roll to and fro in the limpid, fathomless water; from the
ocean arises no living thing, not a blade of grass, not a stone.

If aught could discourage the sage--though he is not truly wise whose
astonishment is not enlightened, and his interest quickened, by the
unforeseen thing that discourages--it would be the discovery, in this
French Revolution, of more than one destiny that is infinitely sadder,
more overwhelming, more inexplicable, than that of Louis XVI. I refer
to the Girondins: above all, to the admirable Vergniaud. To-day even,
though we know all that the future kept hidden from him, and are able
to divine what it was that was sought by the instinctive desire of that
exceptional century--to-day even it were surely not possible to act
more nobly, more wisely, than he. Let fortune hurl any man into the
burning centre of a movement that had swept every barrier down, it were
surely not possible to reveal a finer character or loftier spirit.
Could we fashion, deep down in our heart, out of all that is purest
within us, out of all our wisdom and all our love, some beautiful,
spotless creature with never a thought of self, without weakness or
error--such a being would desire a place by the side of Vergniaud, on
those deserted Convention seats, "whereon the shadow of death seemed
already to hover," that he might think as Vergniaud thought, and so
speak, and act. He saw the infallible, eternal, that lay the other side
of that tragical moment; he knew how to be humane and benevolent still,
through all those terrible days when humanity and benevolence seemed
the bitterest enemies of the ideal of justice, whereto he had
sacrificed all; and in his great and noble doubt he marched bravely
onwards, turning neither to right nor to left of him, going infinitely
further than seemed to be reasonable, practical, just. The violent
death that was not unexpected came towards him, with half his road yet
untravelled; to teach us that often in this strange conflict between
man and his destiny, the question is not how to save the life of our
body, but that of our most beautiful feelings, of our loftiest thoughts,

"Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?"
there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer, "What
becomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit must
die, that my life may be saved?" And are not almost all the morals, and
heroism, and virtue of man summed up in that sing