However insignificant we may be, and
however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from
that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of
the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his
reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and
the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the
last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes
of a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow
circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as
intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her
day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of
England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as
we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and
the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what
passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof
of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.
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