After all, what is a humble life? It is thus we choose to term the life that ignores itself, that drains itself dry in the place of its birth--a life whose feelings and thoughts, whose desires and passions, entwine themselves around the most insignificant things. But it suffices to look at a life for that life to seem great. A life in itself can be neither great nor small; the largeness is all in the eye that surveys it; and an existence that all men hold to be lofty and vast, is one that has long been accustomed to look loftily on itself from within. If you have never done this, your life must be narrow; but the man who watches you live will discern, in the very obscurity of the corner you fill, an element of horizon, a foothold to cling to, whence his thoughts will rise with surer and more human strength. There is not an existence about us but at first seems colourless, dreary, lethargic: what can our soul have in common with that of an elderly spinster, a slow-witted ploughman, a miser who worships his gold? Can any connection exist between such as these and a deep-rooted feeling, a boundless love for humanity, an interest time cannot stale? But let a Balzac step forward and stand in the midst of them, with his eyes and ears on the watch; and the emotion that lived and died in an old-fashioned country parlour shall as mightily stir our heart, shall as unerringly find its way to the deepest sources of life, as the majestic passion that ruled the life of a king and shed its triumphant lustre from the dazzling height of a throne. "There are certain little agitations," says Balzac in the Cure de Tours, the most admirable of all his studies of humble life--"there are certain little agitations that are capable of generating as much passion within the soul as would suffice to direct the most important social interests. Is it not a mistake to imagine that time only flies swiftly with those whose hearts are devoured by mighty schemes, which fret and fever their life? Not an hour sped past the Abbe Troubert but was as animated, as laden with its burden of anxious thought, as lined with pleading hope and deep despair, as could be the most desperate hour of gambler, plotter, or lover. God alone can tell how much energy is consumed in the triumphs we achieve over men, and things, and ourselves. We may not be always aware whither our steps are leading, but are only too fully conscious of the wearisomeness of the Journey. And yet--if the historian may be permitted to lay aside, for one moment, the story he is telling, and to assume the role of the critic--as you cast your eyes on the lives of these old maids and these two priests, seeking to learn the cause of the sorrow which twisted their heartstrings, it will be revealed to you, perhaps, that certain passions must be experienced by man for there to develop within him the qualities that make a life noble, that widen its area, and stifle the egoism natural to all."