mediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace and liberty? Ah! there is the
evil which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public and
private education to anticipate! If that were got rid of, what treasons
would be spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and
crime would be forever broken! We award the palm to charity, and to
self-sacrifice; but, above all, let us award it to moderation, for it
is the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it
stands instead of them.

Six o'clock.--I have written a letter of thanks to the promoters of
the new speculation, and have declined their offer! This decision has
restored my peace of mind. I stopped singing, like the cobbler, as long
as I entertained the hope of riches: it is gone, and happiness is come
back!

O beloved and gentle Poverty! pardon me for having for a moment wished
to fly from thee, as I would from Want. Stay here forever with thy
charming sisters, Pity, Patience, Sobriety, and Solitude; be ye my
queens and my instructors; teach me the stern duties of life; remove far
from my abode the weakness of heart and giddiness of head which follow
prosperity. Holy Poverty! teach me to endure without complaining,
to impart without grudging, to seek the end of life higher than in
pleasure, farther off than in power. Thou givest the body strength, thou
makest the mind more firm; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the
rich attach themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which death may
cut the cable without awakening all our fears. Continue to sustain me, O
thou whom Christ hath called Blessed!

CHAPTER IV. LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER

April 9th

The fine evenings are come back; the trees begin to put forth their
shoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets
of the flower-girls--all the world have begun their walks again on the
quays and boulevards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to
breathe the evening air.

It is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. During the day
the plaster fronts of the houses weary the eye by their monotonous
whiteness; heavily laden carts make the streets shake under their huge
wheels; the eager crowd, taken up by the one fear of losing a moment
from business, cross and jostle one another; the aspect of the city
altogether has something harsh, restless, and flurried about it. But, as
soon as the stars appear, everything is changed; the glare of the whi