46. Men of inferior degree, it is true, are not given to judging themselves, and therefore is it that fate passes judgment upon them. They are the slaves of a destiny of almost unvarying sternness, for it is only when man has been judged by himself that destiny can be transformed. Men such as these will not master, or alter within them, the event that they meet; nay, they themselves become morally transformed by the very first thing that draws near them. If misfortune befall them, they grovel before it and stoop down to its level; and misfortune, with them, would seem always to wear its poorest and commonest aspect. They see the finger of fate in every least thing that may happen--be it choice of profession, a friendship that greets them, a woman who passes, and smiles. To them chance and destiny always are one; but chance will be seldom propitious if accepted as destiny. Hostile forces at once take possession of all that is vacant within us, nor filled by the strength of our soul; and whatever is void in the heart or the mind becomes a fountain of fatal influence. The Margaret of Goethe and Ophelia of Shakespeare had perforce to yield meekly to fate, for they were so feeble that each gesture they witnessed seemed fate's own gesture to them. But yet, had they only possessed some fragment of Antigone's strength--the Antigone of Sophocles--would they not then have transformed the destinies of Hamlet and Faust as well as their own? And if Othello had taken Corneille's Pauline to wife and not Desdemona, would Desdemona's destiny then, all else remaining unchanged, have dared to come within reach of the enlightened love of Pauline? Where was it, in body or soul, that grim fatality lurked? And though the body may often be powerless to add to its strength, can this ever be true of the soul? Indeed, the more that we think of it, the clearer does it become that there could be one destiny only that might truly be said to triumph over man, the one that might have the power loudly to cry unto all, "From this day onward there shall come no more strength to thy soul, neither strength nor ennoblement." But is there a destiny in the world empowered to hold such language?