Let us take compassion on the chastised, for, alas! what are we ourselves? Who am I, who am speaking to you? Who are you, who are listening to me? Whence do we come? And is it quite sure that we did nothing before we were born? The earth is not without a resemblance to a prison, and who knows whether man is not the ticket-of-leave of Divine justice? If we look at life closely we find it so made that there is punishment everywhere to be seen. Are you what is called a happy man? Well, you are sad every day, and each of them has its great grief or small anxiety. Yesterday, you trembled for a health which is dear to you, to-day you are frightened about your own, to-morrow it will be a monetary anxiety, and the day after the diatribe of a calumniator, and the day after that again the misfortune of some friend; then the weather, then something broken or lost, or a pleasure for which your conscience and your backbone reproach you; or, another time, the progress of public affairs, and we do not take into account heart-pangs. And so it goes on; one cloud is dissipated, another forms, and there is hardly one day in one hundred of real joy and bright sunshine. And you are one of that small number who are happy; as for other men, the stagnation of night is around them. Reflecting minds rarely use the expressions "the happy" and the "unhappy," for in this world, which is evidently the vestibule of another, there are no happy beings. The true human division is into the luminous and the dark. To diminish the number of the dark, and augment that of the luminous, is the object; and that is why we cry, "Instruction and learning!" Learning to read is lighting the fire, and every syllable spelled is a spark. When we say light, however, we do not necessarily mean light; for men suffer in light, and excess of light burns. Flame is the enemy of the wings, and to burn without ceasing to fly is the prodigy of genius. When you know and when you love, you will still suffer, for the day is born in tears, and the luminous weep, be it only for the sake of those in darkness. [1] Le dernier Jour d'un Condamné. [2] "You will find in that tittle-tattle a multitude of reasons why I should take my liberty." CHAPTER II. ROOTS.