Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Here is Christianity with its marvellous parable of the Prodigal Son to

teach us indulgence and pardon. Jesus was full of love for souls wounded

by the passions of men; he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in

those very wounds the balm which should heal them. Thus he said to the

Magdalen: "Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much," a

sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.

Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ? Why, holding

obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in

order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects, souls

bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man's bad blood, the evil of

their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to

lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart?

It is to my own generation that I speak, to those for whom the theories

of M. de Voltaire happily exist no longer, to those who, like myself,

realize that humanity, for these last fifteen years, has been in one of

its most audacious moments of expansion. The science of good and evil

is acquired forever; faith is refashioned, respect for sacred things has

returned to us, and if the world has not all at once become good, it has

at least become better. The efforts of every intelligent man tend in

the same direction, and every strong will is harnessed to the same

principle: Be good, be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let

us have the pride of good, and above all let us never despair. Do not

let us despise the woman who is neither mother, sister, maid, nor wife.

Do not let us limit esteem to the family nor indulgence to egoism. Since

"there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over

ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance," let us give joy

to heaven. Heaven will render it back to us with usury. Let us leave on

our way the alms of pardon for those whom earthly desires have driven

astray, whom a divine hope shall perhaps save, and, as old women say

when they offer you some homely remedy of their own, if it does no good

it will do no harm.

Doubtless it must seem a bold thing to attempt to deduce these grand

results out of the meagre subject that I deal with; but I am one of

those who believe that all is in little. The child is small, and he

includes the man; the brain is narrow, and it harbours thought; the eye

is but a point, and it covers leagues.