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and that, in a beautiful soul, the saddest fortune is transformed into beauty. . . .

Indeed, is it not within the knowledge of us all that goodness beckons to goodness, and that those for whom we devote ourselves are always the same; that they are always the same, those whom we betray? When the same sorrow knocks at two adjoining doors, at the houses of the just and the unjust, will its method of action be identical in both? If you are pure, will not your misfortunes be pure? To have known how to change the past into a few saddened smiles—is this not to master the future? And does it not seem that, even in the inevitable, there is something we can keep back? Do not great hazards lie dormant that a too sudden movement of ours may awaken on the horizon; and would this misfortune have befallen you to-day, but for the thoughts that this morning kept too noisy festival in your soul? Is