231.-234.

231 – Courage and love are the only indispensable virtues; even if all the others are eclipsed or fall asleep, these two will save the soul alive.

232 – Meanness and selfishness are the only sins that I find it difficult to pardon; yet they alone are almost universal. Therefore these also must not be hated in others, but in ourselves annihilated.

233 – Nobleness and generosity are the soul’s ethereal firmament; without them, one looks at an insect in a dungeon.

234 – Let not thy virtues be such as men praise or reward, but such as make for thy perfection and God in thy nature demands of thee.

Could you give me your definitions of the following words?

1. 1. Courage and love
   2. Meanness and selfishness
   3. Nobleness and generosity.

1. Courage is the total absence of fear in any form.
2. Love is self-giving without asking anything in return.
3. Meanness is a weakness that calculates and demands from others the virtues one does not possess oneself.
4. Selfishness is to put oneself at the centre of the universe and to want everything to exist for one’s own satisfaction.
5. Nobleness is to refuse all personal calculation.
6. Generosity is to find one’s own satisfaction in the satisfaction of others.

15 December 1969