There is no need to _do_ anything; if you have the right _feeling_ you
may be as passive as a cow, and still excel them all, for they never
thrill to a noble thought."

"Then, pity them," I said.

"No, despise them," she answered. "Pity is for affliction, for such
shortcomings as are hereditary and can hardly be remedied--for the
taint in nature which is all but hopeless. But these people are not
afflicted. They could do better if they would. They know the higher
walk, and deliberately pursue the lower. Their whole feeling is for
themselves, and such things as have power to move them through the
flesh only. I would almost rather sin on the impulse of a generous but
misguided nature, and have the power to appreciate and the will to be
better, than live a perfect, loveless woman, caring only for myself,
like these. I should do more good."

They called Ideala unsympathetic, yet I have known her silent from
excess of sympathy. She could walk with you, reading your heart and
soul, sorrowing and rejoicing with you, and make you feel without a
word that she did so. It was this power to sympathise, and the longing
she had to find good in everything, that made her forgive the faults
that were patent in a nature with which she was finally brought into
contact, for the sake of the virtues which she discovered hidden away
deep down under a slowly hardening crust of that kind of self-
indulgence which mars a man.

But her own life was set to a tune that admitted of endless variations.
Sometimes it was difficult even for those who knew her best to detect