October 3

A S true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge,—not the first thought that comes,—so the true passion is disciplined and tested passion,—not the first passion that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined. . . . There is a mean wonder, as of a child who sees a juggler tossing golden balls, and this is base, if you will. But do you think the wonder is ignoble, or the sensation less, with which every human soul is called to watch the golden balls of heaven tossed through the night by the Hand that made them? There is a mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden door; . . . and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the front of danger, the source of the great river beyond the sand,—the place of the great continent beyond the sea;—a nobler curiosity still, which questions of the sources of the River of Life, and of the space of the Continent of Heaven—things which “the angels desire to look into.”

JOHN RUSKIN

WONDER