child: that he, who had nothing to expect in that obscure distribution

which we call fate, had charged himself with a destiny; that naked, in

anguish and distress, he had made himself a Providence; that when Heaven

had closed he had opened his heart; that, himself lost, he had saved;

that having neither roof-tree nor shelter, he had been an asylum; that

he had made himself mother and nurse; that he who was alone in the world

had responded to desertion by adoption; that lost in the darkness he had

given an example; that, as if not already sufficiently burdened, he had

added to his load another's misery; that in this world, which seemed to

contain nothing for him, he had found a duty; that where every one else

would have hesitated, he had advanced; that where every one else would

have drawn back, he consented; that he had put his hand into the jaws of

the grave and drawn out her--Dea. That, himself half naked, he had given

her his rags, because she was cold; that famished, he had thought of

giving her food and drink; that for one little creature, another little

creature had combated death; that he had fought it under every form;

under the form of winter and snow, under the form of solitude, under the

form of terror, under the form of cold, hunger, and thirst, under the

form of whirlwind, and that for her, Dea, this Titan of ten had given

battle to the immensity of night. She knew that as a child he had done

this, and that now as a man, he was strength to her weakness, riches to

her poverty, healing to her sickness, and sight to her blindness.

Through the mist of the unknown by which she felt herself encompassed,

she distinguished clearly his devotion, his abnegation, his courage.

Heroism in immaterial regions has an outline; she distinguished this

sublime outline. In the inexpressible abstraction in which thought lives

unlighted by the sun, Dea perceived this mysterious lineament of virtue.

411

The Man Who Laughs