Consent to be humiliated; silence and peace in humiliation are the true good of the soul. One might be tempted to speak humbly, and one might find a thousand fine pretexts for doing so; but it is still better to be silent humbly. The humility which still speaks is still to be suspected; in speaking, self-love consoles itself a little. What now follows, ending our extracts from Fenelon's writings, we give, not only for its own value, but for the light it throws on the charming humility of the author: It has seemed to me that you needed to enlarge your heart in the matter of the defects of others.... Perfection bears with ease the imperfection of others; it becomes all things to all men. One must grow accustomed to the idea of the grossest defects in good souls.... I beg of you more than ever not to spare me in respect of my defects. Should you believe that you see one that I perhaps have not, that will be no great misfortune. If your hints wound me, that sensitiveness will show me that you have touched the quick; thus you will always have conferred on me a great benefit in disciplining me to be little, and in accustoming me to take reproof. I ought to be more abased that another in proportion as I am more exalted by my position, and as God requires of me more complete death to all. I need such simplicity, and I hope that, far from weakening, it will strengthen our union of heart. It is impossible not to associate with Fenelon, in the thought of this spiritual life of his, explored and purified so deep, that remarkable woman, Madame Guyon, to whom in certain religious relations the great and gentle archbishop ostensibly, and perhaps really, submitted himself, as one who learns to one who teaches. Her exaltation--how far real, and how far illusory only, let us leave it for the All-knower to judge--made Madame Guyon easily equal to the seemingly audacious part of spiritual guide to a man who was at once one of the most illustrious writers, one of the most highly placed Church dignitaries, and one of the saintliest Christians in Europe. It is undoubtedly true that the sage can learn more from the fool than the fool can from the sage; and therefore if it could be proved to have been indeed the fact that, of the two, Fenelon was the greater gainer from the relation existing between himself and Madame Guyon, that might well be only because he was already a wiser person than she.