,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,in the plain text version words in ,italics are denoted by underscores4 ,the book cover was modified by the ,transcriber and has been added to the public domain4 ,a number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants4 ,for the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept4 ,obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,the ,,heart',s ,,domain ,,by ,,georges ,,duhamel ,author of 8,,civilization1 #aiad-aiag10 etc4 ,,translated ,,by ,,eleanor ,,stimson ,,brooks ,illustration ,,new ,,york ,,the ,,century ,,co4 #aiai ,copyright1 #aiai1 by ,,the ,,century ,,co4 ,published1 ,september1 #aiai ,,to ,,my ,,son ,,bernard ,,preface ,i am beginning a book with what sounds like a very ambitious title4 ,i wish to say at once that ,i have no qualifications to discuss political1 historical or economic matters4 ,i leave to the scholars who are versed in these redoubtable questions the task of explaining1 skilfully and definitely1 the great misery that has befallen our time4 ,i thus at the same time renounce most of the opportunities and obligations of my title4 ,but ,i wish1 with all my heart1 to pursue with a few people of good will a friendly discussion the object of which remains1 in spite of all1 the heart's domain1 or the possession of the world4 ,the possession of the world is not decided by guns4 ,it is the noble work of peace4 ,it is not involved in the struggle which is now rending society4 ,even so1 men will find themselves engaged in an undertaking that will threaten to overwhelm them with suffering and despair4 ,fate has assigned to me during the war a place and a task of such a character that misery has been the only thing ,i have seen2 it has been my study and my enemy every moment4 ,i must be forgiven for thinking of it with a persistence that is like an obsession4 ,the whole intelligence of the world is absorbed by the enterprise and the necessities of the war2 there is little chance of rousing it now from this in favor of the happiness of the race1 in favor of that happiness which is compromised for the future and destroyed for the present4 ,it is to the heart one must address oneself4 ,it is to all the generous hearts that one must make one's appeal4 ,so1 if ,i am spurred by an ambition1 it is to beg the world to seek once more whatever can lighten the present and the future distress of mankind1 to seek the springs of interest that exist for the soul in a life harassed with difficulties1 perils and disillusionments1 to honor more than ever the faithful and incorruptible resources of the inner life4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the inner life6 ,it has never ceased to shine1 a precious1 quivering flame1 devoting all its ardor in a struggle against the breath of these great events1 resisting this tempest which has had no parallel4 ,it has never ceased to shine1 but its shy and faithful light trembles in a sort of crypt into which we fear to venture4 ,what has happened has seized upon us as upon its prey4 ,during the first months of the war1 during the first years perhaps1 all our physical and moral energies were overwhelmed in this maelstrom4 ,how1 indeed1 could one refuse oneself to the appetite of the monster8 ,we did not even try to snatch from him our hours of leisure1 our dreams4 ,we simply abandoned such things1 as we abandoned our plans1 our welfare1 and the whole of our existence4 ,you remember6 ,it was a time when solitude found us more shaken1 more disarmed1 than peril4 ,we reproached ourselves for distracting a single one of our thoughts from the universal distress4 ,we gave ourselves day and night to this agonizing world2 and when our work was suspended1 when the wild beast unloosed its clutch1 as if in play1 and we returned for a few minutes to ourselves1 we did not always dare to look the quivering inner flame in the face4 ,what it lighted up in us seemed at times too foreign to our anxiety1 or too filled with limpid serenity4 ,and so we returned to our wretchedness1 experiencing it to the point of intoxication1 to the point of despair4 ,when ,i think of the year #aiae1 it seems to me that ,i still hear all those noble comrades saying to me with a sort of dejection3 8,i can't think of anything else6 ,i can neither read1 nor work1 nor seek to distract myself to any purpose4 ,when ,i'm off duty ,i think about these days1 ,i think about them unceasingly1 till ,i feel seasick1 till ,i feel dizzy4 ,i've just had two hours of liberty4 ,once upon a time ,i should have given them to ,pascal or to ,tolstoy4 ,today ,i have employed them in reading some documentary works on the manufacture of torpedoes and on ,european colonial methods4 ,they are subjects that will always be outside my line1 subjects ,i shall never be interested in4 ,but how can ,i think of anything else80 ,perhaps it is not a question of thinking of anything else4 ,it is not a question of turning one's back on the time1 but rather of looking it in the face1 calmly and collectedly4 ,when the first great excitement had passed away1 those who had the wisdom and the courage to return assiduously to themselves found their inner life ennobled1 augmented1 enriched4 ,for it does not cease to labor on in the depths of us4 ,it is at once ourselves and something other than ourselves1 better than ourselves4 ,like certain of our organs which are endowed with a marvelous independence and pursue a vigilant activity in the midst of our agitations and our sleep1 the inner life comes to its fruitage even though we are full of ingratitude and indifference towards it4 ,it is the faithful spouse who keeps the home radiant1 arranges every comfort and spins at the wheel1 behind the door1 awaiting our return4 ,and behold we are returning6 ,to be sure1 the storm still roars on4 ,it grows greater1 more furious1 more unending4 ,never has it seemed more complex1 more grave1 more difficult4 ,peril has taken up its abode with us4 ,every sort of opinion holds up its head and vehemently solicits our belief4 ,but we have found once more the key and the path to the secret refuge4 ,nothing could turn us aside now4 ,nothing could prevent us at certain hours from plunging into solitude1 there to find again the equilibrium1 the harmony and those moral riches which we know1 after the ruin of so many things1 are alone efficacious1 alone durable4 ,for long months now ,i have realized1 watching the men with whom ,i live1 that they are waiting for words of quietude1 words of rest and love4 ,they are like parched soil at the end of a blazing summer3 they long to slake their thirst and grow green again4 ,in vain have destruction1 disorder and death tried to break up the sublime and familiar colloquy that every being pursues with the better part of himself4 ,that colloquy revives1 it begins again1 in the very midst of the battle1 among the odors and the groans of the hospital4 ,nevertheless1 the daily work is done1 well done2 duty is properly weighed and accomplished2 the soul simply is unwilling any longer to renounce its meditation upon all that is profound1 imperishable1 and immaterial in the present4 ,tell me that we are going to labor in concert once more at the exploitation of our inner fortune4 ,tell me that we are going to labor to save from shipwreck that part of us which1 in spite of all our errors1 uncertainties1 crimes and disillusionments1 remains truly noble and worthy of eternity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i am able to undertake this essay thanks to the leisure moments the war has been willing to grant me4 ,it is not purely the fruit of solitary meditations4 ,i do not live alone3 my chosen comrades surround me2 they share with me the confused space of our dwelling2 we share together all the thoughts that fill this space4 ,friendship has accomplished the miracle of transforming into a communion what1 without it1 would have remained a promiscuity4 ,i have a feeling that ,i am expressing the desires and the thoughts of many men4 ,very soon1 those who are here will be going to sleep2 ,i shall continue my writing1 but with the secret certitude of not being alone in the task1 of carrying with me their tacit assent4 ,i feel that ,i have been entrusted with a sort of mandate4 ,i have no library1 no documents4 ,but do we need books in order to converse together of the things that form the very substance of our existence8 ,does it not suffice to consult our souls8 ,do we need any other guarantee than our devout desire in order to lift an open hand and make1 for all those who await it in their solitude1 the sign of concord and of hope8 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i ,,the ,,hope ,,of ,,happiness #c ,,ii ,,poverty ,,and ,,riches #ba ,,iii ,,the ,,possession ,,of ,,others #cc ,,iv ,,on ,,discovering ,,the ,,world #fi ,v ,,the ,,lyrics ,,of ,,life #id ,,vi ,,sorrow ,,and ,,renunciation #aaj ,,vii ,,the ,,shelter ,,of ,,life #abf ,,viii ,,the ,,choice ,,of ,,the ,,graces #adf ,,ix ,,apostleship #afj ,x ,,on ,,the ,,reign ,,of ,,the ,,heart #agh ,,the ,,heart',s ,,domain ,,the ,,heart',s ,,domain ,i ,,the ,,hope ,,of ,,happiness ,i ,it was necessary for me to pass middle age in order to become convinced that happiness was the object of my life1 as it is the object of all humanity1 as it is the object of the whole world of living things4 ,at first sight1 that statement seems self-evident4 ,and yet many a time have ,i questioned my friends1 my relatives1 my chance companions on this subject and ,i have received the most contradictory replies4 ,many seemed taken unawares and1 overwhelmed with their various burdens1 would not trouble to seek an object3 they were in pursuit of happiness without naming it4 ,others1 excited by the play of argument1 acknowledged as the object of life all sorts of states or manners of being which are nothing but steps toward happiness1 means good or bad of seeking it1 such as movement1 stoical indifference1 or prayer4 ,others confused the end with the object and named death4 ,still others1 maddened by their misery1 gave it as their bitter conclusion that unhappiness is the actual destiny of man1 and these confused the obstacle with the aim4 ,finally1 there were some who gave to happiness names dictated by their aspirations1 their culture1 their accustomed manner of using words1 and called it ,god1 or eternal life1 or the salvation of the soul4 ,as for me1 in spite of all1 ,i am sure that happiness is the object of life4 ,this certitude has come to me altogether from within1 not from outside events1 and not from the spectacle of other men4 ,like all the certitudes of the inner life1 it is obstinate and even aggressive4 ,all objections seem simply made to fortify it4 ,it dominates them all4 ,i have not been able even to imagine a new certitude that could invalidate or replace this one4 ,upon reflection1 the path and the end are identical4 ,happiness is not only the aim1 the reason of life1 it is its means1 its expression1 its essence4 ,it is life itself4 ,,ii ,one might well doubt this4 ,the whole of humanity at this moment utters one despairing1 heart-rending cry4 ,it bellows like a wounded beast of burden1 it simply does not understand its wound4 ,all convictions and all certitudes are at one another's throats4 ,how can we recognize them1 with that lost look they have1 that blood that soils and disfigures them8 ,in the hurricane1 opinions1 uprooted1 have lost their soil and their sap4 ,they drift like autumn thistles1 dry thistles that yet have power to tear the skin4 ,men no longer know anything but their insurmountable suffering1 a suffering that has no limit and seems to be without reason4 ,they groan and desire nothing but to be alleviated4 ,will a century of pious tenderness suffice to bathe1 drain1 close the vast wound8 ,without delay1 ,o streaming wound1 your living flesh must be stanched and bathed4 ,from now on1 no matter how long you bleed1 you must be anointed and protected1 and if you are opened up again ten times1 ten times must you be anointed anew and covered once more4 ,yet1 do not doubt it1 humanity even in this terrible hour seeks for nothing but its own happiness4 ,it rushes forward1 by instinct1 like a herd that smells the salt-lick and the spring4 ,but it will suffocate rather than not enjoy everything together and at once4 ,happiness8 ,god6 who has given it this painful and ridiculous idea8 ,what were they about1 the priests1 the scientists1 and the people who write the books8 ,what has been taught the children of men that they could have been made to believe that war brings happiness to anyone8 ,let them declare themselves1 those who have assured the poor in spirit that their happiness depends upon the possession of a province1 an iron-mine1 or a foaming arm of the sea between two distant continents6 ,it is thus that they have all set out for the conquest of happiness1 since that is destiny1 and there has been placed in their hands precisely what was certain to destroy happiness forever4 ,and yet1 if you will bear with me1 we need not lose all hope4 ,so long as there is a single wall-flower to tremble in the coming ,aprils over the ruins of the world1 let us repeat from the depths of our hearts3 8,happiness1 you are truly my end and the reason for my being1 ,i know it through my own tears40 ,,iii ,i went1 lately1 to a laboratory1 in the heart of a wilderness of glass and porcelain1 haunted with inhuman odors4 ,a friend dwelt there4 ,i saw a great crystal cask full of distilled water2 the sunlight quivered through it freely and majestically4 ,there1 ,i thought1 is the desert4 ,that water contained nothing1 it was unfitted for life1 it was as empty as a dead world4 ,but then we scratched the bottom of the cask and looked at it with the microscope4 ,little round1 green alg were growing in that desert4 ,a current of air had carried the germs1 and they had increased and multiplied4 ,there where there was nothing to seize upon1 they had yet found something4 ,the taste of barren glass1 a few stray grains of dust1 that soulless water1 that sunlight1 they had asked for nothing more in order to subsist and work out their humble joy4 ,i thought of this virtue of life1 this perseverance1 as of a hymn to happiness1 a silent hymn prevailing over the roars of the conquest4 ,nothing discourages life except1 perhaps1 the excess of itself4 ,if ,europe1 too rich and too beautiful1 is to be henceforth the vessel of all the sorrows1 it is because happiness has assumed an unclean mask3 the mask of pleasure4 ,for pleasure is not joy4 ,patience6 ,the whole world has not been poisoned4 ,i know of mosses that succeed in living upon acids4 ,the antiseptics1 whose property it is to destroy living things1 are at times invaded by these obstinate fungi which encamp there1 acclimatize themselves and modestly fulfil their destiny4 ,one must have confidence in happiness4 ,one must have more confidence than ever1 for never was happiness more greatly lacking to the mass of men4 ,so cruelly is the world astray1 so immensely1 so evidently1 too1 that we cannot wait for the consummation to denounce it and reprove it4 ,like those alg1 those mosses1 those laborious lichens that attach to the very ruins themselves their infinite need of happiness1 let us seek our joy in the distress of the present and make it open for us1 like a plant beaten by the winds1 in the desert of a blasted world4 ,,iv ,you must understand that this concerns happiness and not pleasure1 or well-being1 or enjoyment1 or the delight of the senses4 ,all cultivated people have created different words to designate these different things4 ,all have committed their moralists to the task of preserving simple souls from a confusion which our instincts favor4 ,delight of the senses1 you who are the eternally unsatisfactory1 is it true1 intangible one1 that you will always deceive us and that we shall always seek for happiness through you8 ,what seductiveness is not yours1 ,o you who smile with the lips of love1 ,o mysterious phantom of joy8 ,how you lure us and enchain us6 ,well you know how to array yourself1 at times1 in the appearance of a sacred mission1 a religious duty6 ,no1 you are not happiness1 divine though you are6 ,to live without you is a bitter misfortune1 but you are not happiness6 ,why does happiness command us to sacrifice you often1 to mistrust you always8 ,there is no happiness without harmony2 you know this very well1 you who are delicious disorder itself1 death1 laughter1 strife4 ,happiness is our homeland4 ,you are only the burning country we long for1 the tropical isle where our dreams exile themselves1 never to return4 ,happiness is our true kingdom4 ,delight of the senses1 let your slaves hymn your praise4 ,v ,during the summer of #aiaf ,i found among the meadows of the ,marne a flower that had three odors4 ,it is a very common flower in ,france3 it adorns a low and spiny plant which the peasants call 8arrte-buf40 ,toward midday1 at the hour when the sun exasperates all its creatures1 this flower exhales three different odors3 the first is soft1 fresh and resembles the perfume of the sweet pea2 the second is sharp and makes one think of phosphor irritant1 of a flame2 the third is the secret breath of love4 ,this miraculous flower really has all three of these odors at once1 but we perceive them more easily one at a time because we are not worthy of all this wealth4 ,this little discovery descended upon my weary head like a benediction4 ,at that time we were leaving the miseries of ,verdun behind and were just on the point of plunging into those of the ,somme4 ,the intermediate rest depressed us and enervated us by turns4 ,in the walks across the fields which we took with our comrades1 ,i grew accustomed every day to gather a root of arrte-buf and offer it1 as a gift1 to those who accompanied me1 so that they might share my discovery4 ,some of them1 anxious about the world and their own fortune1 took pleasure in this modest marvel4 ,they breathed in with these perfumes the inexhaustible variety of the lavish universe4 ,they distinguished and recognized1 smilingly1 the three odors of this one being4 ,they honored these three ambassadors whom a people of unknown virtues had assigned to them4 ,they interpreted as a revelation the little signs of the latent opulence which challenges and disdains the majority of bewildered men4 ,but others remained insensible to this delicate prayer1 and these ,i thought of with chagrin as of men who had no care for the welfare of their own souls4 ,i know quite well you will say1 8,there is no relation between this flower and the welfare of the soul40 ,but this relation does exist1 emphatically and definitely4 ,truth shines out of every merest trifle that goes to make up the world4 ,we must fasten our eyes ardently upon it1 as if it were a light shining through the branches1 and march forward4 ,i am sure1 we are all sure1 that happiness is the very reason for our existence4 ,let it be added at once that happiness is founded upon possession1 that is to say1 upon the perfect and profound understanding of something4 ,for this reason men who have a high conception of happiness aspire to the complete and definite knowledge of an absolute1 a perfection which they name ,god4 ,the desire for eternal life is a boundless need of possession4 ,equally noble is the passionate desire of certain men to understand1 to possess themselves1 to have such an exact and merciless conception of their moral and physical nature as will give them some sort of mastery over it4 ,it is indeed a beautiful destiny to pursue the understanding of the external world with the weapons and the arguments of a science that is not the slave of conquest4 ,men who achieve this may indeed be called just4 ,others wish to possess a house1 a field1 a pair of earrings1 an automobile4 ,for them possession is not understanding1 it is above all else an exclusive and almost solitary enjoyment4 ,they deceive themselves about happiness and about possession4 ,they deceive themselves to the actual point of war1 massacre and destruction4 ,if we wish it1 we may possess the whole universe1 and it is in this possession that we shall find the salvation of our souls4 ,we may possess1 for example1 that unknown something which walks by the road-side1 the color of the forest of pointed firs that rises sharply against the southern horizon1 the thoughts of ,beethoven1 our dreams by night1 the conception of space1 our memories1 our future1 the odor and the weight of objects1 our grief at this moment and thousands and thousands of other things besides4 ,is my soul immortal8 ,alas6 how can ,i still linger in this ancient1 ingenuous hope8 ,there are millions who1 like me1 can no longer give reasonable credence to such an impossible happiness4 ,but does my soul exist8 ,every thought bears witness that it does1 and this life of ours too1 and the inexplicable life that is all