sort of peace and certainty. Of what avail to punish him? We do not
blame the poor because their home is not a palace; it is sad enough to
be compelled to live in a hovel. He whose eyes can see the invisible,
knows that in the soul of the most unjust man there is justice still:
justice, with all her attributes, her stainless garments and holy
activity. He knows that the soul of the sinner is ever balancing peace
and love, and the consciousness of life, no less scrupulously than the
soul of philosopher, saint, or hero; that it watches the smiles of
earth--and sky, and is no less aware of all whereby those smiles are
destroyed, degraded, and poisoned. We are not wrong, perhaps, to be
heedful of justice in the midst of a universe that heeds not at all; as
the bee is not wrong to make honey in a world that itself can make
none. But we are wrong to desire an external justice, since we know
that it does not exist. Let that which is in us suffice. All is for
ever being weighed and judged in our soul. It is we who shall judge
ourselves; or rather, our happiness is our judge.

83. It may be urged that virtue is subject to defeat and
disappointment, no less than vice; but the defeats and disappointments
of virtue bring with them no gloom or distress, for they do but tend to
soothe and enlighten our thoughts. An act of virtue may sink into the
void, but it is then, most of all, that we learn to gauge the depths of
life and of soul; and often will it fall into these depths like a
radiant stone, beside which our thoughts loom pale. With every vicious
scheme that fails before the innocence of Pierrette, Madame Rogron's
soul shrivels anew; whereas the clemency of Titus, falling on thankless
soil, docs but induce him to lift his eyes on high, far beyond love or
pardon. There is no gain in shutting out the world, though it be with
walls of righteousness. The last gesture of virtue should be that of an
angel flinging open the door. We should welcome our disillusions; for
were it the will of destiny that our pardon should always transform an
enemy into a brother, then should we go to our grave still unaware of
all that springs to light within us beneath the act of unwise clemency,
whose unwisdom we never regret. We should die without once having
matched all that is best in our soul against the forces that hedge life
around. The kindly deed that is wasted, the lofty or only loyal thought
that falls on barren ground--these too have their v