what helps us to prayer is a celestial benefit. The pertinent fact in
him is, that he is not greatness, but goodness. We do not think of
greatness when we see him or hear him, but we think with our hearts
when he is before our eyes. Goodness is more marketable than
greatness, and more necessary. Goodness, greatness! Brilliancy is a
cheap commodity when put on the counter beside goodness; and Bishop
Bienvenu is a romancer's apotheosis of goodness, and we bless him for
this deification.

The bishop was merchantman, freighting ships. His wharves are wide,
his fleet is great, his cargoes are many. Only he is freighting ships
for heaven. No bales of merchandise nor ingots of iron, but souls for
whom Christ died,--these are his cargoes; and had you asked him, "What
work to-day?" a smile had flooded sunlight along his face while he,
said, "Freighting souls with God to-day, and lading cargoes for the
skies." This is royal merchandise. The Doge of Venice annually flung
a ring into the sea as sign of Venice's nuptials with the Adriatic; but
Bishop Bienvenu each day wedded himself and the world to heaven, and he
comes

"O'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor."

Hugo paints with sunset tints and with lightning's lurid light; his
contrasts are fierce, his backgrounds are often as black as a
rain-cloud. He paints with the mad rush of a Turner. He is fierce in
hates and loves. He does nothing by moderation. Calmness does not
belong to him. He is tempestuous always; but tempests are magnificent
and purifying to the air. Hugo is painting, and painting heroes, and
his hero of heroes is Valjean. Jean Valjean is conscience. In
Macbeth, conscience is warring and retributive. In Richard III,
conscience, stifled in waking, speaks in dreams, and is menace, like a
sword swung by a maniac's hands. In Arthur Dimmesdale, conscience is
lacerative. In Jean Valjean, conscience is regulative, creative,
constructive. Jean Valjean is conscience, and conscience is king.
What the classic heroes lacked, Jean Valjean possesses.

The setting of this character is entirely modern. "Les Miserables" is
a story of the city and of poverty, and can not be dissociated from
them by any wrench of thought, however violent. Not that urban life or
poverty are new elements in the school of suffering. They are not new,
as pain is not new. This is the difference. In the old age