about us4 ,when ,christians speak of the salvation of the soul1 they are thinking of all sorts of assurances and precautions in regard to that future life which remains the greatest charm of religion and at the same time its most wonderful weapon4 ,we can give a humbler but more immediate meaning to this expression4 ,first of all1 not to be ignorant of our own souls6 ,to think about the soul1 to think about it at least once in the confusion of every crowded day1 is indeed the beginning of salvation4 ,to think with perseverance and respect of the soul1 to enrich it unceasingly1 that will be our sanctity4 ,,vi ,we have all known those men who1 at the first break of day1 while they are still half awake and barely rested1 fling themselves into the stress of business4 ,they pass all day from one man to another in a sort of blind1 buzzing frenzy4 ,they are ceaselessly reaching out to take1 to appropriate for themselves4 ,if a moment of solitude offers itself1 they pull note-books out of their pockets and begin figuring4 ,between whiles they eat1 drink and seek a sort of sleep that is more arid than death4 ,looking at these unfortunates1 who are often men of great importance1 one would imagine their souls were like decrepit poor relations1 relegated to some corner of their personality1 with which they never concern themselves4 ,i was once returning from the country on a train with a young surgeon on whom that cruel fortune which we call success was beginning to smile4 ,i can still see him1 breathless and almost stupefied1 on the seat facing me4 ,he had been talking to me of his work1 of how he spent his time1 with a restless excitement which the noise of the train hammered and disjointed and gave a sort of rhythm to4 ,evening was falling4 ,it gave me pleasure to look at the young poplars in the valley beside the track1 their foliage and slender trunks transfigured by the sunset4 ,my friend looked at them also1 and suddenly he murmured3 8,it's true6 ,i'm no longer interested in those things1 ,i no longer pay attention to anything40 ,through the fatigue and anxiety of his affairs1 through the jingling calculation of his profits1 he suddenly caught a glimpse of his error1 of his real poverty4 ,his repudiated soul stirred in the depths of his being as the infant stirs in its mother's womb4 ,it is constantly awakening in this way and timidly reclaiming its rights4 ,often1 an unexpected word strikes us1 a word that comes from it and reveals it4 ,i have as a work-fellow a quiet1 studious young man who takes life 8seriously10 that is to say1 in such a fashion that he gets himself into a fine state of mind and will die1 perhaps1 without having known1 without having saved1 the soul with which he is charged4 ,at the beginning of the month of ,june of this year #aiah1 ,i found myself hard at work during one of those overwhelming afternoons that seem1 on our barren ,champagne1 like a white furnace1 a glistening desert4 ,there were many wounded and the greater part had been uncared for for several days2 the barrack that served us as an operating-hall was overcrowded2 our task was a tragic one2 the demon of war had imprisoned us under his knee4 ,we felt crushed1 exasperated1 swamped in these immediate realities4 ,between two wounded men1 as ,i was soaping my gloves1 ,i saw my young comrade looking far away through a little window and his gaze was suddenly bathed with calm and peace4 8,what are you looking at80 ,i said to him4 8,oh6 nothing10 he replied2 8only ,i'm resting myself on that little tuft of verdure down there3 it refreshes me so much40 ,,vii ,it seems childish and paradoxical to oppose to all the concrete and formidable realities that are considered as the hereditary wealth of mankind an almost purely ideal world of joys that have no price1 that remain outside all our bargainings1 that are unstable1 often fugitive1 and always relative in appearance1 whenever we put them to the test4 ,yet they alone are absolute1 they alone are true4 ,where they are lacking there may be a place for amusement1 there is no place for true happiness4 ,they alone are capable of assuring the salvation of the soul4 ,we ought to labor passionately to find them1 to amass them as the veritable treasures of humanity4 ,the future we are permitted to glimpse seems the very negation of happiness and the ruin of the soul4 ,if this is true1 we must examine it with open minds and then1 with all our strength1 refuse it4 ,just this moment1 when the struggle for mastery goes on1 to the great peril of the soul1 among the peoples1 just this moment ,i choose for saying3 8,let us think of the salvation of our souls40 ,and this salvation is not a matter of the future but of the present hour4 ,let us recognize the existence of the soul2 it is thus that we shall save it4 ,let us give it the freedom of the city in a world where everything conspires to silence or destroy it4 ,if it is true that this withdraws us from that struggle for existence1 the clamor of which assails our ears1 well1 even so1 ,i believe it is better to die than to remain in a universe from which the soul is banished4 ,but we shall have occasion to speak more than once of this4 ,let us not forget that happiness is our one aim4 ,happiness is1 above all1 a thing of the spirit1 and we shall only deserve it at the price of the honors we render to the noblest part of our being4 ,,viii ,there are people who have said to me1 8,my happiness lies in this very hurly-burly1 this brutish labor1 this frantic agitation which you spurn4 ,outside this turmoil of business and society1 ,i am bored4 ,i need it4 ,i need it in order to divert my thoughts40 ,no doubt6 ,no doubt6 ,but what have you done with your life that it has become necessary to divert your thoughts8 ,what have you made of your past1 what do you hope from your future when this alcohol1 this opium1 has become necessary to you8 ,you must understand me1 there is no question1 if you are built as an athlete1 of letting your muscles deteriorate4 ,there is no question1 if you have a great thirst for controversy1 a natural aptitude for struggle1 of letting that thirst go unsatisfied1 that aptitude uncultivated4 ,the question is simply one of harmoniously employing all these fine gifts1 of enriching yourself with those real treasures the universe bestows on those who wish to take them1 and not of wearing out your radiant strength in the labors of a street-porter1 a galley-slave or an executioner4 ,here is a man who says to me3 8,my happiness6 ,my happiness6 ,but it consists in never thinking of my soul40 ,what a sad thing6 ,and how gravely one must have offended others and one's own self to have reached that point6 ,for where shall he who loves torment1 passionate restlessness1 uncertainty1 and remorse discover these terrible blessings if it is not in the depths of his own hateful ego8 ,,ix ,if anyone tells you something strange about the world1 something you have never heard before1 do not laugh but listen attentively2 make him repeat it1 make him explain it3 no doubt there is something there worth taking hold of4 ,the cult of the soul is a perpetual discovery of itself and the universe which it reflects4 ,the purest happiness is not a stable and final frame of mind1 it is an equilibrium produced by an incessant compromise which has to be adroitly restablished2 it is the reward of a constant activity2 it increases in proportion to the daily corrections one brings to it4 ,one must not cling obstinately to one's own interpretations of the world but unceasingly renew the flowers on the altar4 ,in quite another order of ideas ,i think of those old-fashioned manufacturers who are immovably set against trying any of the new machines and perish in their stubbornness4 ,that is nothing but a comparison3 to justify the machine folly is quite the opposite of my desire4 ,i simply wish to show that routine affects equally the things of the mind and of the heart1 that it is a very formidable thing4 ,kipling1 ,i believe1 tells the story of a ,hindu colony that was decimated by famine4 ,the poor folk let themselves die of hunger without touching the wheat that had been brought for them1 because they had been used to eating millet4 ,if the sacred lamp of happiness some day comes to lack the ritual oil1 we shall not let it go out2 we shall surely find something with which to feed it1 something that will serve for light and heat4 ,x ,the will to happiness attains its perfection in the mature man4 ,with adolescence it passes through a redoubtable crisis4 ,nietzsche says3 8,there is less melancholy in the mature man than in the young man40 ,it is true4 ,very young people cultivate sadness as something noble4 ,they do not readily forgive themselves for not being always sad4 ,they have discovered the mysterious isle of melancholy and do not wish to escape from it again4 ,they love everything about that black magician and his attitudes and his tears and his nostalgia and his romantic beauty4 ,they have a fierce disdain for vulgar pleasures and take refuge in sadness because they do not yet know the splendor and majesty of joy4 ,but in their own fashion1 which is full of disdain1 reserve and ingenuous complexity1 they do not any the less seek for happiness4 ,with age happiness appears as truly the sole1 serene study of man4 ,as he rests upon the moral possession of the world1 he believes that with time and experience he can remain insensible to the wearing out of his bodily organs4 ,he who knows how to be happy and to win forgiveness for his happiness1 how enviable he is6--the only true model among those that are wise4 ,it is now1 just now1 that these things ought to be said1 in the hour when our old continent bleeds in every member1 in the hour when our future seems blotted out by the menace of every sort of servitude and of a hopeless labor that will know neither measure nor redemption4 ,,ii ,,poverty ,,and ,,riches ,i ,the ,christian doctrine1 which has all the beauties1 has all the audacities too4 ,it has endeavored to make the sublime and daring notion prevail among the mass of men that salvation is reserved for the poor4 ,what a magnificent thing6 ,and if this religion of poverty has degenerated in the course of the centuries1 with what consolation has it not bathed those thrice-happy souls whom an unbroken faith guides through misery and humiliation6 ,but there has never been a religion which has been able to found itself upon renunciation without compensation4 ,is he poor1 this man who consents to go unclad1 roofless1 unfed1 up to the day when there will be showered upon him all the riches of the kingdom of ,god8 ,has he no thought of a supreme gift1 of a magnificent possession1 the man to whom his master1 in person1 has given the command3 8,lay up your treasures in heaven1 where they will not be lost08 ,he does not exist1 the hopeless being who does not hunger for some treasure1 even if it is an imaginary one1 even an unreal one1 even one that is lost in a bewildering future4 ,in what an abyss of poverty should we groan if our kingdom were not of this world and were nowhere outside the world1 either8 ,and now a generation of men has come that no longer believes in the supernatural felicities of the future life and seems no longer to have anything to hope from a world consumed by hatred and given over inevitably1 for long years1 to confusion1 destitution1 egotistical passions4 ,in truth1 the programmes of the social factions have no consolation for us1 there is nothing in them that speaks of love and the true blessings2 all these monuments of eloquence bring us back to hatred and anguish4 ,the most generous of them only give us glimpses of new struggles1 new sheddings of blood1 when our age is drunk with crime and fatigue4 ,to whichever side the individual turns he finds himself crushed1 scoffed at1 sacrificed to insatiable1 hostile gods4 ,a few years ago ,maeterlinck wrote3 8,up to the present men have left one religion to enter another2 but when we abandon ours1 it is not to go anywhere4 ,that is a new phenomenon1 with unknown consequences1 in the midst of which we live40 ,having quoted these words1 ,i hasten to add that the war is no particular consequence of this moral state of the world4 ,the question of religion is not involved at all4 ,the priests are quite ready to abuse these easy oppositions in order to obtain arguments in favor of their cause4 ,but they know well enough1 alas6 that if the teaching of ,christ stigmatizes wars1 the religions have only contributed to multiply and aggravate them4 ,they know very well that1 in the conflict that now divides the earth1 the religions have shown themselves enslaved to the states4 ,no one has wished to take up the wallet and staff of the dead ,tolstoy4 ,humanity seems poorer and more truly disinherited than ever4 ,its kingdom is in itself and in everything that surrounds it2 but it has sold it for a morsel of bread4 ,and how can one reproach it for this8 ,it is very hungry and its heart is not open to beauty4 ,,ii ,we shall seek together the materials of our happiness4 ,together we shall pile up all those marvelous little things that must constitute our patrimony1 our wealth4 ,we shall have great misfortunes and we shall often be bitterly deceived4 ,it is because the war has succeeded in depriving the simplest and the most sacred things of the light of eternity4 ,that is not the least consequence of the catastrophe4 ,we must make a painful effort to recover that light and clear it of its blemishes4 ,silence1 solitude1 the sky1 the vestiture of the earth1 all the riches of the poor have been sullied as if forever4 ,the works of art have been mutilated4 ,they have taken refuge under the earth where they seem to veil their faces4 ,we ought to seek and gather together the debris so that we can take up and love in secret every day the fragments of our liberties4 ,we ought to think unceasingly of that 8mean landscape0 of which ,charles ,vildrac has spoken in one of his most beautiful poems4 ,it is an unfruitful landscape1 despoiled1 denatured by the sad labor of men1 and apparently worn out2-- ,but even so you found1 if you sought there1 ,one happy spot where the grass grew rich1 ,even so you heard1 if you listened1 ,the whisper of leaves ,and the birds pursuing one another4 ,and if you had enough love1 ,you could even ask of the wind ,perfumes and music 444 ,we shall have enough love6 ,that shall be the principle and source of our wealth4 ,and so we shall not have a whole life of poverty4 ,when love1 that is to say1 grace1 abandons us1 we shall perhaps know hours of poverty4 ,that will help us all the better to understand our hours of opulence1 and all the better cherish them4 ,,iii ,if you wish1 we can divide our task1 enumerate the coffers in which we are to pile our treasures4 ,first of all1 let us stop over a word4 ,we have said3 to possess is to know4 ,the definition may seem to you arbitrary4 ,on the chance of this ,i open my little pocket dictionary1 which is the whole library ,i have as a soldier1 and read3 8,to possess3 to have for oneself1 in one's power1 to know to the bottom40 ,let us accept that4 ,we shall see1 page by page1 if it is possible for us to satisfy these nave1 direct definitions4 ,what is most certain to attract our glance1 when we look about us1 is the world of men1 our fellow-creatures4 ,their figures are certainly the most affecting spectacle that can be offered us4 ,their acts undoubtedly constitute1 owing to a natural inclination and an indestructible solidarity1 the chief object of our curiosity4 ,good6 ,we shall possess them first of all4 ,we shall possess this inexhaustible fund of other people4 ,we shall feel no shame then in contemplating1 with a noble desire1 whatever strikes our senses1 the animals1 that is to say1 the plants1 the material universe of stones and waters1 the sky and even the populous stars4 ,these1 too1 ought to be well worth possessing6 ,already our wealth seems immense4 ,our ambition is still greater3 we must possess our dreams4 ,but have not illustrious men made more beautiful dreams than ours8 ,yes1 and these men are called ,shakespeare1 ,dante1 ,rembrandt1 ,goethe1 ,hugo1 ,rodin2 there are a hundred of them1 even more2 their works form the royal crown of humanity4 ,we shall possess that crown4 ,it is for us it was forged1 for us it was bejewelled with immortal joys4 ,it would be vain to extend our possession only into space4 ,it overruns time3 we possess the past1 that is to say1 our memories1 and the future in our hopes4 ,and then we also possess1 and in the strictest sense of all1 our sorrows1 our griefs1 our despair1 if that supreme and terrible treasure is reserved for us4 ,finally1 there will be times when we possess nothing but an idea1 but this may perhaps be the idea of the absolute or the infinite4 ,if it is given us to possess ,god1 then1 no doubt1 nothing else will be necessary to us4 ,every time that we possess the world purely we shall find that we have touched an almost unhoped for happiness1 for it is always being offered to us and we do not think of it3 we shall possess ourselves4 ,we shall share all our riches with our companions3 that shall be our apostolate4 ,and we shall manage in some way to resist the seductions or the commands of a society that is going to ruin1 a society that is even more unhappy and abused than corrupt4 ,if1 in consequence1 we are permitted to glimpse1 even if only for the space of a minute1 a little more happiness about us1 a little more happiness than there is at present1 we shall at last be so happy as to accept death with joy4 ,,iv ,the greatest of all joys is to give happiness1 and those who do not know it have everything to learn about life4 ,the annals of humanity abound with illustrious deeds aptly proving that generosity enriches first of all those who practise it4 ,not to mention any celebrated instance1 ,i shall tell you one simple little tale4 ,it is of the truth ,i live on1 my daily bread4 ,just now1 not far from me1 there is a young ,english soldier from the neighborhood of ,york who is so severely wounded in the lower part of the stomach that the natural functions of the body have been completely upset and he has been reduced to a state of terrible suffering4 ,and yet1 when ,i went to see him this morning1 this boy gave me an extraordinary smile1 his very first1 a smile full of delicacy and hope1 a smile of resurrection4 ,presently ,i learned the cause of this great joy4 ,the dying man pulled from under his pillow a cigarette he had hidden there1 which he had secretly saved for me and now gave me4 ,v ,there are many who preach an unpretentious life and the sweetness of possessing a little garden4 ,the most magnificent of gardens is insignificant compared with this world in which nothing is refused us4 ,accepting the little garden we should have the air of those dispossessed kings who lose an empire to be ironically dowered with a small island4 ,if we find it pleasant to employ our muscles in digging the earth1 there are a thousand spots where we can easily practise this wholesome and fruitful exercise4 ,but we shall never really possess a single clod of earth because a legal deed has declared that it belongs exclusively to us4 ,the world itself6 ,our love demands the whole world2 the rocks1 the clouds1 the great trees along the highway1 the darting flight of birds1 receding into the evening1 the rustling verdure high above that wall that vainly strives to shut in the private property of someone else1 the shining glory of those flowers we glimpse through the iron railings of a park1 and even that very wall and railing themselves4 ,according to the stretch of our wings1 the scope of our desires1 we shall possess whatever our hands touch with ardor and respect1 whatever delights our eyes from the summits of mountains1 whatever our thoughts bring back from their travels through legendary lands4 ,to possess the world is purely a question of the intensity of our understanding of it4 ,one does not possess things on their surfaces but in their depths2 but the spirit alone can penetrate into the depths1 and for the spirit there is no barrier4 ,many men to whom the law allows the gross1 official possession of a statue1 a gem1 a beautiful horse or a province wear themselves out fulfilling a rle to which no human being has received a call4 ,every moment they perceive with bitterness that men who have no legal title whatever to these material goods draw from them a delight that is superior to the enjoyment they themselves get from them as absolute owners4 ,they often find1 in this way1 that a friend appreciates their beautiful pictures better than they do1 that a groom is a better judge of their own stables1 that a passer-by draws out of 8their landscape0 a purer joy than theirs and more original ideas4 ,they take their revenge by obstinately confusing the usage of a thing with its possession4 ,jesus said that the