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I remember talking once on this subject to one of the most beautiful personalities I have ever known:[89.1] a woman, whose sympathy and noble kindness to me both before and since the tragedy of my imprisonment have been beyond power and description: one who has really assisted me, though she does not know it, to bear the burden of my troubles more than anyone else in the whole world has: and all through the mere fact of her existence: through her being what she is, partly an ideal and partly an influence, a suggestion of what one might become, as well as a real help towards becoming it, a soul that renders the common air sweet, and makes what is spiritual seem as simple and natural as sunlight or the sea, one for whom Beauty and Sorrow walk hand in hand and have the same message. On the occasion of which I am thinking I recall distinctly how I said to her that there was enough suffering in one narrow London lane to show that God did not love man, and that wherever there was any sorrow, though but that of a child in some little garden weeping over a fault that it had or had not committed, the whole face of creation was completely marred. I was entirely wrong. She told me so, but I could not believe her. I was not in the sphere in which such belief was to be attained to. Now it seems to me that Love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world[89a]. I cannot conceive any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the worlds have indeed, as I have said, been built out of Sorrow, it has been by the hands of Love, because in no other way could the Soul of man for whom the worlds are made reach the full statue of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but Pain for the beautiful Soul[89b].记得曾经同我所认识的一个心灵最美好的人谈过这事：是一位女士，在我遭难坐牢的前前后后，她对我的同情和崇高的善心好意非笔墨所能书，非一般人所能及。她真正地帮助了我，虽然她自己并不知道，帮我忍受磨难的重负。天底下再没有谁对我的帮助有她大。而这帮助，凭借的不过是她的存在而已；凭借着她之为她：既是个理想又是个影响，既暗示了人可能达到的境界，又真的扶持你去达到这个境界。她的心灵使空气飘香，能把属于精神的东西变得简单又自然，一如阳光和大海；对于她，美与悲相携而行，传递着同一个信息。眼下我心中所想的这次谈话中，记得清清楚楚我跟她说了，就伦敦一条小巷里的苦，便足以说明上帝不爱世人，只要什么地方有人悲伤，哪怕不过是一个小孩，在某个小花园里，为自己犯的或不是自己犯的过错而哭泣，造化脸上就整个儿黯然无光了。我那是大错特错。她说了，可我无法相信。我那时还没达到那个境界，能有这样的信仰。现在我似乎看到了，世界之所以悲深苦重，唯一可能的解释是因为某种爱[89a]。想不出还有别的什么解释。我信了，没有别的解释。而如果真的像我所说万象是用悲怆建造的，那造出这一切的是爱的双手。因为没有别的什么途径，能让万象为之而设的人的灵魂达到至善至美的境界。痛快享乐，是为了美好的肉体；而痛苦伤心，则是为了美好的灵魂[89b]。
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