What is the short meaning of the long speech?

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who's made the master of his destiny.

A gloomy guest fits not a wedding feast.

Only the soldier is a free man, because he can look death in the face.

I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.

As freely as the firmament embraces the world, so mercy must encircle friend and foe. The sun poursforth impartially his beams through all the regions of infinity; heaven bestows the dew equally on every thirsty plant. Whatever is good and comes from on high is universal and without reserve: but in the heart's recesses darkness dwells.

Time consecrates; and what is gray with age becomes religion.