rich man renounced the kingdom of ,god4 ,he renounces many other things as well4 ,for if he shuts himself up within his proud walls1 he abandons the marvelous universe for a small fragment of it2 and if he is actually curious about the universe1 if he appreciates its significance1 how can he consent without guilt to hide a portion of it away from the contemplation of others8 ,in order to express the gross and exclusive possession of things society has invented various words and phrases that betray the weak efforts of men to appropriate for themselves1 in spite of everything1 in spite of the laws of love1 the riches that remain the prerogative of all4 ,they speak1 for example1 of 8disposing of a piece of property10 which means having it subject to our pleasure1 being able to do as we choose with it4 ,the sacrilegious vanity of this view of the world gives the possessor1 as his supreme right1 the power to destroy his own treasure4 ,he could not1 indeed1 have a greater right than that4 ,but what sort of desperate possession is it1 ,i ask1 that considers the destruction of the object possessed as the supreme manifestation of power8 ,the world has long known and still knows slavery4 ,lords and masters claimed the extravagant right of disposing of other human beings4 ,they all insisted1 as a mark of authority1 on their right of dealing death to their slaves4 ,but truly1 what was the power of these despots compared with the deep1 sensitive1 voluntary bond that united ,plato to ,socrates1 or ,john to ,christ8 ,epictetus suffered at the hands of ,epaphroditus4 ,for all that1 ,epaphroditus was not able to prevent his slave from reigning1 through his thought1 over the centuries4 ,epaphroditus' right of possession seems to us ridiculous and shameful4 ,who can fairly envy him when so many centuries have passed judgement on him8 ,,vi ,every philosophy has given magnificent expression to these immortal truths4 ,what can we add to the words of ,epictetus1 of ,marcus ,aurelius1 of ,christ in regard to the vanity of those riches which alone society admits to be of value8 ,but the poets have said to us1 8,do not abandon the world1 for it abounds in pure and truly divine joys that will be lost if you do not harvest them60 ,the road that ought to be sweet for us to follow crosses now that of the ,christians1 now that of the ,stoics4 ,we may stop now at the ,garden of ,olives1 now at the threshold of that small house without a door1 without furnishings1 where the master of ,arrien used to live4 ,our road will lead us even more often through wild1 solitary places1 or to the pillow of some man who sleeps in the earth1 or to the smiling dwelling of some humble friend1 or again into the melodious shadow where the souls of ,beethoven and ,johann ,sebastian ,bach forever dwell4 ,we shall not struggle with the mass of deluded man to possess the known1 so long as the unknown remains without a master4 ,we shall give up crude material possession in order to dream all the better of spiritual possession4 ,no1 we cannot any longer renounce our kingdom when it calls to us1 when for us it sings1 hosanna6 ,and those of us who already have their place in the kingdom of heaven must not hesitate to demand their share of this world also2 for the world has been given to all men so that each man1 with the help of all the rest1 may possess the whole of it4 ,,iii ,,the ,,possession ,,of ,,others ,i ,in the exile of the war ,i have fifteen comrades1 and we live side by side like seamen on the deck of a ship4 ,everything brings us together3 work1 sleep1 play1 food and danger4 ,even our quarrels reunite us1 for1 in order to quarrel well1 you have to know your man3 between strangers disputes have little savor4 ,i never chose these men for my companions1 as ,i once thought ,i had a right to do4 ,they have been given to me like a handful of fruit of which some is juicy and some green4 ,they have been taken at random1 as if by a drag of that net which respects nothing1 from the swarming species of man4 ,thanks1 therefore1 to the blind and divine world which has thrown the net into the flood6 ,they are my treasure1 my study1 and my daily task4 ,they are my purpose1 my horizon1 my torment1 and my recompense4 ,although far from my own people1 far from those with whom ,i have carried on my life1 ,i could not feel myself destitute1 abandoned2 the world is not empty for me since ,i have these fifteen men to manage1 this cherished problem to ponder1 this soil to work over1 this vintage for the winepress4 ,i accept the gift1 the restless opulence1 the fifteen glances that open on fifteen different heavens where there shine neither the same seasons nor the same stars1 those fifteen proud1 vindictive souls whom ,i must win over and subdue like wild horses4 ,to be sure1 a few of these men are frank1 level in temperament1 as plain to the eye as a smooth pebble on the beach2 one touches them1 holds them1 grasps them in a moment like a big piece of silver in the hollow of the hand4 ,but so many others are changeable1 furtive1 so many others are rough like ore in which only the fissures glisten and betray the inner nobility4 ,the more unresponsive and secretive they seem1 without any obvious beauty1 the more resolved ,i find ,i am to look upon them as a treasure1 to search through them as if they were a soil that is full of wealth4 ,there are some of them that ,i love1 there are some whom ,i think that ,i do not love4 ,what does it matter6 ,the interest ,i devote to them is not in the least dependent on the throbs of my heart4 ,that one who never speaks and conceals1 under his obstinate forehead1 two little eyes of green glass1--certainly he does not naturally arouse my affection4 ,nevertheless1 how different is the attention with which ,i regard him from the curiosity of a scientist watching the stirrings of fish in an aquarium6 ,it makes me think1 that attention1 rather of the dizzy joy of the miser who weighs a gold-piece1 the effigy on which doesn't please him4 ,gold1 nevertheless6 ,true6 ,how could ,i feel bored with these faces turned toward me1 with this choir of human voices singing1 each in its own familiar key1 yet blending into the masculine clamor of an orchestra8 ,everything they say is precious2 less so1 however1 than what they keep to themselves4 ,the reasons they give for their actions astonish me at times2 those they do not confess1 especially those of which they themselves are ignorant1 always fill me with passionate interest4 ,a word1 fallen from their lips like a piece of paper from an unknown pocket1 arrests me and sets me dreaming for long days4 ,about them ,i build up daring and yet fragile hypotheses which they either obligingly support or destroy with a careless gesture4 ,i always begin again1 delighting in it2 it is my recreation4 ,i enjoy finding that my hypotheses are right1 for that satisfies my pride2 ,i enjoy finding ,i am wrong1 for that reveals to me leafy depths in my park that are still unexplored4 ,and then ,i know that only a small part of their nature is involved in our intercourse4 ,the rest branches off1 ramifies out into the perspectives of the world4 ,i think of it as of that side of the moon which men will never see4 ,i reconstruct with a pious1 a burning patience that life of theirs which is outside this1 their true life1 endlessly complicated1 linked by a thousand tentacles with a thousand other unknown lives4 ,so must ,cuvier's mind have wandered as he turned and returned a fossil tooth1 the only vestige of some vast1 unknown organism4 ,there is all this in people1 and then there is the past that each one has1 his own past1 his ancestors1 the prodigious combination of actions and of souls of which he is the result4 ,and there is his future1 the unexplored desert toward which he stretches out anxious tentacles1 and into which ,i dare to venture1 ,i1 the stranger1 with trembling heart1 the tiny lantern in my hand4 ,these are my riches today4 ,they are inalienable3 a man may flee from an indiscretion1 he cannot escape the grip of contemplation and love4 ,even if he desired it1 his very struggles would reveal his movements1 betray the deepest secrets of his being1 deliver him over bound hand and foot4 ,as for myself1 eager to hoard up my treasure1 ,i give myself up without a struggle4 ,rich in others1 ,i yield myself into their hands4 ,and if1 in spite of myself1 ,i attempt some evasion1 am ,i not sure to render the prey all the more desirable1 all the more beautiful8 ,,ii ,they say of curiosity that it was the beginning of science4 ,that is not praise enough1 it sounds rather like an excuse4 ,what is more human1 more touching than this religious reaching out toward the unknown1 this sort of instinct which makes us divine and attack the mystery8 ,to take pride in not being curious6 ,one might as well take pride in some ridiculous infirmity4 ,it is true that even that is in the order of things normal1 and that vanity finds its nourishment where it can4 ,doubtless there is a sort of curiosity which is both weak and cowardly4 ,it is that of men who dare not remain alone a moment face to face with themselves2 they take refuge in loquacity and in reading the daily newspapers4 ,their fashion of interesting themselves in everything that goes on is a confession that they are unable to become interested in anything eternal4 ,they depend as if for nourishment on that noise which those who have nothing to say are always making4 ,they are like children who cannot amuse themselves alone1 or like stupid monarchs who fear nothing so much as silence and their own thoughts1 the emptiness of their own thoughts6 ,and then there are the easy-going people4 ,they want to know everything1 the number of your maternal aunt's children1 the price of the furniture and the wages of the servants4 ,they want to know everything and they will never know anything4 ,their life is spent in forced smiles and in gracefully holding a cup of tea4 ,their souls contain vast lists of names1 dates and other miserable things4 ,they go through life like beasts of burden1 weighed down under loads that have no value4 ,there are maniacs1 too1 perverts1 freaks1 people that are full of curiosity about a postage stamp1 the handle of an umbrella2 but of these ,i dare not say anything1 for ,i remember an old and very wise master who used to say to us with a smile3 8,you who are entering upon scientific careers must begin right away to think about collections1 even if you have to collect boxes of matches40 ,to tell the truth1 is it our business to be wise1 to be learned8 ,hardly6 ,it is our business to be rich4 ,well1 then1 there are not two kinds of curiosity4 ,let us leave out of the question all those dull stupidities we dare to call by this name4 ,the curious man seems strangely uninterested in that which excites the loquacity of trivial souls4 ,he does not trouble himself to find out the year in which a house was built1 or the honors accorded to the architect2 he dreams in secret of the tastes1 the passions of the man who had that little1 low window pierced on the north side and that black tree with its twisted branches planted at the edge of the pond4 ,he does not ask a young woman the name of her dressmaker1 but trembles at the thought of understanding what made her choose that disturbing dress to wear this particular day4 ,he does not question his mistress about her opinion of him1 but seeks passionately to understand the opinion he has at this moment of her4 ,he does not hasten to ask his travelling companions about their professions and the political opinions they uphold1 because1 as he watches their faces1 he is studying discreetly and sympathetically the meaning of the little wrinkle that moves between their brows1 or the significance of a glance1 its source and its object4 ,he does not solicit confidences1 he receives them almost without wishing to2 they come naturally to him2 he is their sure and deep receptacle4 ,curious about all this vast world1 he seems especially concerned with its image in himself4 ,he bears his curiosity like a sacred gift and exercises it1 or rather honors it1 as one would perform the rites of a cult4 ,do not say you would not wish to be that man4 ,you who feel pride in possessing yourself of a secret1 in drawing out a confession1 in meriting the confidence of another man1 must realize that it is a marvelous fortune to be thus the tenderly imperious confidant who cannot be denied1 though often the rest of the world knows nothing of it4 ,and it is possible for you1 even if you cannot become such a man at once1 at least to labor to become one4 ,begin1 with this in view1 to deliver yourself from your little servile curiosities4 ,let us work together for this future4 ,let us enter so deeply into ourselves that people will say of us1 8,that man is not curious about anything40 ,from that moment we shall have begun to chant the hymn of the great1 the divine curiosity4 ,,iii ,the possession of others is a passion1 that is to say1 it is an ordeal1 a painful effort4 ,this supreme joy1 like all the joys to which we attach value1 is born out of suffering4 ,we must experience men in order to know them1 and our neighbor for whom1 or through whom1 we have never had to endure any anguish1 has surprises in store for us1 or else escapes us altogether3 that is almost a truism4 ,like all others1 this treasure cannot be acquired without effort1 without bitterness2 but it knows no decay1 it never ceases to grow through the mere play of the forces of our life and seems as if sheltered from the blows of fate4 ,it does not1 like money1 depreciate in value or serve ignoble ends4 ,it only returns to oblivion4 ,it is not strictly personal4 ,it can be shared and bequeathed4 ,since it escapes destruction and death1 it can become the most precious of heritages2 it has this superiority over money1 that its transmission is really valid only after it has been in some sort of way reconquered4 ,it must fall into worthy hands that will know how to work to preserve1 cultivate and build it up again4 ,in certain points it resembles what we call experience4 ,to suffer1 first of all6 ,that is surely one of the grandeurs of our race1 and we truly love our blessings for what they have cost us in tears1 in sweat1 in blood4 ,it is repugnant to the spirit to admit that anything can be a blessing which the war has given4 ,the desperate folly of the ,western world has engendered and still holds in reserve such great misfortunes that we cannot ransack all these ruins1 these heaps of bones1 with any hope of extracting from them1 as rag pickers do with their hooks1 some fragment that is good1 some useful bit of waste4 ,no6 ,there is no excuse for this ferocious1 immeasurable stupidity4 ,and yet1 men have suffered so terribly from one another that they have learned to know one another1 that is to say1 to possess one another mutually4 ,in spite of my own denials1 let me save this bit of wreckage from the general disaster4 ,that is indeed one blessing so dearly bought that we shall not willingly give it up4 ,and ,i do not speak here only of those who have fought against each other2 ,i speak also of those who have fought side by side1 who have shed their blood for the same cause and under the same standards4 ,companions have been given us1 imposed upon us1 association with whom1 even when casual and transitory1 would once have seemed impossible to us4 ,living as free men1 we sought to control the inevitable as far as possible1 to choose our own road and avoid those whose opinions or points of view about the universe were likely to offend our own4 ,we thus made use of that liberty for the most part in order to humor our irritable feelings1 to lull our souls to sleep in a precarious security1 and restrict the area of our inward activity4 ,then came the war and we had not only to suffer from the enemy1 to endure unforeseen attacks in regions of ourselves that we considered invulnerable1 but to suffer still more from our own messmates1 from those who commanded us and especially those whom we commanded4 ,could it have been otherwise8 ,no6 ,no6 ,if that suffering had been spared us1 we should not have been men1 we should not have gone to war1 we should not have been those divine animals whom it is so beautiful and so shameful to be and whom we cannot help being4 ,we have been told that all suffering is sterile1 hopeless and without redemptive power4 ,that it only serves to nourish hatred4 ,but how marvelous it is when it engenders understanding1 that is to say1 possession1 that is to say1 love6 ,i have observed that for many men1 except in actual bodily encounter1 combat face to face1 the enemy has lost all individual or specific character and has become almost confounded with the great hostile forces of nature3 lightning1 fire1 tidal waves4 ,the bullet coming from so far away1 the shell hurled from beyond the horizon1 all these mortal powers are simply like a form of blind destiny4 ,in spite of daily lessons in hatred1 in spite of vociferations1 these men die courageously1 with a resigned despair1 without hatred4 ,but with other1 less noble souls1 the tendency to aversion and quarreling1 thus turned back from the enemy1 seeks its objects in their immediate surroundings and finds them1 creates them1 alas6 ,my comrades1 my comrades1 if the uncertainty of your spirit1 your agony1 the rebelliousness of your afflicted flesh urges you to seek those who are responsible1 do not look too angrily upon those who are about you1 do not1 in your aberration1 accuse ,houtelette because he is a chatterbox1 ,exmelin because he is an egoist1 or ,blche because he is a rude1 morose commander4 ,do not place your misery to the account of ,mry1 who is so slow in obeying1 and be willing to admit that ,maurin is not to blame for everything because his opinions are not the same as yours4 ,at least1 if you must draw your circle of animosity1 make it so close about you that it contains only yourselves1 and seek first of all in yourselves the causes of your unhappiness4 ,better still1 apply yourselves to looking your suffering in the face1 putting it1 with insight and precision1 to the proof4 ,you know that a loathsome drink almost ceases to be loathsome when you drink it without haste but with a desire to appreciate the precise quality of its bitterness4 ,exactly in this same manner you should endeavor to measure1 to study your suffering4 ,instead of abhorring it1 try in a way to understand it2 it will become interesting1 curious1 ,i dare not say lovable4 ,if ,mry carries out your orders badly1 consider systematically how he can be made to become1 in spite of himself1 a really good servant4 ,if ,blche exercises his authority in a way that incessantly wounds you1 interest yourself in his brutality1 try to analyze his movements1 his expressions1 his familiar habits1 and you will then be in a better position1 not to escape from him indeed1 but to avoid at times the sting1 the cut of his peremptoriness4 ,you will make him restless by doing this1 and you will set him thinking4 ,it is not necessary for him to fear you1 it is enough for him to recognize in you a free force with which he has to reckon1 a force it is wise to propitiate4 ,meanwhile1 to use a colloquialism1 8you've got him40 ,every time you have obliged him to be less arrogant1 more just with you1 you can say that you have 8had0 him1 as the soldiers so admirably put it4 ,this possession costs a certain amount of work4 ,but you are willing to toil eight hours in order to earn ten francs that do not remain for a single day between your fingers2 you can certainly afford a few minutes of your effort and your soul to acquire a treasure of which nothing will ever be able to deprive you4 ,,iv ,the very rich man owns several estates4 ,there is always one that he prefers1 that he frequents and cultivates by choice4 ,there are others where he goes only from time to time1 at the solicitation of some state of his soul which inclines him to seek1 for a period1 the mountains1 or the ocean1 or the open country4 ,there are some1 finally1 which he does not love at all but of which1 nevertheless1 he will not dispossess himself because they are part of his fortune4 ,it is so with you who possess a family1 friends1 comrades1 and adversaries4 ,it is so with you who are able to draw1 without let or hindrance1 from the immense well of humankind4 ,you must refuse nothing2 you must accept everything1 find out the value of everything1 store everything away4 ,the world of men is a rich patrimony1 the exploitation of which is expressly confided to you4 ,you must not be a bad administrator1 you must make all your land bring forth its fruit4 ,choose every day what is necessary to you1 for you are the master4 ,you must know1 besides1 how to accept the inevitable and take chances1 for you are nothing but a man4 ,construct a scale1 a clear1 harmonious keyboard4 ,like an organist you must know the right moment