re is hope; for
so is God the secret of all good and worth, a thing to be set down as
the axiom of religion and life. A conscience long dormant is now
become regnant. Jean Valjean is a man again!

Goodness begets goodness. He climbed; and the mountain air and azure
and fountains of clear waters, spouting from cliffs of snow and the far
altitudes, fed his spirit. God and he kept company, and, as is meet,
goodness seemed native to him as lily blooms to lily stems. God was
his secret, as God is the secret of us all. To scan his process of
recovery is worth while. The bishop reminded him of God. Goodness and
love in man are wings to help us soar to where we see that service,
love, and goodness are in God--see that God is good and God is love.
Seeing God, Jean Valjean does good. Philanthropy is native to him;
gentleness seems his birthright; his voice is low and sweet; his
face--the helpless look to it for help; his eyes are dreamy, like a
poet's; he loves books; he looks not manufacturer so much as he looks
poet; he passes good on as if it were coin to be handled; he suffers
nor complains; his silence is wide, like that of the still night; he
frequently walks alone and in the country; he becomes a god to Fantine,
for she had spit upon him, and he had not resented; he adopts means for
the rescue of Cossette. In him, goodness moves finger from the lips,
breaks silence, and becomes articulate. Jean Valjean is brave,
magnanimous, of sensitive conscience, hungry-hearted, is possessed of
the instincts of motherhood, bears being misjudged without complaint,
is totally forgetful of himself, and is absolute in his loyalty to
God--qualities which lift him into the elect life of manhood.

Jean Valjean was brave. He and fear never met. The solitary fear he
knew was fear of himself, and lest he might not live for good as the
bishop had bidden him; but fear from without had never crossed his
path. His was the bravery of conscience. His strength was prodigious,
and he scrupled not to use it. Self-sparing was no trait of his
character. Like another hero we have read of, he would "gladly spend
and be spent" for others, and bankrupt himself, if thereby he might
make others rich. There is a physical courage, brilliant as a shock of
armies, which feels the conflict and leaps to it as the storm-waves
leap upon the sword edges of the cliffs--a courage which counts no
odds. There is another courage, moral rather than physical.