The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX evil, will be truly the angel of light when, having conquered liberty at the price of infamy, he will make use of it to submit himself to eternal order, inaugurating thus the glories of voluntary obedience. Right is only the root of duty; one must possess in order to give. This is how a lofty and profound poetry explains the fall of the angels. God hath given to His spirits light and life; then He said to them: “Love!” “What is—to love?” replied the spirits. “To love is to give oneself to others,” replied God. “Those who love will suffer, but they will be loved.” “We have the right to give nothing, and we wish to suffer nothing,” said the spirits, hating love. “Remain in your right,” answered God, “and let us separate! I and Mine wish to suffer and even to die, to love. It is our duty!” The fallen angel is then he who, from the beginning, refused to love; he does not love, and that is his whole torture; he does not give, and that is his poverty; he does not suffer, and that is his nothingness; he does not die, and that is his exile. The fallen angel is not Lucifer the light-bearer; it is Satan, who calumniated love. To be rich is to give; to give nothing is to be poor; to live is to love; to. love nothing is to be dead; to be happy is to devote oneself; to exist only for oneself is to cast away oneself, and to exile oneself in hell. Heaven is the harmony of generous thoughts; hell is the conflict of cowardly instincts. 24