time that the night steals upon it; for it is to the heart as a young, clairvoyant girl, who still at times needs advice from her blind, but smiling, mother.  There comes a moment in life when moral beauty seems more urgent, more penetrating, than intellectual beauty; when all that the mind has treasured must be bathed in the greatness of soul, lest it perish in the sandy desert, forlorn as a river that seeks in vain for the sea.

75.  But let us exaggerate nothing when dealing with wisdom, though it be wisdom itself.  The external forces, we know, will not yield to the righteous man; but still he is absolute lord of most of the inner powers; and these are for ever spinning the web of nearly all our happiness and sorrow.  We have said elsewhere that the sage, as he passes by, intervenes in countless dramas.  Indeed his mere presence suffices to arrest most of the calamities that arise from error or evil.  They cannot approach him, or even those who are near him.  A chance meeting with creature endowed with simple and loving wisdom has stayed the hands of men who else had committed countless acts of folly or wickedness; for in life most characters are subordinate, and it is chance alone that determines whether the track which they are to follow shall be that of suffering or peace.  The atmosphere around Jean-Jacques Rousseau was heavy with lamentation and treachery, delirium, deceit, and cunning; whereas Jean Paul moved in the midst of loyalty and nobility, the centre of peace and love.  We subdue that in others which we have learned to subdue in ourselves.  Around the upright man there is drawn a wide circle of peace, within which the arrows of evil soon cease to fall; nor have his fellows the power to inflict moral suffering upon him.  For indeed if our tears can flow because of our enemies’ malice, it is only because we ourselves would fain make our enemies weep.  If the shafts of envy can wound and draw blood, it is only because we ourselves have shafts that we wish to throw; if treachery can wring a groan from us, we must be disloyal ourselves, Only those weapons can wound the soul that it has not yet sacrificed on the altar of Love.

76.  The dramas of virtue are played on a stage whose mysteries not even the wisest can fathom.  It is only as the last word is spoken that the curtain is raised for an instant; we know nothing of all that preceded, of the brightness or gloom that enwrapped it.  But of one thing at least the just man may be certain; it will be in an act of charity, or justice, that his destiny will meet him face to face.  The blow must inevitably find him prepared, in a state of grace, as the Christian calls it; in other words, in a state of inner happiness.  And that in itself bars the door on evil destiny within us, and closes most of the gates by which external misfortune can enter.  As our conception of duty and happiness gains in dignity, so does the sway of moral suffering become the more restricted and purer.  And is