"The sweetest child!" bleated her mother. The truth being that the girl's inertia took the impulsion of any movement near her. They were married after magnificent promises on both sides of the house. It later appeared that the manufacturer of corks was on the verge of failure, and that the cloth business had long since gone into the hands of a partner. As the fraud was reciprocal, there could be no reproaches on either side. They remained "good friends," and from the remnants of past splendour collected a small capital with which to set up the young couple in the linen draper's business at Caen. The two young people, who were equally well fitted to manufacture butter or deal in building stone, by scrupulously adhering to the rules and regulations established for them, made a decent income from their business. Their parents died, rather fortunately, before becoming a burden and after inculcating into them those principles of public and private morals which would enable them to reach the end of their career without disaster. They had two daughters whom they married off, one into "ribbons," the other into "hardware," while they themselves died, as they had lived, in "linen." "Colourless lives," some will remark. Not everyone can write Hamlet, or discover the laws of universal gravitation. The present order of nature stands upon a foundation of passive beings, whence, from some combination of century-old heredities, springs, now and then, the miracle of genius. What surprises for us, could we examine the authentic genealogies of Shakespeare and Newton, and see from what an accumulation of weaknesses their strength emerged! The _processus_ of any human life is, in truth, not less a marvel. Only, from our low level we instinctively look toward the heights. And there is no denying that the psychology of St. Francis of Assisi is more interesting than that of the ordinary mortal. Still, if one examines closely, one finds that the "great man" is not different in substance from the little man: the principal difference is that in the two cases the forces are differently related. Infinite are the transitional types between the two extremes, and all are worthy of analysis as human samples capable of furnishing, according to circumstances of time and place, acts which would remove them from common mediocrity. What events would have been necessary to raise our two linen drapers into the light of glory I cannot say. I should like to believe that a great tragedy, public or private, might have called forth some act of sublime devotion on their part, and made them illustrious in history. But I will not conceal that nothing in their speech or actions ever authorized such a hope.