They come and go at their own sweet will; and their coming, I suspect, is generally a matter of their own choosing.

The world still loves darkness more than light; but it rarely nowadays falls upon the lantern-bearer and beats the life out of him, as in "the good old times." The world has grown more decent and polite, although still at heart no doubt the bad old world which stoned the prophets.

It sneers where it once stoned; it rejects and scorns where it once beat and burned.

And so Arden has become a refuge, not so much from persecution and hatred as from ignorance, indifference, and the small wounds of small minds bent upon stinging that which they cannot destroy.
IV.

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