we do, stories of peril, temptation, and exploit. Their true zest is no
mere ticklement of our curiosity or wonder, but comradeship with souls
that have courage in danger, faithfulness under trial, or magnanimity in
triumph or defeat. We have, moreover, it went on to say, a care for human
excellence _in general_, by reason of which we want not alone our son, or
cousin, or sister, but _man everywhere_, the norm, _man_, to be strong,
sweet, and true; and reading stories of such, we feel this wish rebound
upon us as duty sweetened by a new hope, and have a new yearning for its
fulfilment in ourselves.

"In short," said I, closing the book, "those imaginative victories of soul
over circumstance become essentially ours by sympathy and emulation, don't
they?"

"O yes," he sighed, and added an indistinct word about "spasms of virtue."
But I claimed a special charm and use for unexpected and detached
heroisms, be they fact or fiction. "If adventitious virtue," I argued,
"can spring up from unsuspected seed and without the big roots of
character--"

"You think," interrupted Gregory, "there's a fresh chance for me."

"For all the common run of us!" I cried. "Why not? And even if there
isn't, hasn't it a beauty and a value? Isn't a rose a rose, on the bush or
off? Gold is gold wherever you find it, and the veriest spasm of true
virtue, coined into action, is true virtue, and counts. It may not work my
nature's whole redemption, but it works that way, and is just so much
solid help toward the whole world's uplift." I was young enough then to
talk in that manner, and he actually took comfort in my words, confessing
that it had been his way to count a good act which was not in character