and substances of
nature,--water, snow, wind, gravitation,--become penalties to the thief.

On the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right
action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just,
as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has
absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so
that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against
Napoleon, when he approached cast down their colors and from enemies
became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence,
poverty, prove benefactors:--

"Winds blow and waters roll
Strength to the brave, and power and deity,
Yet in themselves are nothing."

The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever
a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a
defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable
admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came,
his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns
destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As
no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it,
so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of
men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph of the other
over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him
to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone and
acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends
his shell with pearl.

Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms
itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung
and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst
he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is
pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has
been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his
ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and
real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants.
It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The
wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin and when they
would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than
praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all tha