At the same moment some one rang the bell of the outer door. I arose
hastily and had only time to open the closet door and motion the creature
into it when Desgenais entered the room with two friends.
The great currents that are found in the middle of the ocean resemble
certain events in life. Fatality, Chance, Providence, what matters the
name? Those who quarrel over the word, admit the fact. Such are not those
who, speaking of Napoleon or Caesar, say: "He was a man of Providence."
They apparently believe that heroes merit the attention which Heaven
shows them and that the color of purple attracts gods as well as bulls.
What decides the course of these little events, what objects and
circumstances, in appearance the least important, lead to changes in
fortune, there is not, to my mind, a deeper abyss for the thought. There
is something in our ordinary actions that resembles the little blunted
arrows we shoot at targets; little by little we make of our successive
results an abstract and regular entity that we call our prudence or our
will. Then a gust of wind passes, and behold the smallest of these
arrows, the very lightest and most futile, is carried beyond our vision,
beyond the horizon, to the dwelling-place of God himself.
What a strange feeling of unrest seizes us then! What becomes of those
fantoms of tranquil pride, the will and prudence? Force itself, that
mistress of the world, that sword of man in the combat of life, in vain
do we brandish it over our heads in wrath, in vain do we seek to ward off
with it a blow which threatens us; an invisible power turns aside the
point, and all the impetus of our effort, deflected into space, serves
only to precipitate our fall.
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