Compassion

The young scholar reverently turned the cracked and fading pages, assessing the damage to the ancient tome. Nimble fingers separated the fragile parchment that was stuck inside. Peeling it open carefully, hands shaking,... her green eyes went wide as words that almost sang out to her...

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

((With apologies to Bertrand Russell... from whom I shamelessly stole the passage...))