love and respect that I have for mankind. As I rise aloft, you rise
with me. But if, the better to love you, I deem it my duty to tear
off the wings from my love, your love being wingless as yet; then
shall I have added in vain to the plaints and the tears in the
valley, but brought my own love thereby not one whit nearer the
mountain. Our love should always be lodged on the highest peak we
can attain. Let our love not spring from pity when it can be born of
love; let us not forgive for charity's sake when justice offers
forgiveness; nor let us try to console there where we can respect.
Let our one never-ceasing care be to better the love that we offer
our fellows. One cup of this love that is drawn from the spring on
the mountain is worth a hundred taken from the stagnant well of
ordinary charity. And if there be one whom you no longer can love
because of the pity you feel, or the tears that he sheds; and if he
ignore to the end that you love him because you ennobled him at the
same time you ennobled yourself, it matters but little after all;
for you have done what you held to be best, and the best is not
always most useful. Should we not invariably act in this life as
though the God whom our heart desires with its highest desire were
watching our every action?

72. In a terrible catastrophe that took place but a short time
ago,[Footnote: The fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris.]
destiny afforded yet another, and perhaps the most startling
instance of what it pleases men to term her injustice, her
blindness, or her irresponsibility. She seemed to have singled out
for especial chastisement the solitary external virtue that reason
has left us--our love for our fellow-man. There must have been some
moderately righteous men amongst the victims, and it seems almost
certain that there was at least one whose virtue was wholly