blest convictions. Be a thought of the
loftiest, surest, or of the most profoundly uncertain, the best that it
has to offer is still the chance that it gives us of loving some one
thing wholly, without reserve. Whether it be to man, or a God; to
country, to world or to error, that I truly do yield myself up, the
precious ore that shall some day be found buried deep in the ashes of
love will have sprung from the love itself, and not from the thing that
I loved. The sincerity of an attachment, its simplicity, firmness, and
zeal--these leave a track behind them that time can never efface. All
passes away and changes; it may be that all is lost, save only the glow
of this ardour, fertility, and strength of our heart.

96. "Never did man possess his soul in such peace as he," says
Saint-Simon of one of them, who was surrounded on all sides by malice,
and scheming, and snares. And further on he speaks of the "wise
tranquillity" of another, and this "wise tranquillity" pervades every
one of those whom he terms the "little flock." The "little flock,"
truly, of fidelity to all that was noblest in thought; the "little
flock" of friendship, loyalty, self-respect, and inner contentment,
that pass along, radiant with peace and simplicity, in the midst of the
lies and ambitions, the follies and treacheries, of Versailles. They
are not saints, in the vulgar sense of the word. They have not fled to
the depths of forest or desert, or sought egotistic shelter in narrow
cells. They are sages, who remain within life and the things that are
real. It is not their piety that saves them; it is not in God alone
that their soul has found strength. To love God, and to serve Him with
all one's might, will not suffice to bring peace and strength to the
soul of man. It is only by means of the knowledge and thought we have
gained and developed by contact with men that we can learn how God
should be loved; for, notwithstanding all things, the human soul
remains profoundly human still. It may be taught to cherish the
invisible, but it will ever find far more actual nourishment in the
virtue or feeling that is simply and wholly human, than in the virtue
or passion divine. If there come towards us a man whose soul is truly
tranquil and calm, we may be certain that human virtues have given him
his tranquillity and his calmness. Were we permitted to peer into the
secret recesses of hearts that are now no more, we might discover,
perhaps, that the fountain