es less would not suffice for the
agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand
years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he
raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious vintages that could not
else have been. Less than these fierce plowshares would not have stirred
the stubborn soil. The one is needed for earth, our planet,--for earth
itself as the dwelling-place of man; but the other is needed yet oftener
for God's mightiest instrument,--yes" (and he looked solemnly at
myself), "is needed for the mysterious children of the earth!"

THE BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS AND JOAN OF ARC

From 'Miscellaneous Essays'

Bishop of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold--thou upon a
down bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes
alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and
flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and
torturer have the same truce from carnal torment; both sink together
into sleep; together both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the
mortal mists were gathering fast upon you two, bishop and shepherd
girl,--when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains
about you,--let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the
flying features of your separate visions.

The shepherd girl that had delivered France--she from her dungeon, she
from her baiting at the stake, she from her duel with fire, as she
entered her last dream saw Domremy, saw the fountain of Domremy, saw the
pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter
festival which man had denied to her languishing heart, that
resurrection of springtime which the darkness of dungeons had
intercepted from her, hungering after the glorious liberty of forests,
were by God given back into her hands, as jewels that had been stolen
from her by robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can
stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of childhood.
By special privilege, for _her_ might be created in this farewell dream,
a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not, like that, sad with
the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. The mission had now been
fulfilled. The storm was weathered, the skirts even of that mighty storm
were drawing off. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted;
the tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last. The
hatred