failure,—­a failure, that is, as regards this world,—­and yet who is quite resigned.  Yes:  whether it be the un-soured old maid, sweet-tempered, sympathetic in others’ joys, God’s kind angel in the house of sorrow,—­or the unappreciated genius, quiet, subdued, pleased to meet even one who understands him amid a community which does not,—­or the kind-hearted clever man to whom eminent success has come too late, when those were gone whom it would have made happy:  I reverence and love, more than I can express, the beautiful natures I have known thus subdued and resigned.

Yes:  human beings get indurated.  When you come to know well the history of a great many people, you will find that it is wonderful what they have passed through.  Most people have suffered a very great deal, since they came into this world.  Yet in their appearance there is no particular trace of it all.  You would not guess, from looking at them, how hard and how various their lot has been.  I once knew a woman, rather more than middle-aged.  I knew her well, and saw her almost every day, for several years, before I learned that the homely Scotchwoman had seen distant lands, and had passed through very strange ups and downs, before she settled into the quiet, orderly life in which I knew her.  Yet when spoken to kindly, by one who expressed surprise that all these trials had left so little trace, the inward feeling, commonly suppressed, burst bitterly out, and she exclaimed, “It’s a wonder that I’m living at all!” And it is a wonder that a great many people are living, and looking so cheerful and so well as they do, when you think what fiery passion, what crushing sorrow, what terrible losses, what bitter disappointments, what hard and protracted work they have gone through.  Doubtless, great good comes of it.  All wisdom, all experience, comes of suffering.  I should not care much for the counsel of the man whose life had been one long sunshiny holiday.  There is greater depth in the philosophy of Mr. Dickens than a great portion of his readers discern.  You are ready to smile at the singular way in which Captain Cuttle commended his friend Jack Bunsby as a man of extraordinary wisdom, whose advice on any point was of inestimable value.  “Here’s a man,” said Captain Cuttle, “who has been more beaten about the head than any other living man!” I hail the words as the recognition of a great principle.  To Mr. Bunsby it befell in a literal sense; but we have all been (in a moral sense) a good deal beaten about both the head and the heart before we grew good for much.  Out of the travail of his nature, out of the sorrowful history of his past life, the poet or the moralist draws the deep thought and feeling which find so straight a way to the hearts of other men.  Do you think Mr. Tennyson would ever have been the great poet he is, if he had not passed through that season of great grief which has left its noble record in “In Memoriam”?  And a youthful preacher, of vivid