We must remember the heroic past, when haply times are a little hard to ourselves, and we are bound to suffer in the comparatively mild way of modern days. We have to fight our fight, whatever it may be, as the heroes of old fought theirs, till our cause conquers, or we are convinced that we are on the wrong—not the weaker—side. But till then, we have to endure private loss that humanity may have greater gain; and to remember that conscience is better than victory, and that truth has ever been buffeted before she has been crowned. The world has this cruel cry for others beside the pioneers and martyrs of a cause. If nothing succeeds like success, so nothing is so fatal as failure; and væ victis! is in truth the sentence recorded against those whose fortunes fail, whose card-houses tumble to pieces, and whose flapping wings of ambition prove themselves to have waxen attachments, which melt in the using and land the poor highflyer in the mud. That fatal settling-day on ’Change: that bad debt made through the bank, and added to indefinitely, on the theory of possible redemption if enough time were allowed and enough rope paid out: that terrible spell of ill-health which prevented the completion of the book, the painting of the picture, the execution of the order: that failure, that fiasco—and væ victis as the commentary! Væ victis! to the unhappy—to those vanquished by pain and cast down by sorrow. Only a very few compassionate souls care to give their time and strength to the miserable who sit in darkness ever unlifted, and with ashes never shaken off their bowed and melancholy heads. We naturally like the light better than the dark; and perfumed pomade, beneath rosebuds and fine feathered caps, is a more pleasant thing than ashes taken out of the grate and scattered over our hair. We get tired of enduring sorrow. At first, we are keenly sympathetic; but as time goes on, we wonder why the wound does not heal. Our own sympathetic pain has passed long ago; why cannot that of their real hurt? They are always so sad! They take no pleasure in the last fashion, the newest gossip, that good story which is going the round of society, or that smart saying of the ill-natured wit, whose epigram rips the skin from the flesh of his victim as neatly as if it were a rapier. They are always so dull, these poor creatures—it is really impossible to go and see them! Væ victis! They are conquered by grief, by loss, by pain; and they must suffer, as all those who are overcome have to learn how.