to pull the stop of the oboe and unloose the thunder of the bass4 ,the pipes are not at fault3 it is for you to become a good musician4 ,the face of ,guillaumin suits you in the morning1 and his ideas rejuvenate you like fresh water4 ,the eloquence of ,maurin is like a tonic in your hours of recreation4 ,but there are desolate evenings when what you undoubtedly need is the deep voice of ,cauchois and his affectionate silence4 ,v ,in spite of the legendary ages1 in spite of the religions1 in spite of the poets1 in spite of the marvelous traditions and1 above all1 in spite of our own deepest aspirations1 we must unquestionably abandon the hope of an occult correspondence between souls4 ,it is a renunciation that it is hard to admit4 ,every day events envelop us that seem to revive the vanished perfume of mystery4 ,our reason is in no haste to dissipate these clouds1 to pierce these appearances3 too well they soothe the irritating need of not being quite solitary in the interior of ourselves1 of not being quite exiles in an inaccessible desert4 ,that nothing outside our senses can reveal to us the proximity of a beloved person1 the danger that is approaching him1 the death that is coming to clasp him1 is an extremity to which we find ourselves reduced without ever submissively making up our minds to it4 ,a few courageous men have halted before this mountain and undertaken to lift it4 ,let us leave them toiling in the shadow2 let us aid them1 if not by our effort1 at least by our silence1 and wait4 ,let us wait1 but let us not cease to go forth to other battles4 ,the unknown never fails us4 ,and as for what we shall choose1 there is so much in the unknown to allure us1 to enchant us6 ,if we give up surmounting one obstacle another will always rise before our feet4 ,from obstacle to obstacle we shall always be led to the foot of the same wall4 ,we shall consume our whole life in the struggle1 knowing that the very interest of life lies in that struggle and in those obstacles4 ,now and then1 detached by great efforts of the pickaxe and the mattock1 a fragment of the somber mountain rolls at our feet4 ,we stop it with rapture1 we examine it1 we lift it with a sort of sadness1 in order to try its weight4 ,there is no victory that demands so great a price or seems to us more desolate4 ,it is as if we roused ourselves to a frenzy to destroy the unknown in order that our success might fill us with bitterness4 ,happily1 the unknown is always there4 ,i find myself alone with the person who of all the world is the closest to me1 the best loved1 the most perfectly chosen4 ,the silence exhales a light perfume1 a unique perfume that seems that of our kindred souls4 ,oh6 how we should like to believe that the essences of our beings1 delivered at last1 might communicate and unite with each other in the intermediate space1 in the impassable abyss6 ,at this very moment we surprise in one another's eyes a common thought4 ,simultaneously1 it escapes our lips with a sort of rapturous precipitancy1 as if we were afraid of not arriving at exactly the same moment at the rendez-vous1 as if we wished1 with the harmonious precision of a well-rehearsed duet1 to confess together some matchless certainty4 ,we are happy1 filled with astonishment4444 ,but ,i am not deceived4 ,i do not yet hold it1 palpitating1 for good and all1 between my fingers1 the proof that has been so long sought for4 ,not yet1 this day1 have ,i met face to face either ,god or the immortal soul4 ,only too well ,i know that some slight sound1 some rhythm outside us1 the beating of a bird's wing1 the boring of an insect in the old wood of the furniture1 the sigh of the wind under the door1--that it is one of these things which has suddenly set our souls in tune1 awakened the echoes of affinity in the abysses of our two separate selves4 ,we have so many memories in common1 we have so carefully matched our tastes1 we have so well unified our material world and tried to blend even our futures together that the very touch of the violinist's bow suffices to make us vibrate in harmony4 ,but there must be the touch of the bow1 there must be the perfume1 so faint that one experiences its suggestions without being sure of its presence2 perhaps there is necessary only one of those obscure phenomena which pass the limit of our senses in the twilight where our inadequate organs can only gropingly divine the world4 ,this is our meager certainty4 ,very well6 ,let us not reject it in our spite2 for it has its depth1 its beauty4 ,we must make it our own1 force it to enrich us4 ,where the exercise of the intelligence seems to result in the fatal imprisonment of the soul within itself1 love enables us to see how the soul can reach beyond its own limits into time and space4 ,in vain does the intelligence prove to us that all this is only an illusion4 ,that illusion is beautiful2 let us make up our minds to give it shape4 ,through its very longings to escape from its confines1 the soul may perhaps succeed in breaking them1 and it is to love without a doubt that it will owe the miracle of its deliverance4 ,we possess only an imperfect means of communion4 ,so be it6 ,let us labor tenderly to perfect that means4 ,it is thus that the creators of science and industry labor1 and we must admit that their stubbornness has succeeded in making a very great evil out of a small one4 ,let us not be less ingenious6 ,this sinister progress ought to give us encouragement3 moral civilization deserves as much care as the other sort4 ,with our brothers1 our wives1 our friends1 let us freely seek to have so many things in common1 let us strive so passionately to understand one another1 that our thoughts1 ceaselessly pressing toward this goal1 may continually experience the sense of infinity and eternity4 ,there lies our path2 if it urges us to possess the largest portion we can of the human world1 let us first begin by intimately possessing what we love4 ,this possession ,i am sure is the only real one4 ,they knew it very well1 those desperate men who have loved fiercely the mere bodies of women without ever receiving the real gift that can be yielded in a glance1 from a distance1 with the swiftness of lightning4 ,,vi ,there are men who set out from their homes in the morning in the pursuit of wealth4 ,they walk with their eyes on the pavement1 they fling themselves furiously into all sorts of petty labors4 ,they dream of lost money1 princely gifts1 scandalous inheritances1 lotteries4 ,they think of gold as of an inaccessible woman whom they can strike down and ravish in a corner4 ,they return home in the evening worn out1 exasperated1 famished1 as poor as ever4 ,they have not even seen the face of the man who sat next them in the subway4 ,that face itself was a fortune4 ,do you seek out your friend because1 on occasion1 he can lend you the sum you foresee you are going to need1 because he can speak to some cabinet official on your behalf1 because he is a jovial host8 ,if that is the case1 you are a slave1 you possess nothing4 ,do you1 on the contrary1 love him for that way of smiling he has that so delights you1 for the candor and tenderness his hesitating voice betrays1 his gift of tears and his stormy repentances8 ,if this is so1 you are very rich3 that man is yours and he is a treasure worth having4 ,can you recall the use you made of your first five-franc piece8 ,most assuredly not6 ,but you will never forget a certain expression which1 in your eyes1 distorted or made more beautiful some well-loved face when you were a little child4 ,that has1 and always will have1 a place among your treasures3 that day you really learned something of importance1 and you have never ceased since to recall the victory and turn it to account4 ,if you have little inclination to squander your fortune1 what is to prevent you from assembling it under one title-deed8 ,a single face1 a single soul1 is yet an inestimable estate4 ,one may believe one has exhausted all one's resources1 but one is always deceived1 for like the earth1 the human landscape is always perpetually laboring and bears fruit every season4 ,the peasant who possesses only an acre is full of pride nevertheless1 for he knows that his possession goes down to the very center of the earth4 ,for many years ,i have watched the same face1 like the faithful horizon stretched across the aperture of a window4 ,it contrives1 that face1 a thousand things1 it expresses and reflects a thousand things1 ,i alone know its touching beauty1 since ,i alone am able to reap all its harvests1 since ,i alone cannot1 without a glance1 allow the tiniest flower of every day to die4 ,,vii ,it is not wholly within your power to be without enemies2 it behooves you1 indeed1 not to lack adversaries4 ,above all1 it behooves you to know your adversaries4 ,from that to conquering them is but a short step4 ,from that to loving them is no step at all4 ,do not dread an experience too much2 consider your adversary attentively and try to imagine his motives1 those that he declares as well as those that he conceals1 those that he invents as well as those of which he is ignorant4 ,think long enough and with enough intensity to understand these reasons1 and even to discover new ones of which your adversary has not thought2 this will not be difficult for you if you have any knowledge of yourself4 ,then make a strong effort to put yourself1 in spirit1 in the place of him you are combatting4 ,do not go so far as to detest yourself1 but do not refuse this opportunity of judging yourself severely4 ,for a test3 perhaps you have entered upon this experience with your teeth and fists clenched2 stop when you find that you are smiling and that your hands are relaxed4 ,one has no idea how much this exercise inclines one to justice1 how profitable it is and how destructive of hatred4 ,too much imagination would perhaps lead you to neglect your own cause2 stop in time1 therefore1 unless you wish to become1 as the spectators may decide1 either a fool or a hero4 ,for my part1 ,i have no hesitation in counselling such a practice3 it teaches one to conquer1 to conquer smilingly4 ,it teaches one to know one's adversary4 ,and then1 too1 it is good as everything is good that forestalls and destroys hatred4 ,there is only one single thing in the world that is1 perhaps1 really hateful1 stupidity4 ,but even that is disputable1 and moreover it is always a presumptuous assertion4 ,happy is the man who has no enemies4 ,but1 ,i repeat1 he who has no adversaries1 he who has not accepted those that life offers him1 or has not been able to procure any of his own will1 is ignorant of a great source of wealth4 ,there is but small merit in understanding those whom we love2 there is a great1 a crowningly bitter pleasure1 in penetrating a soul that is hostile to us1 in making it our own by main force1 in colonizing it4 ,not to choose our friends1 that is to be too self-denying1 too modest4 ,not to choose our adversaries1 that is altogether too stupid2 it is inexcusable4 ,a voice whispers in my ear3 8,we do not choose our vermin1 we do not choose our mad dogs44440 ,alas1 no6 but that is quite another matter4 ,,viii ,every time ,i hear someone use the word 8promiscuity10 ,i recall an experience ,i once had4 ,an experience1--that is a great deal to say1 it was such a slight affair after all4 ,it was in the days when there still used to be in ,paris those omnibuses with upper stories4 ,i was returning home quite late1 on one of those fresh1 airy nights when one suddenly draws in1 through the fetid breath of the streets1 a gust that comes from afar and seems unwilling to let itself be defiled1 obliterated4 ,i was dreaming all alone1 quite to myself1 about things of no interest to anyone but myself1 but that happily filled the infinite space of the world4 ,through the depths of this reverie ,i became aware of a slight1 muffled blow against my right shoulder4 ,this did not rouse me from my own absorption4 ,a second time the blow came1 followed by a soft1 continuous contact4 ,it gave me a disagreeable sensation4 ,by my side there was a young boy of sixteen or seventeen1 dressed like an apprentice4 ,the uncertain glimmer of the street-lamps lighted up his pale1 weary face4 ,his eyes were closed and he seemed overwhelmed with sleep4 ,i noticed that every few moments his head1 swaying with the jolts of the vehicle1 would strike against my shoulder4 ,he would raise it up with an instinctive movement1 only to let it fall back the more heavily the next moment4 ,once he let it lie there4 ,at the time ,i was so lost in my dreams that the animal in me alone rose to its defense3 ,i pushed the young lad gently back into his place4 ,it was trouble lost2 the next second he abandoned himself anew against my shoulder with a sort of desperate ingenuousness4 ,i pushed him back two or three times1 then ,i gave it up and tried1 in spite of this slight burden1 to continue my glorious excursion in the interior of my own self4 ,but ,i did not succeed4 ,an extraordinary1 unforeseen1 unknown sensation was sweeping over me4 ,it was a penetrating animal warmth4 ,it came from that head propped against my shoulder1 and also from a certain frail1 bent arm which ,i felt slowly digging into my side4 ,the little apprentice was sound asleep4 ,i bent down my face and felt his breath like that of a child passing in little puffs over my cheek and my chin4 ,from that moment on1 ,i ceased completely to think of my important personal affairs and ,i had only one anxiety3 to see to it that the boy did not awaken4 ,i do not know how long this sleep lasted3 ,i was warm with a strange1 delicate warmth2 ,i had a sense of well-being1 ,i was absorbed1 ,i was penetrating into an unknown universe1 as vast1 as starry as my own4 ,i could not understand how this contact could have offended me at first1 even disgusted me4 ,i had torn off the prickly shell and was tasting1 like a nourishing kernel1 that human presence and companionship4 ,i was happy and interested4 ,we reached a place where there were shouts and lights4 ,the little fellow sat up with a start1 rubbed his eyes and ran stumbling towards the stairway and disappeared2 he had not even seen me4 ,he did not know what ,i owed him and that he would never be forgotten4 ,,ix ,one must not1 at first sight1 say that a man is uninteresting and that his face is expressionless4 ,one might as well say that the water of a river is empty when it swarms with vegetable and animal life4 ,in one's manner of listening to a man there may be prejudice and suspicion1 there must not be indifference or indolence4 ,the soul has1 in its arsenal1 lenses1 microscopes1 and powerful sources of light for exploring objects to their depths1 through their transparencies1 into the innermost recesses of their organs4 ,at the beginning of the war ,i lived for two years with a comrade who was invariably silent and indolent2 his handsome face remained always so gloomy1 his actions remained so devoid of purpose and significance1 that ,i despaired of ever making him my prey2 ,i was simply never touched with a desire to get hold of him4 ,then a day came when ,i heard him greet some happening with a word1 pronounced in such a challenging tone that ,i decided to undertake the expedition4 ,i spent days and days at it1 with the pickaxe1 mattock1 and little lantern of the miner4 ,i have thought of him ever since with stupefaction1 as of those subterranean1 half-explored chasms where one finds rivers1 colonnades1 domes1 blind animals and terrible shapes of stone4 ,the nature of the object should not discourage one's interest4 ,the viper is a dangerous and vindictive creature4 ,the naturalists who have been able to study it have only been able to do so because they have studied with passion1 that is to say1 with love4 ,so much to tell you that that sort of zoological curiosity you may bring to the study of your neighbor no more authorizes cruelty than it allows you to dispense with affection4 ,extreme attention resembles affection4 ,contemplation is pure love4 ,x ,it is after my own taste that ,i mean to enjoy my possessions4 ,first1 ,i wish to have part possession of my companions4 ,there is no question of my being the only one to possess them1 or of my limiting my empire to one or two of them4 ,what ,i plan is to undertake each conquest separately4 ,this word1 we shall see1 does not signify seduction1 but a knowledge that is full of respect1 a profound1 lasting interest1 an enthusiasm1 a passionate contemplation4 ,observe them1 your comrades3 say you have twenty-three of them2 you will find through them twenty-three distinct representations of yourself1 and that in spite of yourself1 through the mere play of everyday life4 ,one of them knows chiefly your tireless patience2 another1 who works beside you all day1 knows that you are painstaking and irritable2 he is1 however1 ignorant of what a third1 the friend of your fireside1 knows1--that you are a careful and anxious father4 ,there are others for whom you are1 above all1 a soul torn by religion or a mind familiar with everything that concerns social questions1 or a great lover of reading4 ,others1 finally1 see in you only a good billiard-player1 or a crack shot1 or a courteous companion4 ,you are1 of course1 all these things4 ,the totality of these various aspects is1 indeed1 you1 provided that we add also many other qualities that no one suspects4 ,but each one of your comrades sees an aspect of you that is different from what his neighbor sees4 ,for this reason1 avoid confusion1 avoid mixing things4 ,be lavish of yourself in every sense1 but begin by being prudent1 careful of your resources and skilful in the art of grouping them4 ,one day you were having an affectionate conversation with ,maurin4 ,you were delighted with one another1 delighted to be together1 satisfied with your fellowship1 your mutual possession4 ,you were not talking of anything very private4 ,but then ,blche came up1 ,blche with whom you have such profitable1 such intimate talks1 and all the charm of ,maurin's company disappeared without your being able to compensate yourself with the usual pleasure you take in the society of ,blche4 ,this was because1 in the presence of both1 you could not give each one what you are accustomed to give him1 nor could you ask from him what he gives only to you4 ,these combinations1 like those of the chemists1 demand much care and judgment4 ,don't protest6 ,don't exclaim that such notions are too subtle1 too complex3 you do not receive all your friends pell-mell4 ,however much of an epicure you may be1 you still give more attention to the selection of your guests than to the composition of the menu4 ,of what importance is the most delicate fare in comparison with the delight the conversation of carefully chosen human beings gives us8 ,that is why1 when you are sure of two persons for whom you feel an interest that borders on passion1 you experience such a delicious anxiety at the moment of presenting them to one another1 of bringing them together in your presence4 ,you are like the maker of fireworks who is about to mix changeable substances with explosive properties in his mortar4 ,you weigh them carefully and combine them in well-defined proportions4 ,you take time preparing each of the spiritual elements of this mixture4 ,and when the union is accomplished1 you seem to be saying to each of them3 8,i have prepared a magnificent gift for you4 ,come1 now1 and know one another40 ,your heart throbs1 because each of them is not only going to know the other but is going to learn to know you through the eyes of the other4 ,could there be a better reason for living8 ,,xi ,however brief may be the intercourse we have with a man1 we always come away from it somewhat modified3 we find we are a little greater than we were before1 or a little less great1 better or worse1 exalted or diminished4 ,i have learned this from having1 in the course of my life1 approached many men1 both famous and obscure1 who do not dream what ,i owe them or the harm they have been able to do me4 ,we instinctively recognize and classify individuals according to this faculty they have1 some of drawing us out1 others of crushing us4 ,it is a faculty they usually exert without knowing it1 even against their will3 they are tonic or depressing just as one is short or tall1 just as one has black eyes or green4 ,but the comparison breaks down in this respect1 that it is always possible to modify the reaction we produce on others4 ,in this matter we exhibit a special sensibility that may be compared to the tropisms which push plants up toward the light or make them struggle against gravitation4 ,we go toward some and flee from others1 regardless of our interests or our prejudices4 ,the man whose companionship we seek because it stimulates us is not necessarily he who strives to give us a good opinion of ourselves4 ,often he is taciturn1 sometimes surly1 occasionally