Les Miserables

presence, and from his whole person joy seemed to radiate, His ruddy
and fresh complexion, and his white teeth, all of which were well
preserved, and which he showed when he laughed, gave him that open and
easy air which makes us say of a man: he is a good fellow; and of an
old man: he is a good man. This was, we remember, the effect he
produced on Napoleon. At the first view, and to one who saw him for
the first time, he was nothing more than a good man. But if one
spent a few hours with him, and saw him in a thoughtful mood, little
by little the goodman became transfigured, and became ineffably
imposing; his large and serious forehead, rendered noble by his
white hair, became noble also by meditation; majesty was developed
from this goodness, yet the radiance of goodness remained; and one
felt something of the emotion that he would experience in seeing a
smiling angel slowly spread his wings without ceasing to smile.
Respect, unutterable respect, penetrated you by degrees, and made
its way to your heart; and you felt that you had before you one of
those strong, tried, and indulgent souls, where the thought is so
great that it cannot be other than gentle.
{FANTINE|BOOK_1ST|XIII ^paragraph 10}
As we have seen, prayer, celebration of the religious offices, alms,
consoling the afflicted, the cultivation of a little piece of
ground, fraternity, frugality, self-sacrifice, confidence, study,
and work, filled up each day of his life. Filled up is exactly the
word; and in fact, the Bishop's day was full to the brim with good
thoughts, good words, and good actions. Nevertheless it was not
complete if cold or rainy weather prevented his passing an hour or two
in the evening, when the two women had retired, in his garden before
going to sleep. It seemed as if it were a sort of rite with him, to
prepare himself for sleep by meditating in presence of the great
spectacle of the starry firmament. Sometimes at a late hour of the
night, if the two women were awake, they would hear him slowly
promenading the walks. He was there alone with himself, collected,
tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the
serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendours
of the constellations, and the invisible splendour of God, opening his
soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments,
offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale
their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the centre of the starry
night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal
radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what
was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and
something descend upon him; mysterious interchanges of the depths of
the soul with the depths of the universe.
He contemplated the grandeur, and the