Victor Hugo

The Bishop's day was full to the brim with good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Still the day was not complete if cold or wet weather prevented him from spending an hour or two in the garden before going to bed... He was alone with himself, collected. Peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with that of the Other, affected in the darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God... Without seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, he gazed at it. He did not study God: he was dazzled (by God).

Her 1ife, which had been a series of pious works, had cloaked her in a kind of transparent whiteness. And in growing old she had acquired a kind of beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth, was in her maturity a transparency, and this ethereal quality permitted glimmers of the angel dancing within.

Be like that bird
Who, pausing in flight,
Feels the bough give way
Beneath her feet
And yet sings
Knowing she hath wings.