ironical and cutting4 ,nevertheless1 there emanates from his whole person something like approbation1 a confession of confidence4 ,even if he insists1 harshly1 noisily1 upon calling attention to our faults1 he does not make us despair of ourselves and our future4 ,and if he never speaks to us about ourselves we yet know1 by some imperceptible gesture1 by some tone in his voice1 by a gleam in his eye1 that he is interested in us4 ,every time we leave him we like him better1 we like ourselves better1 we like all humanity better1 we look at everything with a smile1 we are as full of plans as a tree in ,april4 ,the other sort of man1 on the contrary1 is forever deluding himself4 ,he pursues before our very eyes an end which we see1 with grief and bitterness1 he regularly fails to attain4 ,whatever he does1 whatever he says1 he always shows us that he is a stranger to us1 that he is superior and that we do not interest him4 ,even in his manner of wishing to give us his attention1 he exhibits a certain difficulty in seeing us at all4 ,if he tries to seem talkative1 important1 majestic1 his natural gifts turn against him2 his cordiality disgusts us1 his bearing irritates us1 his self-importance makes us want to laugh4 ,we cannot forgive him anything1 and especially the fact that we always leave him with the same vague depression1 the same disgust of life1 and the same distrust of our own undertakings4 ,what we are always escapes him1 and although what he is does not escape us1 we are discouraged by him all the same4 ,we must be the first of these two men1 he who is1 amid all things1 in spite of all things1 a rich man1 he whom the poet of the ,livre d'amour justly called 8a conqueror40 ,,xii ,you must not violate your gifts1 you must simply study their possibilities4 ,it is what we do with trees and animals in which we are able to instil virtues they do not seem to possess at all naturally4 ,however humble your position in society may be1 however great your poverty1 in the crude sense men give to this word1 you may none the less become rich and successful without so much as leaving the room where you are in conversation with your comrade1 your wife or your favorite adversary4 ,find your study there4 ,you have observed that when two men meet they begin by sacrificing to the old custom of enquiring briefly about one another's health and affairs1 after which1 without waiting for the other's reply1 each one begins to speak of himself4 ,this is such an old usage that they do not even know they are doing it4 ,each one speaks of himself for a few moments1 then allows the other to talk about himself for about the same length of time4 ,when this has gone on long enough they separate1 and each preserves for his partner a vague feeling of gratitude1 not so much because he has listened as because he has made a pretense of listening to matters that were of no concern to him4 ,this fact suggests a great lesson4 ,the majority of men suffer from a sort of neglect1 they suffer from not being possessed by anyone1 from offering themselves in vain4 ,stretch out your hand and seize them4 ,learn to say the word that will assure you the mastery1 the domination4 ,it is inconceivable that so many spirits1 tormented by the need for power1 by the passion for authority1 should waste and sterilize themselves in order to hoard money1 win rank1 obtain a title4 ,they gain nothing from it but a pride that withers them2 they clasp only the shadow of what they pursue4 ,seek a little and you will soon find that they are legion who ask nothing better than to cast themselves into your nets4 ,do not believe that they are always the mediocre victims4 ,it is not only the wretched who wish to be understood and consoled4 ,there are many sceptics who await with anguish the touch of a hand to deliver them from their scepticism4 ,there are many happy men1 too1 who cannot bear to be alone with their happiness1 for man has even more need of help in joy than in sorrow4 ,it has often happened1 while walking with a comrade1 a stranger or an adversary1 that ,i would find him hard1 defiant1 rebellious at every touch4 ,thereupon1 ,i would set out openly1 under his very eye1 to capture him4 ,i would begin to speak to him about himself4 ,i would say to him3 8,the unique things about you are44440 ,and ,i would confide to him everything ,i thought about him1 being particularly careful to say nothing more about myself4 ,i would interest myself in him1 not fictitiously--that is a barren and a perilous game--but with all my heart1 with all my intelligence4 ,i would tell him what ,i knew1 what ,i already possessed of him1 his virtues and his faults4 ,confused or irritated1 he would come to my feet1 he would appear as if before a bar to give thanks or to plead1 to show his claws or to purr4 ,the things ,i had said to him might be very severe2 ,i still felt that he was grateful to me for having cared about him1 even in order to attack him4 ,no longer was he in any haste to leave me4 ,often he would come back on the days that followed and make me unexpected visits2 though ,i could see that he was provoked1 ,i knew nevertheless that he had come to pay homage1 to attest that he was a faithful subject4 8,the unique things about you are04444 ,that is a chance phrase4 ,there are others1 there are a thousand of them4 ,when you are ready1 a grip of the hand or some other human sign may take its place4 ,i remember the story of a certain prefect who1 having no worse enemy than a traitor in his department1 had the happy thought one day of asking him to have a drink and going away without paying for it4 ,this extraordinary proof of confidence attached the man to him forever4 ,not that all your victims will be so tremblingly easy4 ,there are proud souls who set a high price on their conquest1 fantastic and sick souls whom one has to seize suddenly and overthrow almost before they are aware of it4 ,you must set the time and choose the hour of the attack4 ,do not accost the business man in the roar of the ,exchange2 attempt the field rather at the hour when1 wearied1 he is counting over and reckoning his disillusionments4 ,do not seize the man of action on the battlefield1 but in the moment of leisure when he does not know what to do with his solitude4 ,what marvelous opportunities must the shy ,las ,casas have glimpsed at ,saint ,helena1 even though he was pursuing other aims6 ,i once saw a simple soul publicly congratulate a master surgeon whose skill had for long years placed him above all felicitations4 ,and the celebrated man blushed1 bowed1 gave in4 ,a successful lawyer said to me one day3 8,each one of my clients imagines that ,i think only of him1 that ,i occupy myself exclusively with him40 ,remember1 too1 that certain women never capitulate twice3 they never forgive themselves for having yielded completely even for a moment4 ,the same thing is true with others who are offended with you because you have 8taken0 them by force4 ,do not regret this sacrifice too much3 it leaves a beautiful jewel in your casket4 ,truly the whole vast race of men belongs to you4 ,take and eat1 you cannot find more noble food4 ,see1 there is the world you must conquer4 ,it is not that for whose possession proud peoples are driven to declare war2 it is indeed quite another world than that which ,satan showed ,jesus from the summit of the mountain4 ,,iv ,,on ,,discovering ,,the ,,world ,i ,the world contains not one single object that might not be a source of happiness4 ,sorrow springs from this1 that man outdoes himself in misusing everything4 ,he turns against his own body or his own spirit all sorts of things that seem well made for his joy4 ,every being contains an unbelievable store of happiness1 and this one virtue reveals the angle from which he ought to be judged4 ,your true business man makes a practice of weighing everything in terms of gold3 a human being1 a field of wheat1 a beam1 a precious stone4 ,his tables of value are false1 but the principle of valuation remains none the less efficacious1 fundamental4 ,the mistake of these persons is in testing everything by a single measure1 in reducing everything to this gold which enables them to seek their chosen pleasure4 ,if it is drink1 or woman1 they transmute an orchard into wine or into women1 losing terribly by the exchange4 ,they thus produce a sort of analogy to what the physicists call the degradation of energy3 little by little1 the traffickers degrade their pleasures until they obtain those they prefer4 ,but happiness is higher than this3 it cannot be degraded1 bought1 transmuted4 ,it is a pure relationship between the soul and the world4 ,it will never be the mere object of a transaction4 ,many are the men who have fastened their hope1 their future upon the acquisition of some material good only to experience after years of effort and privation a burning disillusion4 ,that is because happiness is too proud and free a thing to obey the commands of merchants4 ,it follows laws of its own that seem like inspirations1 it does not come at the bidding of business men4 ,the castle we have coveted so long may open at the appointed hour2 joy will not take up its abode there unless we have deserved it4 ,it must be repeated again3 the principle of evaluation is at the base of our moral life4 ,but each thing should be valued in itself and for itself4 ,a tuft of violets is worth a great deal for its perfume and its beauty1 it can bring joy or consolation to a great many hearts4 ,but it has only the slightest commercial value2 estimated in terms of building lumber or freestone it signifies nothing1 or virtually nothing4 ,that so many men should cut and sell wood1 shape and barter the stone of which our houses are built1 go gathering violets through the ,may thickets to sell them to townsfolk1 is undoubtedly right and necessary4 ,the real question is quite a different one3 we must first possess for their own sakes all the blessings that are offered us1 and not obstinately transform them1 without an important reason1 beyond our strict needs1 at the risk of forever losing our understanding and our true possession of them4 ,it is almost a truism that men who are obliged by their profession to handle1 store or sell substances famous for their power of giving pleasure1 perfumes1 fruits1 silks1 end by losing all appreciation of them and even by contracting a disgust and contempt for them4 ,cooks have no appetite4 ,let us not be cooks1 then1 in the presence of this vast world2 let us know how to preserve or restore to each object its original savor and significance4 ,i say 8restore0 intentionally1 for the world seems to be more and more turning from its true sense1 that is to say1 its human sense1 the only one for us4 ,a stone is a beautiful thing1 beautiful from all points of view2 its grain1 its color1 its brilliancy1 its hardness are all so many virtues that exercise and satisfy our senses1 excite our reflections4 ,we have a thousand noble uses1 speculative or practical1 to which we can put such an object4 ,we shall be the kings of the universe if we assert boldly that we find in these uses and in our joy the very destiny of the stone4 ,i remember seeing hills that had been disemboweled by a bombardment and were sown with long splinters of twisted iron2 the base of a monstrous shell appeared before me1 one day1 under these conditions1 and it seemed to me truly inhuman1 this product of the work of men3 the noble metal1 with which so many good and beautiful things can be made1 took on a hateful appearance4 ,man had achieved the mournful miracle of denaturing nature1 rendering it ignoble and criminal4 ,truly1 we are equally guilty every time we turn an object aside from its mission1 which is altogether one of happiness4 ,we are guilty again every time we fail to extract1 for others and for ourselves1 all the happiness an object holds in store and only asks to be allowed to yield4 ,,ii ,it is because every fragment of the earth is a source of happiness that men ceaselessly dream of winning that source for their own profit4 ,they do not wish to have all humanity refresh itself1 plunge its feverish face and lips in the cool waters4 ,once the springs were the delight and the wealth of whole peoples2 they were conducted magnificently along majestically proportioned aqueducts2 their liquid opulence1 crossing valleys and mountains1 entered the cities with a great outburst of architectural joy2 it shone and sparkled in the sunlight from a thousand embellished apertures before it went to bathe and nourish the people4 ,the statues of the gods watched over this treasure4 ,today1 the most beautiful springs are guarded by railings2 one goes to a wicket and pays in order to drink there4 ,in the same way1 all the springs of joy seem to have been sequestered for the profit of a few people4 ,this is not always for the sake of gain4 ,in most cases it is simply for exclusiveness4 ,the man who owns something capable of giving joy navely imagines that he will be happier if he is the only one to drink from this inexhaustible breast4 ,he becomes infatuated with it and thinks of nothing but how to shut up his treasure4 ,he puts up a wall and provides it with fragments of sharp glass1 so that the wall may show its teeth1 so that it may be not only defensive but1 in some sense1 offensive4 ,at times1 yawning with ennui in the very midst of his material prosperity1 he makes an opening in the wall1 only to correct this imprudence with a ditch2 and from behind this he seems to say1 8,now see how rich ,i am2 look and proclaim it in a loud voice1 you who pass by1 for ,i am beginning not to be so sure of it myself40 ,to shut up a picture1 a beautiful tree1 a sumptuous tapestry for one's own exclusive benefit is1 after all1 only a trifling folly2 but there are some who undertake to capture a river1 a mountain1 a horizon1 the sea4 ,a few years ago1 ,i visited the shore of the ,mediterranean1 between ,cannes and ,menton4 ,i was struck by a strange thing3 the road that follows the edge of the sea1 at the foot of the hills1 through a thousand natural beauties1 continually loses sight of the waves2 it seems as if pushed back1 held aside4 ,people have appropriated the horizon2 they have driven their fortune like a wedge between the divine sea and the road of the common folk4 ,they wish to be the only ones to possess the ocean1 dawn1 the gold and sapphire of moon1 the tempests and the thunders of the open sea4 ,do not be alarmed1 mistaken brothers1 do not tremble2 we shall not throw down your walls4 ,live in peace in your sumptuous prison1 our portion remains so beautiful and so great that we shall never exhaust it4 ,close your gates1 you will not shut in the perfume of your shrubbery1 nor all the wind1 nor all the sky4 ,you will not imprison the fragrant odor of your flower-beds4 ,we shall breathe them1 as we pass1 lovingly1 and continue on our way4 ,we shall go on still further1 for we have many things to acquaint ourselves with1 we divine so many1 many of them that a whole life is short in the light of such a destiny4 ,but if it pleases you to join our vagabond company you will discover1 perhaps1 the other side of your own walls1 which are hung with flax-weed and wild geranium4 ,the road that skirts them outside leads to joy also4 ,and besides1 one does not find these ingenuous walls everywhere4 ,the greed of men has not yet subjected all the beauty of things4 ,you have snatched up in your fingers a fleeting draught of water3 the ocean does not seem to be aware of it4 ,you must understand that we really possess nothing by ourselves4 ,veil1 if you wish1 the faces of your women and visit every day the gold in the depths of your vaults4 ,exclusiveness yields you no wealth save that which is dead and unproductive4 ,but he is truly rich for whom life is a perpetual discovery4 ,,iii ,discovery6 ,it seems as if this word were one of a cluster of magic keys1 one of those keys that make all doors open before our feet4 ,we know that to possess is to understand1 to comprehend4 ,that1 in a supreme sense1 is what discovery means4 ,to understand the world can well be compared to the peaceful1 enduring wealth of the great landowner2 to make discoveries is1 in addition to this1 to come into sudden1 overflowing riches1 to have one of those sudden strokes of fortune which double a man's capital by a windfall that seems like an inspiration4 ,the life of a child who grows up unconstrainedly is a chain of discoveries1 an enriching of each moment1 a succession of dazzling surprises4 ,i cannot go on without thinking of the beautiful letter ,i received today about my little boy2 it said3 8,your son knows how to find extraordinary riches1 inexhaustible treasures1 even in the barrenest fields1 and when ,i set him on the grass1 ,i cannot guess the things he is going to bring out of it4 ,he has an admirable appreciation of the different kinds of soil2 if he finds sand he rolls in it1 buries himself in it1 grabs up handfuls and flings them delightedly over his hair4 ,yesterday he discovered a molehole1 and you cannot imagine all the pleasure he took in it4 ,he also knows the joys of a slope which one can descend on one's feet1 or head over heels1 or by rolling1 and which is also splendid for somersaults4 ,every rise of ground interests him1 and ,i wish you could see him pushing his cart up them4 ,there is a little ditch where on the edge he likes to lie with his feet at the bottom and his body pressed tight against the slope4 ,he played interminably1 the other day1 on top of a big stone2 he kept stroking it1 he had truly found a new pleasure there4 ,and as for me1 ,i find my wealth in watching him discover all these things40 ,it is thus a child of fifteen months gives man lessons in appreciation4 ,unfortunately1 most systems of education do their best to substitute hackneyed phrases for the sense of discovery4 ,a series of conventions are imposed on the child2 he ceases to discover and experience the objects in the world in pinning them down with dry1 formal labels by the help of which he can recognize them4 ,he reduces his moral life little by little to the dull routine of classifying pins and pegs1 and in this fashion begins the journey to maturity4 ,discover6 ,you must discover in order to be rich6 ,you must not be satisfied to accept the night good-humoredly1 to go to sleep after a day empty of all discovery4 ,there are no small victories1 no negligible discoveries3 if you bring back from your day's journey the memory of the white cloud of pollen the ripe plantain lets fall1 in ,may1 at the stroke of your switch1 it may be little1 but your day is not lost4 ,if you have only encountered on the road the tiny urn of jade which the moss delightedly balances at the end of its frail stem1 it may seem little1 but be patient6 ,tomorrow will perhaps be more fruitful4 ,if for the first time you have seen a swarm of bees go by in search of a hive1 or heard the snapping pods of the broom scattering its seeds in the heat1 you have nothing to complain of1 and life ought to seem beautiful to you4 ,if1 on that same day1 you have also enriched your collection of humanity with a beautiful or an interesting face1 confess that you will go to sleep upon a treasure4 ,,iv ,there will be days when you will be like a peaceful sovereign seated under a tree3 the whole world will come to render homage to you and bring you tribute4 ,those will be your days of contemplation4 ,there will be days when you will have to take your staff and wallet and go and seek your living along the highways4 ,on these days you must be contented with what you gain from observing1 from hunting2 have no fear3 it will be beautiful4 ,it is sweet to receive2 it is thrilling to take4 ,you must1 by turns1 charm and compel the universe4 ,when you have gazed long at the tawny rock1 with its lichens1 its velvety mosses1 it is most amusing to lift it up3 then you will discover its weight and the little nest of orange-bellied salamanders that live there in the cool4 ,you have only to lie among the hairy mints and the horse-tails to admire the religious dance of the dragon-fly going to lay its eggs in the brook1 or to hear in early ,june the clamorous orgy of the tree-toads1 drunk with love2 and it is very pleasant1 too1 to dip one's hands in the water1 to stir the gravel at the bottom1 whence bubble up a thousand tiny1 agile existences1 or to pick the fleshy stalk of the water-lily that lifts its tall head out of the depths4 ,there are people who have passed a plant a thousand times without ever thinking of picking one of its leaves and rubbing it between their fingers4 ,do this always and you will discover hundreds of new perfumes4 ,each of these perfumes may seem quite insignificant1 and yet when you have breathed it once1 you wish to breathe it again2 you think of it often1 and something has been added to you4 ,it is an unending game and it resembles love1 this possession of