadow, 2.

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