It is the Palladium of the mission and the source of all our prosperity and happiness.

Besides, how could it fail?
You see how solidly it is built, and every month it is carefully inspected from end to end." "It might be destroyed by an earthquake." "You are pleased to be a Job's comforter, Monsieur Nigel.

Damaged it might be, but hardly destroyed, except in some cataclysm which would destroy everything, and that is a risk which, like all dwellers in countries subject to earthquakes, we must run.

We cannot escape from the conditions of our existence; and life is so pleasant here, we are spared so many of the miseries which afflict our fellow-creatures in other parts of the world--war, pestilence, strife, and want--that it were as foolish and ungrateful to make ourselves unhappy because we are exposed to some remote danger against which we cannot guard, as to repine because we cannot live forever." "You discourse most excellent philosophy, Mademoiselle Angela." "Without knowing it, then, as Monsieur Jourdan talked prose." "So! You have read Moliere ?" "Over and over again." "Then you must have a library at San Cristobal." "A very small one, as you may suppose; but a small library is not altogether a disadvantage, as the abbe says.

The fewer books you have the oftener you read them; and it is better to read a few books well than many superficially." "The abbe has been your sole teacher, I suppose ?" "Has been! He is still.