a world that now yields itself1 now conceals itself4 ,it is a serious1 a divine game4 ,marcus ,aurelius1 whose philosophy cannot be called futile1 does not hesitate1 amid many austere counsels1 to urge his friends to the contemplation of those natural spectacles that are always so rich in meaning and suggestion3 8,everything that comes forth from the works of nature10 he writes1 8has its grace and beauty4 ,the face wrinkles in middle age1 the very ripe olive is almost decomposed1 but the fruit has1 for all that1 a unique beauty4 ,the bending of the corn toward the earth1 the bushy brows of the lion1 the foam that drips from the mouth of the wild boar and many other things1 considered by themselves1 are far from being beautiful2 nevertheless1 since they are accessory to the works of nature1 they embellish them and add a certain charm4 ,thus a man who has a sensitive soul1 and who is capable of deep reflection1 will see1 in whatever exists in the world1 hardly anything that is not pleasant in his eyes1 since it is related1 in some way1 to the totality of things40 ,this philosopher is right as the poets are right4 ,as our days permit us1 let us reflect and observe1 let us never cease to see in each fragment of the great whole a pure source of happiness4 ,like children drawn into a marvelous dance1 let us not relax our hold upon the hand that sustains us and directs us4 ,v ,chalifour was a locksmith4 ,i knew him in my childhood4 ,you would have said that he was just a simple country laborer4 ,why has he left the memory of a rich and powerful man8 ,his image will always be for me that of the 8master of metals40 ,he worked in a mean1 encumbered room1 full of the pungent1 acrid odor of the forge1 which seemed to me a sort of annex to those other underground vaults that used to be peopled by the earth-spirits4 ,how ,i loved to see him1 with his little apron of blackened leather6 ,he would seize a bar of iron and this iron at once became his4 ,he had his own way of handling the object of his labor that was full of love and authority4 ,his gnarled hands touched everything with a mixture of respect and daring2 ,i used to admire them as if they were the somber workmen of some sovereign power4 ,it seemed as if some pact had been made between ,chalifour and the hard metal1 which gave the man complete mastery over the material4 ,one might have thought that solemn vows had been exchanged4 ,i see him again with his pensive air working the panting bellows and watching the metal whose incandescence was almost transparent4 ,i see him at the anvil3 the hammer1 handled forcefully1 delicately1 obeying like a subject demon4 ,i see him before the drill1 starting the great wheel1 following the measured exigencies of a ceremonial rite4 ,especially ,i see him before the smoky window with its pale flood of light1 surveying1 with that fine smile under his white beard1 the conquered piece of metal1 the creature of his will1 which he had charged with destiny4 ,o ancient laborer1 great1 simple man1 how rich and enviable you were1 you who aspired to just one thing3 to do well what you were doing1 to possess intimately the object of your toil6 ,no one better than you has understood the ponderous1 obedient iron1 no one than you has worked it with greater love and constancy4 ,somewhere there exists1 ,i believe1 an unhappy man eaten up with nerves and stomach-disorder4 ,he lives crouched up against his telephone1 and sends his orders to all the stock exchanges of the world4 ,people call him the 8iron king10 for some reason that has to do with finance4 ,i don't believe he has ever touched or weighed a morsel of real iron4 ,let us smile1 ,chalifour6 ,let us smile1 my master6 ,,vi ,i should like to tell you about ,bernier1 too4 ,they say he is a very poor man because his coat is all shiny from wear and his shoes have the weary1 wretched look of things that have never been young1 because the sweat of many summers has soaked and stained the ribbon of his hat and his baggy trousers give him the air of always kneeling4 ,bernier has a poor little drooping moustache with nothing glorious about it4 ,you know only too well that he earns a hundred and twenty francs a month in some government bureau and that people say of him1 8,he's a poor devil with a miserable job40 ,as for me1 ,i know that ,bernier is rich1 and ,i have seen him smile in the hour of his wealth1--for the true wealth has its times of slumber and its awakenings4 ,bernier possesses something which is quite strange and almost inexpressible2 it is a space1 a white space1 vast and virgin1 and it is his power to be able to trace there certain harmonious lines which he alone knows how to trace in the right way4 ,why have you never seen1 why have you never been able to see ,bernier at the moment when he begins his work1 when the whole sickly light of the office seems concentrated on the beautiful white page8 ,his face is serene1 smiling1 assured4 ,he half closes his eyes and draws back his head2 he holds1 adroitly and elegantly1 a certain chosen pen1 flexible1 with a good point1 a pen that belongs to him alone1 which he has prepared for himself and which he would throw away if some blundering fool happened to touch it4 ,and then he begins6 ,his kingdom is ranged all about him3 ink pure from all dust1 a brightly lined ruler1 a collection of pens with all sorts of points4 ,he begins1 and the black line obeys him1 springs up1 curves in1 stops1 bounds forward or falls back1 prances1 yields4 ,look at ,bernier's face3 is it really the face of that poor wretch you have just described to me8 ,no6 ,no6 ,it is the face of a masterful man1 calm1 sure of himself and his wealth1 who is doing something that no one can do as well as he3 across a snowy1 limitless desert he directs1 as if in a dream1 a black line that advances1 advances1 now slowly1 now dizzily1 like time itself4 ,,vii ,you are willing to pay ten francs to see an acrobat or a trained dog4 ,perhaps you have never watched a spider about to prepare its web4 ,in that case1 do not miss the spectacle at the very next opportunity4 ,when you have had a good glimpse of the extraordinary creature revolving about the center of the work and fastening1 with its hind leg1 so quickly and accurately1 the thread that it unwinds in just the right quantity1 you will be so delighted that you will want to show the marvel to all those you love4 ,it is strange what a contempt men have for the joys that are offered them freely4 ,and yet this does not argue a shallowness in our natures3 there is a certain beauty in our prizing an object just because it has cost us some trouble4 ,you must not imagine1 however1 that the marvels of nature come for nothing3 they cost patience1 time and attention4 ,an unhealthy curiosity and the taste for anomalies incline us to take pleasure in seeing a creature perform an action for which its own organism seems unsuited4 ,it palls very quickly4 ,for a long time now1 for example1 the flight of aviators has ceased to excite our interest3 we know all about that unmysterious machine2 its very sound and its presence in the sky defile the silence and the space whose virginity was a refuge for us4 ,on the other hand1 ,i assure you ,i never cease to be fascinated by the mysterious manuvers of a swarm of gnats1 their interweaving curves1 the spherical movement which1 from instant to instant1 transports the whole group of insects and seems the result of some secret password1 and so many other subtle and profound mysteries that remain1 for the imagination1 full of allurement1 full1 one might say1 of resources4 ,and do you think there is nothing disturbing in the beauty of the imperious flight of the great dragon-fly1 in its sudden1 meditative pauses1 in its peremptory starts that lash the air like a supple1 furious whip8 ,to whatever school of philosophy they belong1 the great observers of natural phenomena1 the ,darwins1 ,lamarcks1 ,fabres1 give us a magnificent lesson in love4 ,but why do we nourish ourselves only on their harvests instead of providing our own8 ,why do we buy and read their books without drawing any real profit from them1 without ever taking the trouble to look down at our own feet1 without ever going to live1 with the creatures of the sand and the grass1 their minute1 thrilling existence1 in which everything would be for us full of novelty1 discovery1 suggestion8 ,,viii ,the world is so generous and ,i feel my heart so full1 so overflowing1 that ,i do not even dream of arranging in order all these things ,i have to say to you4 ,i should wish first of all to see your brow relax1 to hear you say that you are less dispirited and that you refuse to be bored4 ,i should like to know all of you1 and each in particular1 to take you by the arm and walk with you through one of the streets of your town1 or along the highroad if you live in the country4 ,you would tell me of your cares and we should search together and see if there is indeed nothing in the universe for which you are especially destined1 if there does not indeed exist1 all ready for your wound1 the precise balm that is necessary to anoint and heal it4 ,i came out this morning from my shelter of planks4 ,the barren1 chalky soil that surrounds it is surely the most sterile in all ,champagne1 but it had rained and the storm had brought up out of this miserable soil1 which is almost without vegetation1 all sorts of kindly odors4 ,they were worth more than all the perfumes of ,florida1 for they were the humble gift of poverty4 ,at the end of next ,february ,i could show you1 some morning1 if the sun were out1 the color of the birches against the blue of the winter sky4 ,all the slender branches will seem ablaze with purple fire1 and the sky1 through this delicate flame1 will survey you with an exquisite tenderness4 ,you must wait1 you must drink it in deeply1 and not go on your way before you have understood it4 ,from it you will be able to store up enough happiness to last you till another winter comes and gives birth once more to this prodigy of light4 ,last year1 during the hard summer months on the ,aisne1 ,i used to escape each day1 for a second1 toward the end of the afternoon1 from the overheated tent where we carried on the bloody work of the ambulance4 ,one of my comrades was in the habit of eating an apple at this hour4 ,i used to ask him to be good enough to lend it to me for a moment4 ,i loved to breathe its delicate1 penetrating perfume which1 every day1 changed with the fruit4 ,that was indeed a rare1 a beautiful moment amid the fatigues of that concert of suffering and death4 ,i requisitioned this imponderable part of another's wealth2 then ,i returned the apple to my comrade4 ,i could have wished that you had all been with me to taste that poignant little joy4 ,when peace comes again1 if you wish to see me in ,may1 ,i will take you out under the great sycamore that is turning green at the bottom of the meadow4 ,and there as you listen to the flying1 the humming1 the loving and the living of the millions of creatures that people its cool foliage1 we shall set out together on a journey so rare that you will leave your heaviest sorrows along the way4 ,,ix ,some years ago1 a magazine undertook to ask a number of writers in what chosen spot they would like to pass a few beautiful hours4 ,emile ,verhaeren answered3 8,in a certain corner of the harbor of ,hamburg40 ,verhaeren is among those who have revealed to us the mournful grandeur of city views1 of factory towns1 those places that seem accursed and from which one might think that happiness was forever exiled4 ,the aspirations of our souls are so plentiful1 so tenacious1 so fertile that we find something to console us1 satisfy us1 exalt us in those very spots where suffering rules tyrannically1 where the valley of ,gehenna is most precipitous4 ,i visited the docks of ,liverpool with a sort of horror4 ,there were tall brick buildings1 their roofs lost in the smoke1 windows covered with grime1 their interiors nothing but monstrous heaps of cotton bales4 ,men were climbing about there like flies4 ,everything smelt of fog and mould4 ,narrow pavements1 slimy with rain1 ran along by the dry-docks where the steamers1 like immense corpses1 were being assailed by the frantic crowd4 ,the workers toiled amid a bombardment of hammers1 a whirl of sparks4 ,the drills snarled like whipped cats4 ,a hideous light1 smothered by the smoke and the mist of the ,mersey1 drowned everything in its fetid flood4 ,and yet1 since then1 ,i have often dreamed of that terrible spot and felt the need of living there4 ,for two years ,i attended the wounded of the ,first ,army ,corps1 all of them men from the north1 stained by the coal on face and chest1 men from the factories or the mines4 ,i walked with them through the smiling landscapes of the ,aisne1 the ,vesle1 the ,marne1 when those lovely valleys had not yet been too much disfigured by the war4 ,certainly they all enjoyed the slopes with their gracious groves of trees1 the beautiful cultivated fields1 draped like many-colored shawls over the shoulders of the little hills1 but they all thought most1 with love and regret1 of cylinders1 mine shafts1 machines1 and a smoky horizon4 ,i can understand it3 one's native soil1 one's own habitude1 the familiar human landscape1 moulded upon the other and transfiguring it4 ,above everything we have to recognize that the soul is sensitive to many infinitely varied and often contradictory things4 ,grace of lines1 rustic charm are qualities that attach us to a country2 fierce and desolate grandeur is another such1 and this indeed has almost the strongest nostalgic power of all4 ,when beauty seems to have abandoned the world1 we must realize that it has first deserted our own hearts4 ,x ,between your five senses1 open like the dazzling portholes on the side of a ship1 do you really believe there is nothing1 nothing but the void1 the night1 the dumb wall8 ,i do not know1 ,i do not know4444 ,i cannot believe4444 ,the sound rises1 rises like the skylark1 and the ear rises with it4 ,and then comes a moment when the sound still rises and the hearing stops1 like those birds that do not frequent the loftiest altitudes4 ,tell me1 are they lost truly and forever1 those sounds that hold sway at the gates of your soul1 those sounds to which your senses are not equal8 ,wait6 ,hope6 ,some day perhaps we shall know4 ,you will say to me3 8,the light is so beautiful1 so beautiful6 ,it adds luster to so many things that are dear to me4 ,have ,i any need to dream of other rays than these8 ,my eyes have already so much to do that they are overcome by their delight4 ,the beauty of sound and silence ceaselessly intoxicates my ear40 ,true6 ,your soul has active purveyors4 ,they do not leave it idle4 ,they come and heap at its feet riches that demand its enthusiasm and its solicitude4 ,but often there is in your soul something your senses have not brought there1 an exquisite joy1 an inexpressible sadness4 ,do not forget that you live bathed in a multitude of rays to only some of which you are sensible4 ,the others are perhaps not quite strange to you4 ,what is passing1 in contraband1 across the frontiers of your being8 ,do not obstinately try to bring it under control4 ,submit1 experience1 be merely attentive and respectful to everything4 ,some day we shall perhaps know more things than we are able to divine now4 ,,xi ,one of the greatest delights of the religious faith is to abandon ourselves to gratitude1 to be able to thank1 from an overflowing heart1 the moral being to whom we feel indebted for our wealth4 ,why then1 since ,i have long lost this faith1 do ,i still feel each day1 and several times a day1 the great need of singing the canticle of ,francis of ,assisi1 the lovely canticle in which he says3 ,praise be unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 and unto all ,thy creatures1 especially our gracious brother the sun1 who gives us the day and through whom ,thou showest us ,thy light4 ,he is beautiful and radiant with a great splendor4 ,he is the symbol of ,thee1 ,most ,high4 ,praise be unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 for our sister the moon and the stars1 fashioned by ,thee in the sky1 clear1 precious1 and beautiful4 ,praise be unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 for our mother the wind1 and for the air and the clouds1 for the pure sky1 and for all the time during which ,thou givest to thy creatures life and sustenance4 ,praise be unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 for our sister the water1 who is so useful1 precious and clean4 ,praise be unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 for our brother the fire1 through whom ,thou illuminest the night4 ,he is lovely and gay1 courageous and strong4 ,praise unto ,thee1 ,o ,lord1 for our mother the earth1 who sustains us and nourishes us1 and brings forth divers fruits and flowers of a thousand colors and the grass4 ,a poet has transposed these divine strophes into the harmony of ,french verse and sings thus3 ,i shall praise you1 ,lord1 for having made so lovely and so bright ,this world where you wish us to await our life4 ,now1 ,i know very well that in this world ,i am not awaiting life1 ,i am living4 ,i know very well that it is here ,i must live and lose no time about it4 ,my gratitude is all the more pressing1 all the more intense4 ,what if it does rise to an empty heaven1 that infinite gratitude6 ,it will not be lost4 ,and is that heaven ever empty to which we breathe out so many dreams1 where there trembles so much beauty6 ,the sweetest of human voices has said3 8,lay up for yourselves in heaven the treasures that do not perish40 ,perhaps we shall be pardoned if we dare to murmur3 8,lay up for yourselves1 in this world1 the treasures that do not perish40 ,they will not perish1 these treasures1 ,o my son1 and all you whom ,i love1 they will not perish if you thirst to discover them only that you may share them with others1 that you may bequeath them to a devout posterity4 ,they will not perish if they find their being1 their supreme reason1 in that region of the soul where believers have raised up the tabernacle of a ,god4 ,v ,,the ,,lyrics ,,of ,,life ,i ,during the cruellest hours1 when the war about me has been heaping agony upon agony1 when ,i have been able to find nothing1 nothing to which ,i could any longer attach my confidence and my need of hope1 ,i have often been surprised to find1 running through my head1 one of those airs that ,i know so well1 those airs that ,i love and that escort my soul1 like watchful and radiant personages1 through the chaos of the days4 ,and ,i would think bitterly3 8,just fifteen quite simple notes6 but they carry a meaning so beautiful1 so profound1 so commanding that they would suffice1 ,i am certain1 to resolve all conflicts1 to discourage all hatreds1 if men knew them well enough to sing them all together with the same attentive tenderness40 ,it may be that the philosophy which absorbs you is one that leaves no room for indulgence4 ,perhaps you feel yourself full of bitterness for your fellows1 perhaps you have made up your mind not to see in the activity of the living any but motives of greed and covetousness4 ,do not laugh6 ,do not be in too great haste to prove yourself right6 ,above everything1 do not rejoice in being right in so dismal a fashion4 ,i say it again1 if certain pages of ,beethoven were better known to those who suffer and slaughter one another they would succeed in disarming many a resentment1 they would restore to many a tense face a soft1 ineffable smile4 ,if you do not believe this1 you are not accustomed to living among simple people1 you have never watched an irrepressible class of little children whom their master dominates and calms by making them sing1 you have never heard a multitude of people intoning a hymn in some cathedral1 you have never seen a great flood of workingmen1 in some foul slum1 break into the rhythm of a revolutionary song1 perhaps you have never even seen a poor man weeping because a violin had just recalled to him his youth and the obscure thoughts he believed he had never in all his life confessed to anyone4 ,think of all these things and then form some notion of what it is the thoughts of the great masters can do with the soul4 ,why1 why is it not better known1 this thing which is1 indeed1 knowledge and revelation itself8 ,why does it not reign over the empires1 this which is sovereignty1 grandeur1 majesty8 ,why is it not more ardently invoked in the hour of crisis1 this that teaches1 equally well1 fruitful doubt and serene resolution8 ,,ii ,true1 he who says ecstatically1 8,the world is governed by love1 goodness1 generous passions10 surrenders himself to a childish error4 ,but he who cries1 8,the whole world is enslaved by egoism1 violence and base passions10 speaks foolishly4 ,as we look about us1 we might perhaps imagine that from one or