To put up with the world humbly is still more beautiful than to control it.
This is the very acme of virtue.

Religion leads to it in a day; philosophy only conducts to it by a lengthened life, misery, or death.
These are days when the most elevated place in the world is a scaffold.
VII.
The young maiden once conducted by her grandmother to an aristocratic house, of which her humble parents were _free_, was deeply hurt at the tone of condescending superiority with which her grandmother and herself were treated.

"My pride took alarm," she writes, "my blood boiled more than usual, and I blushed violently.

I no longer inquired of myself why this lady was seated on a sofa, and my grandmother on a low stool; but my feelings led to such reflection, and I saw the end of the visit with satisfaction as if a weight was taken off my mind." Another time she was taken to pass eight days at Versailles, in the palace of that king and queen whose throne she was one day to sap.
Lodged in the attics with one of the female domestics of the Chateau, she was a close observer of this royal luxury, which she believed was paid for by the misery of the people, and that grandeur of things founded on the servility of courtiers.

The lavishly spread tables, the walks, the play, presentations--all passed before her eyes in the pomp and vanity of the world.