by a person's soul in the significant marks of its own
special virtue has, apart from its aesthetic meaning, a reality which,
if not strictly psychological, may at least be called physiognomical.
Later on, when, in the course of my life, I have had occasion to meet
with, in convents for instance, literally saintly examples of practical
charity, they have generally had the brisk, decided, undisturbed, and
slightly brutal air of a busy surgeon, the face in which one can discern
no commiseration, no tenderness at the sight of suffering humanity, and
no fear of hurting it, the face devoid of gentleness or sympathy, the
sublime face of true goodness.

Then while the kitchen-maid--who, all unawares, made the superior
qualities of Francoise shine with added lustre, just as Error, by
force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth--took in coffee which
(according to Mamma) was nothing more than hot water, and then carried
up to our rooms hot water which was barely tepid, I would be lying
stretched out on my bed, a book in my hand, in my room which trembled
with the effort to defend its frail, transparent coolness against the
afternoon sun, behind its almost closed shutters through which, however,
a reflection of the sunlight had contrived to slip in on its golden
wings, remaining motionless, between glass and woodwork, in a corner,
like a butterfly poised upon a flower. It was hardly light enough for
me to read, and my feeling of the day's brightness and splendour was
derived solely from the blows struck down below, in the Rue de la Cure,
by Camus (whom Francoise had assured that my aunt was not 'resting' and
that he might therefore make a noise), upon some old packing-cases from
which nothing would really be sent flying but the dust, though the din
of them, in the resonant atmosphere that accompanies hot weather, seemed
to scatter broadcast a rain of blood-red stars; and from the flies who
performed for my benefit, in their small concert, as it might be the
chamber music of summer; evoking heat and light quite differently from
an air of human music which, if you happen to have heard it during a
fine summer, will always bring that summer back to your mind, the flies'
music is bound to the season by a closer, a more vital tie--born of
sunny days, and not to be reborn but with them, containing something
of their essential nature, it not merely calls up their image in our
memory, but gives us a guarantee that they do really exist