the other of these two moral attitudes there is no escape4 ,must we believe that the spirit of system has such an irresistible hold over everyone who sets about the business of living8 ,the world6 ,the world6 ,it is much more beautiful and complex than that4 ,it always upsets our prearrangements1 and that is why we cherish it so dearly4 ,but we also love to foresee things1 and system seems to arrange them so that we can4 ,what does it signify in a world that is capable of everything8 ,amid the evil and the mediocre there will always shine forth consolingly something noble1 something wondrous4 ,is it not shameful to predict the basest things so glibly only to close our eyes the more obstinately before the beauty that is unknown and unforeseen8 ,i assure you1 in spite of all1 that two lines of music can turn a multitude back and agitate the deepest springs of its behavior4 ,if the miracle does not result from harmonious sounds1 it will be borne1 perhaps1 of ten warm1 rhythmical words1 or the sight of a statue or the evocation of an image4 ,the worship of immediate realities leads us to those easy victories that intoxicate the coarse spirits4 ,at times it results in irreparable disasters1 for it inclines us to misprize those secret and delicate things that pave the way for the soul's most daring flights and ventures4 ,some other time ,i shall tell the story of the general who1 in order to allay the grievances of his mutinous troops1 offered them a cask of wine and1 thanks to this blunder1 suffered a defeat4 ,people who reason in a wholesale fashion get along successfully from day to day till the hour when a tiny error destroys their success forever4 ,,iii ,if the thoughts of great men no longer cause miracles it is because they are too little understood1 or are misunderstood1 or are purposely distorted4 ,you are mistaken if you think they are powerless because they are beautiful4 ,the war1 which has crushed such great masses of men1 has brought us face to face with this melancholy evidence1 it has enabled us thoroughly to examine many individuals and to put many experiences to the proof4 ,it has permitted us to measure the whole humiliation of moral civilization before that other1 the scientific and industrial civilization which we might still better call practical civilization4 ,gifted1 serious1 good men have said to me1 8,first of all one has to live4 ,you can see1 in the midst of this hurricane1 what would become of a people weakened by idealism and given over to the works of the spirit4 ,my son will study chemistry4 ,the coming century will be a hard one1 my son will perhaps never have the time to read ,emerson or acquaint himself with the works of ,bach6 ,too bad6 ,but first of all one has to live40 ,does it not seem as if error had a dazzling power to seduce us and overwhelm us8 ,men are always hoping to conquer it by yielding to its demands4 ,no one has the courage to turn his own steps away from its shifting shore4 ,no one1 for example1 says to me3 8,the moral culture of the world is in peril4 ,mechanical progress monopolizes and swallows up all human energy4 ,the generous soul of the best men is forgotten1 in exile4 ,let us1 with a common voice1 with all our strength1 summon it to come back to us1 or let us go and die in exile with it1 in an exile that is noble and pure40 ,,iv ,i shall speak to you again of all these things2 we must talk a great deal more about the future if we wish to enter it without blindness1 shame1 and horror4 ,for the moment1 glance at the people who surround us1 the restless people we see on all sides4 ,there are some of them who know what is beautiful4 ,they rejoice in it1 almost in secrecy1 and despise those who do not share their faith4 ,as for the others1 they do not know it1 and that is all one can say4 ,they are1 according to their several characters1 ignorant and sceptical1 or just simply ignorant4 ,they see how works of art and the spirit miraculously survive the decadence and the prosperity of empires3 that astonishes them without convincing them4 ,many divine that this has something to do with a secret and sacred power1 but they do not dare and they do not know how to avail themselves of it4 ,they catch glimpses of the feast of the heroes and they cannot realize that their place is marked and waiting for them4 ,among my everyday companions are many educated men upon whom the universities have lavished their care and their degrees4 ,many of them are interested neither in their duties1 nor in their comrades1 nor1 one would say1 in their own thoughts4 ,they play cards1 read the papers1 think about women and complain of ennui1 for the war has enthroned boredom4 ,and yet these souls1 ,i assure you1 are of good material and full of energy and resource4 ,what is to be done8 ,how is one to introduce them to a larger1 fuller life8 ,how can one dare to do that without presumption1 and also without fear of pomposity8 ,how do it with affection1 without lecturing them1 without preaching to them8 ,how be useful and friendly with simplicity8 ,they have suffered1 they have experience and obstinate views of their own4 ,they do not believe that they have been dispossessed of anything4 ,you have to listen very attentively to hear their soul groaning in the depths4 ,i spoke to one of them about music4 ,he replied with an indifference in which there was a touch of discouragement2 8,for my part1 ,i don't understand music4 ,it can't interest me40 ,we went on talking and ,i discovered that he was strangely sensitive to architectual matters1 that he had a very subtle understanding and lacked nothing but enlightenment1 knowledge1 to have applied himself to it with passionate interest4 ,it is usually that way4 ,the field of moral activity is so large that it has in reserve for every soul a path of his own choice1 accessible and full of allurement4 ,i do not believe there is a single individual who cannot end by meeting1 in the limitless realm of art1 with a mode of expression that touches him1 conforms quite accurately to his powers and tastes4 ,v ,you see ,i have waited a long time before pronouncing the word4 ,i must at last make up my mind to call art by its name4 ,listen and do not confuse modesty with timidity4 ,the past century has produced important artists in every country in the world4 ,that was a beautiful1 fertile and truly generous century6 ,and yet it witnessed the birth of a misunderstanding that grows more obdurate1 that increases as it grows older4 ,should one ever allow a misunderstanding to grow old8 ,the romantic writers and1 following them1 all the artists of their epoch1 intoxicated with their own genius1 honored art as a religion4 ,it was natural enough since at that moment1 as we know1 mankind was beginning to detach itself from its divinities1 and it is hard to live without ,god4 ,i cannot bring myself to condemn that enthusiasm4 ,i love art too well1 and ,i shall always hold it as one of the distinguishing marks of man and one of the greatest things in this world4 ,but the priests of this new ,god have acted like all priests3 they have hurled anathemas and brought in a reign of intolerance4 ,they have grown mad with pride1 when there was reason and when there was no reason for it4 ,they have cried out at all hours of the day1 8,away1 profane ones60 ,many of them1 who have had very noble souls1 have discouraged1 as if designedly1 those whom their radiant face has fascinated4 ,others1 instead of struggling1 have held the epoch responsible for their ill-fortune4 ,all of them1 poets1 painters1 musicians1 have let it be understood that they exercised a divine power and that the mass of men must only wonder and be silent1 without themselves attempting anything of the sort4 ,no doubt there is a certain virtue in this attitude2 it has lavished solitary consolations on those who have turned their backs on fashion4 ,the worthiest heirs of these illustrious men have confirmed their tradition4 ,they have devised a splendid isolation1 raised up a tower of ivory and dug all about it a moat that every day grows deeper4 ,they have also stirred up childish and shame-faced adversaries with a desire for the commonest sort of popularity1 and the confirmation of billboard success4 ,yet humanity is waiting and longs to be treated neither as intruders nor as children4 ,,vi ,it cannot be said any longer that pure art is of no use3 it helps us to live4 ,it helps us to live1 in the most practical manner and every day4 ,every moment you make instinctive1 reiterated1 and forcible appeals to all the forms of art4 ,and that not only in order to express your thought1 but still more and above all to shape your thought1 to think your thought4 ,you find yourself in the midst of a landscape1 and there is an image at the back of your eye4 ,the manner in which you accept and interpret this image bears the mark of your personality and also of a crowd of other personalities which you call to your aid without knowing it4 ,the day when the painters of our continent invented that convention we call perspective1 they modified and determined1 for many long years1 our way of seeing things4 ,it must be recognized equally that since the reign of impressionism we have understood1 possessed in a new way1 the colors of the world4 ,you live in a sonorous universe where everything is rhythm1 tone1 number and harmony3 human voices1 the great sounds of nature1 the artificial uproar of society envelopes you in a vibrant and complex network that you ought unceasingly to decipher and translate4 ,well1 this you cannot do without submitting to the influence of the great souls who have occupied themselves with these things4 ,the understanding of movements1 harmonies1 rhythms1 only comes to you at the moment when the musicians reveal their secret to you1 since they have been able1 in some fashion1 to interest you in them4 ,and this is true in regard to everything4 ,if you discover something in your environment1 if you perceive an interesting harmony between two beings1 a curious relation between two ideas1 you will succeed in throwing them into relief1 in giving happy expression to them1 only by means of the poet's art1 and if you cannot find terms and images of your own1 you can freely borrow them from ,hugo1 from ,baudelaire1 from those unknown artists who have elaborated the common language of men4 ,we do not think alone4 ,resign yourself1 therefore1 to being the delighted prisoner of a vast1 human system from which you cannot escape without error and loss4 ,become1 with good grace1 the friend and the guest of great men4 ,,vii ,they will introduce you to a profound1 passionate1 lyrical life4 ,they will aid you to possess the world4 ,art is not simply a manner of moving the pencil1 the pen or the bow4 ,it is not a secret1 technical process4 ,it is1 above everything else1 a way of living4 ,if your business is to grow wheat or to smelt copper1 perform it with interest and skill4 ,that will render service to other men whose function is to assemble colors1 shapes1 words or sounds4 ,they will know how to render service to you1 in their own fashion1 repay you in turn4 ,but do not imagine that their works are destined merely to divert your leisure4 ,they have a more sacred1 a more beautiful mission3 that of placing you in possession of your own wealth4 ,art is the supreme gift that men make of their discoveries1 their riches4 ,no one has possessed the world better than ,lucretius1 ,shakespeare or ,goethe4 ,what do you know of ,croesus1 who heaped up his gold to such an abnormal and monstrous degree8 ,nothing has remained of that chimerical fortune but a vague memory4 ,but the fortune of ,rembrandt has become and will remain the fortune of our race4 ,to follow the example of these masters is not so much to try1 with pen or palette in hand1 to imitate them1 as to understand with them1 and thanks to them1 what they have understood4 ,this cannot hurt your pride or hinder the expansion of your own personality4 ,quite the contrary4 ,this studious humility is the surest path toward the conquest of your own soul4 ,the anatomists will explain to you that the human embryo adopts successively1 in its quick evolution1 all the forms the species has known before its actual flowering4 ,this great law rules also in the moral order1 and do not count on escaping it4 ,it is by first knowing the world through the masters that you will succeed some day in grasping it in your hands1 dominating it yourself4 ,ambition is an intoxicating passion1 but to go to school to genius is a prudent measure and a sweet experience1 too4 ,,viii ,if you are unhappy1 oppressed1 if you have melancholy doubts of your future1 of your ability1 of your power to love1 and if nothing in heaven replies to your prayer1 to your need for deliverance1 remember that you are not abandoned without resource4 ,men remain to you4 ,the best among them have made for your consolation1 for your redemption1 statues1 books and songs4 ,open one of these books1 therefore1 and plunge into it6 ,sink into it as into a cool forest1 as into a deep1 running brook4 ,a man is speaking to you of himself or of the world4 ,read6 ,read on6 ,little by little the harmonious voice envelopes you1 cradles you1 lifts you up and suddenly bears you away4 ,the tightness in your throat seems to relax1 you breathe with a sort of fervor and exaltation4 ,generous tears start to your eyes or your whole soul shakes with laughter4 ,this great and wholesome exaltation people attribute to the miraculous presence of beauty4 ,no doubt1 no doubt6 ,but that vague and simple explanation is an almost mythical one4 ,for you must realize that the man with whom you have just been having a sort of intimate colloquy has comforted you and carried you out of yourself mainly because he has been able to prove to you that you were neither abandoned1 nor destitute1 nor truly disgraced4 ,he has seemed to you great but1 in recalling to you that you are of the same race as himself1 he has effaced himself before you4 ,he has given you happy1 courageous1 new thoughts1 and you have suddenly seen that you were thinking them also4 ,for a second you have both communed together4 ,and you have felt yourself once more in possession of a treasure that was escaping you4 ,it is true1 all these thoughts are your own1 since it is enough for you to see them in writing to recognize them4 ,it is true1 you too have your grandeur1 your nobility and infinite resources4 ,how could you have forgotten it for a moment8 ,it is enough for you to open that book or to hum that song to remember it4 ,it is true1 your life also is astonishing and full of adventures4 ,how did you fall into that despair8 ,what did that discouragement signify8 ,,ix ,during the winter of #aiag1 ,i made the acquaintance of a young provincial musician who was serving in the same unit with me4 ,at ,soissons we found a room where we were able to meet and play together4 ,our new comrade was a simple man with a country accent4 ,he played the violin carefully and with talent4 ,often1 during our concerts1 we watched his face as it bent over the instrument1 and it seemed to us that in those moments that humble violinist was in communion with the great souls of ,bach1 ,beethoven1 and ,franck1 that he was holding a brotherly and affectionate conversation with them4 ,i felt then that he had nothing to envy in the princes of this world4 ,and it is a fact1 ,i believe1 that he did not envy them anything4 ,do not tell me that you do not know how to play any instrument4 ,that signifies nothing4 ,there are two skilful professional musicians in my group who play their instruments only just enough to enable them not to lose practice for their calling4 ,they are a sort of mechanician4 ,as for you1 you have a heart1 ears1 and a memory4 ,and that's the main thing4 ,believe that what you hold in your memory is more precious than everything else1 for you carry that with you wherever you go1 through all your days4 ,do you think ,i can ever bore myself1 with all those thousands of airs that sing in my head1 that secretly accompany all my thoughts and offer a sort of harmonious comment upon all the acts of my life8 ,if this does not seem possible to you1 remember that you possess the immense library of humankind and all its museums4 ,think of all you have read and admired4 ,think of it with pride and affection4 ,think of all that remains to you to see and to read and tell yourself how marvelous it is to be so ignorant as to have such riches in reserve1 to have such treasures to conquer4 ,amid the ordeals and the disillusionments of your existence1 lift your soul every day toward those divine brothers who are our masters1 and repeat with a proud humility3 8,it is sweet to sit down at your feast6 ,and how good to think that it is to you we owe our opulence and our prosperity60 ,,vi ,,sorrow ,,and ,,renunciation ,i ,if1 concerning an old man1 some one said to us3 8,he has been perfectly happy all his life1 he is going to die without ever having suffered10 we should be incredulous at first2 then1 if we were obliged to admit the truth of the remark1 we should feel for this old man not so much envy as pity4 ,with our astonishment would be mingled1 in spite of all1 something a little like contempt4 ,happiness is our aim1 the final reason for our living4 ,but is it fair to say that sorrow is opposed to happiness8 ,there are sorrows that one cannot1 that one should not1 escape4 ,they are the very price we pay for happiness4 ,it is by means of them that we travel toward our own development4 ,they prepare us for joy and render us worthy of it4 ,without them1 could we ever know that we were happy8 ,if ,i believed1 ,o my unknown friend for whom today ,i am hoping these consolations1 if ,i believed that you could reach happiness1 that is to say1 the harmonious prosperity of your soul1 without experiencing any agonies1 ,i should not undertake to praise your suffering4 ,but you suffer1 ,i know it1 and you are called to other sufferings4 ,henceforth ,i shall not refrain from praising what wounds you4 ,for one does not console anyone by depreciating his grief1 but by showing him how beautiful1 how rare1 how desirable it is1 and your suffering can truly be called that4 ,i do not dream1 then1 of depriving you of your wealth4 ,i only hope that you will be able to appreciate its full value4 ,i beg that you will pardon me if ,i chance to hurt you by placing my hand upon your wound4 ,i do it1 you may be sure1 with the affection and the solicitude of a man who has consecrated his life to such tasks4 ,they will tell you1 my friend1 that ,i am seeking to flatter your distress by reasonings that are full of guile1 that ,i am singing to lull you to sleep and deceive you1 that ,i am dressing in the gilded clothes of an age that is past the black demon that torments you4 ,let me still have your confidence3 ,i have only one ambition1--it is your own greatest joy4 ,i could not lead you astray without shame and without deceiving myself2 for are you not indeed myself1 ,o my friend8 ,,ii ,there are some material fortunes which humble and reasonable men do not desire because they divine1 in spite of the pleasures that result from them1 what a crushing load they are4 ,by contrast1 among the spiritual riches that we are able to possess1 grief seems surrounded by a simple aureole4 ,it is tyrannical1 redoubtable1 mutilating2 its favorites are its victims4 ,it does not descend upon its chosen ones with the softness of a dove1 it pounces like a bird of prey1 and those whom it carries off into the sky bear upon their sides the marks of its clenched claws4 ,but it is the sign of life2 of all our possessions it is the last to leave us1 it is the one that escorts us to the brink of the abyss4 ,it gives us the measure of man4 ,he who has not suffered always seems to us a little like a child or a pauper4 ,the bitterness of men who have been often visited by sorrow is so truly a treasure that1 if they could1 they would not rid themselves of it for anything in the world3 it resembles authority4 ,through his tears1 through his martyrdom1 he who is charged with a great sorrow feels that he is the abode of some terrible thing that is also sacred and majestic4 ,great griefs command our respect4 ,before them knees tremble and heads bow as in the presence of thrones and tabernacles4 ,he who has suffered greatly makes us feel timid and humble before him4 ,he knows things that we can only guess4 ,we gaze upon him with passionate admiration as upon a traveller who has journeyed over oceans and explored far countries4 ,it is at the time of his first wounds that the young man discovers his soul and plumbs his inner nobility4 ,our grief is so precious a blessing that for its sake we dread inquisitive contacts4 ,we preserve it jealously from the touch of those who might1 through clumsiness or stupidity1 debase this terrible and precious treasure4 ,we long only that people should leave