lts; the
other class do not like to hear of faults; they worship events; secure
to them a fact, a connection, a certain chain of circumstances, and they
will ask no more. The hero sees that the event is ancillary; it must
follow him. A given order of events has no power to secure to him the
satisfaction which the imagination attaches to it; the soul of goodness
escapes from any set of circumstances; whilst prosperity belongs to a
certain mind, and will introduce that power and victory which is its
natural fruit, into any order of events. No change of circumstances
can repair a defect of character. We boast our emancipation from many
superstitions; but if we have broken any idols it is through a transfer
of the idolatry. What have I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull to
Jove or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate; that I do not tremble
before the Eumenides, or the Catholic Purgatory, or the Calvinistic
Judgment-day,--if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as we call it;
or at the threat of assault, or contumely, or bad neighbors, or poverty,
or mutilation, or at the rumor of revolution, or of murder? If I quake,
what matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in one or
another shape, according to the sex, age, or temperament of the
person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors. The
covetousness or the malignity which saddens me when I ascribe it to
society, is my own. I am always environed by myself. On the other part,
rectitude is a perpetual victory, celebrated not by cries of joy but by
serenity, which is joy fixed or habitual. It is disgraceful to fly to
events for confirmation of our truth and worth. The capitalist does not
run every hour to the broker to coin his advantages into current money
of the realm; he is satisfied to read in the quotations of the market
that his stocks have risen. The same transport which the occurrence of
the best events in the best order would occasion me, I must learn to
taste purer in the perception that my position is every hour meliorated,
and does already command those events I desire. That exultation is only
to be checked by the foresight of an order of things so excellent as to
throw all our prosperities into the deepest shade.

The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. I revere the
person who is riches; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor,
or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor,
a