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To live for others as a definite self-conscious aim was not his creed. It was not the basis of his creed[103a]. When he says “Forgive your enemies,” [103.1] it is not for the sake of the enemy but for one’s own sake that he says so, and because Love is more beautiful than Hate. In his entreaty to the young man whom when he looked on he loved, “Sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor,” [103.2] it is not of the state of the poor that he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the lovely soul that wealth was marring. In his view of life he is one with the artist who knows that by the inevitable law of self-perfection the poet must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the hawthorn must blossom in Spring, and the corn burn to gold at harvest-time, and the Moon in her ordered wanderings change from shield to sickle, and from sickle to shield[103b].
为别人而活，作为一个确定的自我意识的目的，这不是他的教义。这不是他教义的基础[103a]。他说“饶恕你的敌人”，但这不是因为你敌人的缘故，而是为了你本人他才这么说的，还因为爱比恨美。他恳求那个他看了喜欢的年轻人，“去变卖你所有的，分给穷人。” 这时他心中想的并非穷人的处境，而是那年轻人的灵魂，那个正被财富糟蹋的可爱的灵魂。他的人生观与艺术家无异；这样的艺术家明白，遵循自我完善的必然法则，诗人非唱不可，雕塑家非用青铜思考不可，画家非以世界为他心绪的镜子不可。这道理千真万确，就像春天里山楂树必得开花，秋天里麦子必得金黄一样，就像月亮有条不紊地漫游天庭一样，何时如盘，何时如钩[103b]。
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