ve professor stays at your house,
and you surprise him searching your papers. Everything is permitted
against you; you are outside the law, outside of common justice, outside
of respect. They will say that they have your authority to publish your
conversations, and will attribute to you words that you have never
spoken and actions that you have never done. Never write to your
friends--your letters are opened on the way. Beware of all who are
kindly to you in exile; they are ruining you in Paris. You are isolated
as a leper. A mysterious stranger whispers in your ear that he can
procure the assassination of Bonaparte; it is Bonaparte offering to kill
himself. Every day of your life is a new outrage. Only one thing is open
to the exile; it is to turn his thought to other subjects.

He is at least beside the sea; let its infinity bring him wisdom. The
eternal rioting of the surges against the rocks is as the agitation of
impostures against the truth. It is a vain convulsion; the foam gains
nothing by it, the granite loses nothing, and only sparkles the more
bravely in the sun.

But exile has this great advantage--one is free to contemplate, to
think, to suffer. To be alone, and yet to feel that one is with all
humanity; to consolidate oneself as a citizen, and to purify oneself as
a philosopher; to be poor, and begin again to work for one's living, to
meditate on what is good and to contrive for what is better; to be angry
in the public cause, but to crush all personal enmity; to breathe the
vast, living winds of the solitudes; to compose a deeper indignation
with a profounder peace--these are the opportunities of exile. I
accustomed myself to say, "If, after a revolution, Bonaparte should
knock at my door and ask shelter, let never a hair of his head be
injured."

Yes, an exile becomes a well-wisher. He loves the roses, and the birds'
nests, and the flitting hither and thither of the butterflies. He
mingles with the sweet joys of the creatures, and learns a changeless
faith in some secret and infinite goodness. The green glades are his
chosen dwelling and his life is April; he reclines amazed at the
mysteries of a tuft of grass; he studies the ant-hills of tiny
republicans; he learns to know the birds by their songs; he watches the
children playing barefoot in the edge of the sea.

Against this dangerous man governments are taking the most strenuous
precautions. Victoria offers to hand over the exiles to Napoleon, and