Be sure we shall not want to go back again for
a moment."
"And is there no punishment or reward?"
Oh, there again! What a detail! Poor little naughty perverse
midges--who were _born_ so--and _can't_ keep straight! poor little
exemplary midges who couldn't go wrong if they tried! Is it worth while?
Isn't it enough for either punishment or reward that the secrets of all
midges' hearts shall be revealed, and for all other midges to see?
Think of it!
* * * * *
There are battles to be fought and races to be won, but no longer
against '_each other_.' And strength and swiftness to win them; but no
longer any strong and swift. There is weakness and cowardice, but no
longer any cowards or weaklings. The good and the bad and the worst and
the best--it is all mixed up. But the good comes to the top; the bad
goes to the bottom--it is precipitated, as papa used to say. It is not
an agreeable sediment, with its once useful cruelty at the lowest bottom
of all--out of sight, out of mind--all but forgotten. _C'est deja
le ciel_.
* * * * *
"And the goal? The cause, the whither, and the why of it all? Ah!
Gogo--as inscrutable, as unthinkable as ever, till the great guesser
comes! At least so it seems to me, speaking as a fool, out of the depths
of my poor ignorance; for I am a new arrival, and a complete outsider,
with my chain and locket, waiting for you.
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