prisoners' dock, declaring, "I am Jean
Valjean;" and those of the court dissenting, he persisted, declared his
recognition of some galley prisoners, urging still, "I am Jean Valjean;
you see clearly that I am Jean Valjean;" and those who saw and heard
him were dazed; and he said: "All who are here think me worthy of pity,
do you not? Do you not? Great God! When I think of what I was on the
point of doing, I think myself worthy of envy;" and he was gone. And
next, Javert is seizing him fiercely, brutally, imperiously, as a
criminal for whom there is no regard. With this struggle of conscience
and its consequent victory, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" becomes
tawdry and garish. The sight moves us as the majestic minstrelsy of
seas in tempest. No wonder that they who looked at Valjean, as he
stood declaring himself to be the real Valjean, were blinded with a
great light.

And his heart is so hungry, and his loyalty to God so urgent and so
conquering. Jean Valjean has suffered much. Ulysses, buffeted by wars
and stormy seas, has had a life of calm as compared with this new hero.
Ulysses' battles were from without; Valjean's battles were from within.
But if he has suffered greatly, he has also been greatly blessed.
Struggle for goodness against sin is its own reward. We do not give
all and get nothing. There are compensations. Recompense of reward
pursues goodness as foam a vessel's track. If Jean Valjean loved
Cossette with a passion such as the angels know; if she was his sun,
and made the spring, there was a sense in which Cossette helped
Valjean. There was response, not so much in the return of love as in
that he loved her; and his love for her helped him in his dark hours,
helped him when he needed help the most, helped him on with God. He
needs her to love, as our eyes need the fair flowers and the blue sky.
His life was not empty, and God had not left himself without witness in
Jean Valjean's life; for he had had his love for Cossette.

But he is bereft. Old age springs on him suddenly, as Javert had done
in other days. He has, apparently without provocation, passed from
strength to decrepitude. Since he sees Cossette no more, he has grown
gray, stooped, decrepit. There is no morning now, since he does not
see Cossette. You have seen him walking to the corner to catch sight
of her house. How feeble he is! Another day, walking her way, but not
so far; and the next, and the next, walking; but