Coming [131] thus unexpectedly upon this large assembly, so entirely united, in a silence so profound, for purposes unknown to him, Marius felt for a moment as if he had stumbled by chance upon some great conspiracy.
Yet that could scarcely be, for the people here collected might have figured as the earliest handsel, or pattern, of a new world, from the very face of which discontent had passed away.

Corresponding to the variety of human type there present, was the various expression of every form of human sorrow assuaged.

What desire, what fulfilment of desire, had wrought so pathetically on the features of these ranks of aged men and women of humble condition?
Those young men, bent down so discreetly on the details of their sacred service, had faced life and were glad, by some science, or light of knowledge they had, to which there had certainly been no parallel in the older world.

Was some credible message from beyond "the flaming rampart of the world"-- a message of hope, regarding the place of men's souls and their interest in the sum of things--already moulding anew their very bodies, and looks, and voices, now and here?
At least, there was a cleansing and kindling flame at work in them, which seemed to make everything else Marius had ever known look comparatively vulgar and mean.

There were the children, above all--troops of children--reminding him of those pathetic children's graves, like cradles or garden- [132] beds, he had noticed in his first visit to these places; and they more than satisfied the odd curiosity he had then conceived about them, wondering in what quaintly expressive forms they might come forth into the daylight, if awakened from sleep.