He was all for admitting that though things must really be so, yet
it were prudent in life to pretend they were otherwise. This is
the well-known English virtue of moderation and compromise; it has
made England what she is, the shabbiest, sordidest, worst-organized
of nations. So he paused for a second and temporized. "It's for
your sake, Herminia," he said again; "I can't bear to think of your
making yourself a martyr. And I don't see how, if you act as you
propose, you could escape martyrdom."
Herminia looked up at him with pleading eyes. Tears just trembled
on the edge of those glistening lashes. "It never occurred to me
to think," she said gently but bravely, "my life could ever end in
anything else but martyrdom. It MUST needs be so with all true
lives, and all good ones. For whoever sees the truth, whoever
strives earnestly with all his soul to be good, must be raised many
planes above the common mass of men around him; he must be a moral
pioneer, and the moral pioneer is always a martyr. People won't
allow others to be wiser and better than themselves, unpunished.
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