77. Can we conceive a situation in life wherein a man who is truly wise and noble can be made to suffer as profoundly as the man who follows evil? In this world it is far more certain that vice will be punished, than that virtue will meet with reward; yet we must bear in mind that it is the habit of crime to shriek aloud beneath its punishment, whereas virtue rewards itself in the silence that is the walled garden of its happiness. Evil drags horrid catastrophe behind it; but an act of virtue is only a silent offering to the profoundest laws of life; and therefore, doubtless, does the balance of mighty justice seem more ready to incline beneath deeds of darkness than beneath those of light. But if we can scarcely believe that "happiness in crime" be possible, have we more warrant for faith in the "unhappiness of virtue"? We know that the executioner can stretch Spinoza on the rack, and that terrible disease will spare Antoninus Pius no more than Goneril or Regan; but pain such as this belongs to the animal, not the human, side of man. Wisdom has indeed sent science, the youngest of her sisters, into the realm of destiny, with the mission to bring the zone of physical suffering within ever-narrowing limits; but there are inaccessible regions within that realm, where disaster ever will rule. Some stricken ones there will always be, victims to irreducible injustice; and yet will the true wisdom, in the midst of its sorrow, only be fortified thereby, only gain in self-reliance and humanity all that it, may lose in more mystic qualities. We become truly just only when it is finally borne home to us that we must search within ourselves for our model of justice. Again, it is the injustice of destiny that restores man to his place in the universe. It is not well that he should for ever be pasting anxious glances about him, like the child that has strayed from its mother's side. Nor need we believe that these disillusions must necessarily give rise to moral discouragement; for the truth that seems discouraging does in reality only transform the courage of those strong enough to accept it; and, in any event, a truth that disheartens, because it is true, is still of far more value than the most stimulating of falsehoods. But indeed no truth can discourage, whereas much that passes as courage only bears the semblance thereof. The thing that enfeebles the weak will but help to strengthen the strong. "Do you remember the day," wrote a woman to her lover, "when we sat together by the window that looked on to the sea, and watched the meek procession of white-sailed ships as they followed each other into harbour? . . . Ah! how that day comes back to me! . . . Do you remember that one ship had a sail that was nearly black, and that she was the last to come in? And do you remember, too, that the hour of separation was upon us, and that the arrival of the last boat of all was to be our signal for