Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 548

For innocence, of all the graces of the spirit, is I believe the one most to be prayed for.

Although it is constantly made to look foolish ( too simple to come in out of the rain, people say, who have found in the innocent an impediment ), it does not mind looking foolish because it is not concerned with how it looks.

It assumes that things are as they seem when they seem best, and when they seem worst it overlooks them.

To innocence, a word given is a word that will be kept.

Instinctively, innocence does unto others as it expects to be done by.

But when these expectations are once too often ground into the dust, innocence can falter, since its strength is according to the strength of him who possesses it.

The innocence of which I speak is, I know, not incorruptible.

But I insist upon believing that even when it is lost, it may, like paradise, be regained.