us alone with this bitter possession6 ,let them beware of frustrating us when they imagine that they are working for our relief6 ,when sorrow leaves us too soon1 we feel a sort of shame and think less well of ourselves3 it shone out of its shadowy casket1 out of the deepest depths of the chest where we heap up our true treasures1 and now1 behold1 it has vanished6 ,we find ourselves almost miserable and utterly dispossessed4 ,the man who beats a retreat before a great ordeal fills us with distrust and pity4 ,something in us rejoices that he has not suffered4 ,but something regrets that he has not given his measure1 that he has not been the hero1 the potent1 exceptional man we hoped he would be4 ,and that is not a mere perversion of our need for the spectacular3 we are not less exacting with ourselves4 ,when sorrow comes to us1 and we manage to escape it1 the first sense of deliverance we feel is marred by an obscure1 obstinate regret1 as if we had lost an opportunity to enrich ourselves4 ,tell me1 what man among us did not1 at the outset of the present great catastrophe1 interrogate his own fate with a double anguish3 the anguish to know what sufferings were in store for him1 the fear also that he might not suffer enough1 that he might not receive1 and quickly1 an adequate share of the ordeal4 ,,iii ,this religious respect we experience in the face of grief gives its meaning and beauty to the feeling of sympathy4 ,we do not wish to admit that a great grief can live side by side with us without demanding that we should share it4 ,as a man of lowly station wistfully approaches the table of princes1 so we revolve about the grief of others in the hope of being invited to partake of it4 ,it is an overmastering impulsion that rises from the depths of our natures4 ,the eagerness we are able to bring to the sharing of others' joys is but lukewarm beside the insurmountable urge that makes us share in their sorrow4 ,this is because our taste for joy is stamped with a keen quality of reserve1 an irreducible delicacy4 ,the joy even of those who are nearest to us can easily become repugnant to us4 ,we are too proud to seem eager for it4 ,true grief1 on the contrary1 attracts us1 fascinates us4 ,it disarms our critical sense and leaves us only an obscure feeling of envy4 ,sympathy stirs us gently without overwhelming us2 it is for this reason too that we find it so full of savor4 ,although we recoil from the terrors of the leading part1 sympathy permits us to play passionately the rle of supernumeraries4 ,it is not we who are struck down and yet we can taste the mystic horror of the wound4 ,the chosen victim bestows alms upon us and we accept them without shame4 ,we have the perfume of the ,host on our lips and it is not our blood that has paid the sacrifice4 ,we are the guests at a sumptuous and tragic feast4 ,we bear the reflected light of the great funeral pyre1 without undergoing the flames and the destruction4 ,that explains our leaning toward those works of art that find their strength and their subjects in human grief4 ,it is for this reason1 surely1 that we love so dearly to shed tears at the theater4 ,the great artists have drawn from grief their most beautiful inspirations4 ,we vow eternal gratitude to those who can revive in us a faithful image of our torments and call them back to our forgetful souls1 to those who know so well how to give us a foretaste of the delights that future suffering has in store for us4 ,,iv ,not all griefs exalt us and add to us4 ,there are some that are sterile1 withering1 unconfessable4 ,such griefs bring only misery and impoverishment4 ,in the moral order they stand for debts and failures4 ,however great may be our blind indulgence for ourselves1 we cannot1 on principle1 impute them to ourselves4 ,they do not bear the stamp of destiny but of our own baseness4 ,who1 indeed1 would wish to share them with us1 when we do not even let them appear8 ,who would wish to associate himself with our weaknesses1 our shames1 our jealousies1 our betrayals8 ,who can feel sympathy for a grief that disavows everything pure and generous that exists in us8 ,no mention is made of these griefs in the ,beatitudes4 ,christ himself might ask us to kiss the face of a leper4 ,but what charity could so sacrifice itself as to embrace our shame and our degradation8 ,that is the cup we must put away from our lips4 ,v ,the stoics pursue their strange happiness with an impassibility that is worse than death4 ,epictetus writes3 8,if you love an earthen vessel1 tell yourself that you love an earthen vessel1 for then if that vessel is broken you will not be troubled by it4 ,if you love your son or your wife1 tell yourself that you love a mortal being1 for then if that being chance to die you will not be troubled by it40 ,comes our wisdom at such a price8 ,if so1 ,i renounce and abhor it4 ,better trouble and sorrow than this inhuman serenity6 ,certainly ,i willingly renounce the earthen vessel2 the sound of its breaking will never be loud enough to interrupt the conversation our souls pursue4 ,but those dear faces that are my horizon1 my heaven and my homeland1 can ,i think without anguish of losing them forever8 ,how irreparably ,i should despise myself if1 on that condition1 ,i succeeded in winning my own salvation6 ,this philosophy is poor1 forsaken1 desperate1 rather than truly wise4 ,it renounces1 by degrees1 everything1 for the sake of an ironical peace4 ,it withdraws from life the least debatable motives for continuing it4 ,it seeks to close the heart to sorrow4 ,but since that remains inevitable1 it is better to love it1 better to make an ally of it1 better to conquer it by main strength and possess it intimately4 ,dryness of heart cannot be a good thing4 ,what1 is everything to be taken away from me1 even my grief1 even that grief which remains to us when all other blessings have been ravished away8 ,the resources of philosophy are poor and destitute unless the heart can anoint them1 sanctify them1 and invest them with its own supreme authority4 ,,vi ,the fanaticism of grief is a fact so profoundly human that religions and governments have exploited it successfully4 ,this almost mystical passion flourishes so well among peoples that are permeated with the ancient traditions of suffering and renunciation6 ,nevertheless1 the path does not lie through this sublime error1 which is altogether too favorable for the enterprises of criminal ambition4 ,sorrow cannot be a thing that one covets4 ,it is1 it ought to be1 simply a thing that one accepts4 ,like certain terrible dignities1 like certain overwhelming honors1 one receives it1 one does not seek it4 ,destiny brings a sufficient burden of mourning and cruelty1 it should not be tempted4 ,the noble life demands that we shall be courageous1 it does not require us to be foolhardy4 ,to him who 8seeks while he groans10 suffering will never be wanting4 ,at this hour the whole world is intoxicated with it1 satiated1 it would seem1 for all time4 ,at this hour there rises an immense cry of pity and supplication4 ,all generous souls are wounded to the quick and stagger4 ,it is not in the moment when they beg for mercy that one would desire a superaddition of martyrdom4 ,it is enough to assume the sanguinary wealth with which we are overwhelmed4 ,no one will ever be deprived of it who lives for love4 ,we shall all be honored according to our merits4 ,and we shall know that grief is its own reward2 for it is in sorrow and abnegation that our soul becomes supremely aware of the beauty of the world and of its own virtues4 ,we cannot ask to be indemnified for our riches4444 ,,vii ,in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children6 ,it is true6 ,our child was born in sorrow1 in your sorrow1 ,o my friend6 ,i am jealous because of it4 ,forgive me6 ,forgive me1 for your part is more beautiful than mine1 inasmuch as it contains more suffering4 ,let me look upon you with envy4 ,let me think of my own lot with regret4 ,you have borne1 you have brought forth1 you have nourished4 ,it was not in my side that this little body lay4 ,it is not my flesh this tender1 greedy mouth has clung to4 ,i have known nothing of that suffering4 ,you have kept it all for yourself4 ,i have only picked up the crumbs1 like a beggar1 like a pauper4 ,i have not suffered6 ,i have not suffered enough6 ,i look on my happiness as upon something usurped4 ,it is your happiness that ,i share4 ,it is your wealth that overflows even upon me4 ,i know that a day may come when we shall both suffer together because of this son4 ,but whatever may be our common anguish1 you will always keep the first place1 you will always walk before me4 ,you have forever outdistanced me along the shining road4 ,how can ,i help regarding you with envy1 ,i who have not suffered enough8 ,,viii ,exalted spirits1 struck by our many resemblances to the beasts1 have striven to find what was the distinguishing mark of man4 ,it is a noble solicitude1 for wheresoever the mark of men may be it is that way we must go4 ,if we really possess a characteristic virtue of which the animals are deprived1 it is that which we must exalt1 in order to be completely1 proudly1 men4 ,pascal said3 8,man is obviously made to think2 and his whole dignity1 his whole merit1 and his whole duty lies in thinking rightly40 ,can we indeed believe that no other being has this grandeur to any degree8 ,are we so sure that 8a tree does not know it is miserable08 ,even art1 which may turn out to be the instrument of our redemption1 is not certainly the lot of our race alone4 ,song and the dance triumph among the animals and often appear like the beautiful inventions of a gratuitous activity1 with no other end than themselves and the emotions they give or interpret4 ,in renunciation1 perhaps1 lies our distinction1 the trait which stamps us and sets us apart4 ,i say 8perhaps10 because animals also offer us examples of abnegation4 ,sacrifice beautifies even their habits4 ,with them1 too1 the individual sacrifices himself for the group1 the hero sacrifices itself for the race4 ,at the moment when ,i am writing these lines we are in autumn2 a swarm of bees is dying of cold on a branch beside me4 ,they are dying with a sort of resignation1 in order that their hive1 so poor in resources1 may survive the winter4 ,why not share1 then1 with these humble victims1 our most beautiful quality8 ,why refuse to possess something in common with them1 since it is a virtue8 ,why cut ourselves off haughtily from the rest of life8 ,over and above this1 the renunciation that has no particular or general motive of interest1 the pure and absolute renunciation which is a heroic folly1 is undoubtedly our business4 ,i am not speaking now of the renunciation of the better religions1 the renunciation that counts on celestial rewards1 but of the renunciation which is an end in itself1 which finds in itself its own sorrowful recompense4 ,,ix ,can we ever forget1 my friend1 that woman who was the lesson of your youth1 your counsellor and your example8 ,she lived in that dark1 low room where you so loved to go and to which you used to show me the way1 a way that seemed to me that of veneration itself4 ,disillusionments1 griefs1 sickness and1 without doubt1 a great need for renunciation had gradually sequestered her in that unlovely place of refuge1 encumbered with old books and full of the odor of dust4 ,she seemed cut off from the world2 but in the shadow of that retreat her eye sparkled so vivaciously1 she spoke with so melodious a voice that the world pursued her who had abandoned it even into her retirement3 the friendship of young people1 that friendship which is so pure and spontaneous1 was for her a constant testimony4 ,this was the only thing she would not renounce1 her only ornament1 her last elegance1 her possession4 ,year by year death came to snatch from her affection those of her own blood4 ,every sort of happiness withdrew from her as she retired into her abode1 light itself she dreaded more and more1 and more and more renounced4 ,every time we passed through her little door1 so slow in opening1 we had at first an insurmountable feeling of being suffocated1 for we were still intoxicated with our radiant life1 our destiny and our ambitions4 ,but soon our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness1 our souls recognized the humble1 penetrating odor of the hangings1 and we found again that beautiful1 commanding glance1 that voice with its supernatural freshness4 ,her malady struck her new blows4 ,this woman who still possessed the space of three rooms had to shut herself in one of them4 ,and then1 even of this she possessed no more than a corner4 ,her world was only a little wall and the wood of an old bed4 ,that ardent eye still shone4 ,that spiritual voice still prevailed4 ,one day the voice faltered and sank1 like a ship disabled in a storm which gives up all resistance4 ,that day we were sad1 sad1 we who had not learned to renounce4 ,x ,delivered from romanticism1 the nineteenth century toward its close and the twentieth century at its beginning1 exalted an image full of the pride of physical life1 of impetuous health4 ,never had humanity seemed more intoxicated with its carnal development1 with its splendid animality1 than at the very moment when the war broke out4 ,our humanity6 behold it now1 covered with wounds so deep that for long decades the sight of them will baffle us and fill our pity with despair4 ,behold it now1 like a vast race of invalids4 ,it creeps over a world where now there are more graveyards than villages4 ,we have had an unparalleled experience of sorrow and renunciation4 ,and yet the desire for happiness is deeply rooted3 the unanimous voice to which our world listens repeats1 from amid the sobs3 8,we shall renounce nothing60 ,to him who listens with an attentive ear1 it says again1 it says particularly3 8,we shall renounce nothing1 not even renunciation60 ,but let us leave this immense grief to itself4 ,let us leave it to satiate and appease itself with its own contemplation--,silence6 ,,vii ,,the ,,shelter ,,of ,,life ,i ,two immense worlds remain faithful to me when the others discourage or betray me4 ,two refuges open to my heart when it is weary1 faltering or harassed with temptation4 ,i should like very much to tell you about them1 since you are my friend4 ,i can tell you1 since you have nothing to envy me1 since you bear within yourself two such worlds1 two kingdoms that will submit to you undividedly1 without contest4 ,yesterday ,i was watching some prisoners working4 ,they were pushing the trunk of a tree lashed to a cart4 ,sweat was rolling down their faces1 for the heat was great1 the slope steep and the load heavy4 ,an armed soldier was watching them4 ,large letters were printed on their clothes to proclaim their servitude4 ,and ,i thought3 they live1 they do not look too unhappy1 they do not seem crushed by their condition4 ,and if this is so1 it is not because they have the placidity of beasts4 ,no6 ,look at their eyes1 listen to their voices4 ,it is precisely because they are men and they carry everywhere with them two refuges1 whither the gaoler cannot follow them1 two precious possessions that no punitive discipline can snatch from them3 their future and their memories4 ,the longer ,i watch1 from close by1 those men who1 for four years have led the inhuman life of the army1 the better ,i understand the meaning of their incredible patience3 between the future and the remembered past they have the air of awaiting the passage of a storm4 ,they are gulping down1 you would say1 hastily and with closed eyes1 this bitter and criminal present1 in order to reserve their hearts all the better for the things of the future and the past4 ,one feels in their conversation only these two luminous existences4 ,they seek and unite them unceasingly above the bloody abyss4 ,i have also observed that1 in the concerts they give themselves to cheer their periods of rest1 their souls always return1 with the same rapture1 to their former way of living1 to their old sons1 their familiar ways of being sad or joyous4 ,the artistic attempts that are carried on to interest them1 at the bottom of their hearts1 in the formidable present1 remain sterile and1 as it were1 dry4 ,they seem to reply1 silently3 8,what have all these things to do with us8 ,isn't it enough for us to live them8 ,isn't it enough for us to do them1 every day with our blood and tears8 ,give us back our dear kingdom4 ,give back to our souls that memory which is their most imperishable and marvelous possession40 ,,ii ,between the future and the remembered past1 man is left to struggle with what he possesses least1 the present4 ,and yet this present is lavish of all sorts of materials that we can transform into riches4 ,it is our liquid fortune1 mobile and in circulation4 ,it is the well-filled purse upon which we draw for our daily needs4 ,it reaches us out of the depths of time1 like a great river1 loaded with sailing-ships and steamers1 deep1 flowing1 beautiful with all its reflections1 and rolling gold in its sands4 ,but it has its rages1 its whims1 its cruelties4 ,according to the season1 it overflows and desolates the land or suddenly dries up and deserts the fields that it refreshed with its floods6 ,so be it6 ,if the present refuses to yield its manna1 we will draw upon our last resources4 ,if the times overwhelm us with bitterness1 we will flee to our refuges1 where we have nothing to fear from intruders or masters or tormentors4 ,common-sense folk1 who have the secret of debasing life in the name of a reason that is more mischievous than actual stupidity1 are in the habit of devoting an almost superstitious worship to the present reality4 ,to tell the truth1 they are greatly afraid that the taste for memory and hope will turn young men away from that immediate action which is necessary for the conquest and preservation of material wealth4 ,they honor with great pomp the origins in the past of those traditions that are favorable to them2 and the way they invoke and prepare for the future loads the present with chains and shackles4 ,they dread1 in reverie1 an enemy of action4 ,as if there were any great actions that have not their source in great dreams6 ,these people deceive themselves4 ,they sacrifice an unequalled consolation to the needs of a fleeting fortune4 ,but do not imagine that the failure of their fortune leaves these men utterly abandoned3 the refuges open gladly1 even for those who have despised them4 ,,iii ,an intimate friend once said to me1 as he watched his little son playing3 8,you see2 he's no longer the baby you knew last year4 ,he's another child4 ,i have been cheated of the one ,i had last year4 ,i shall never have him again4 ,i have lost a child40 ,o dear1 big heart1 how beautiful and how unjust those words are6 ,how human6 ,how they overflow with ingratitude and with adoration6 ,you know quite well that every object that appears on the horizon of our souls has1 for us1 two existences4 ,one is sudden1 sharp1 almost always penetrated with an intense and1 so to say1 corrosive flavor3 that is the existence of the present4 ,men agree in recognizing that its duration is hardly measurable4 ,but the other existence is perennial1 as ample as the measure of our life and our thoughts2 in this sense it is almost infinite4 ,thus each moment of the present survives in memory for years1 and doubtless for centuries1 since posterity can gather up and prolong the best of our acts and our works4 ,it is true1 my friend1 that each moment dispossesses us1 even of the object we never withdraw our arms from4 ,the miser1 infatuated with his material riches1 may well suffer agony of mind over them1 but we1 we8 ,do we not know that each moment restores to us1 transfigured1 all the treasures it has snatched away from us8 ,it robs us of the frailer blessings1 it offers us imperishable blessings1 less mortal than ourselves4 ,you have conquered one whole happy day4 ,contemplate without regret the sleep that marks its end1 for you will continue to live this day during all the rest of jour life4 ,and if this day was truly beautiful1 do you not know that others after you will continue to live it1 down1 ever farther down1 the succession of the years8 ,let your son grow1 without too much anxiety1 like a beautiful tree3 the child he was once1 the child he was but now1 the child he is at present1 you will not lose them1 ,o insatiable heart6 ,they will escort you toward old age1 like a beloved multitude that increases every day and cannot die4 ,owing to the war1 ,i have seen my own child only seven times1 and each time ,i have hardly recognized him4 ,seven times ,i have believed him lost4 ,i know now that ,i have seven lovely images in my soul1 seven children to adorn and hearten my solitude4 ,,iv ,there are beauties which the present fails to appreciate4 ,that is natural1 because it is greedy1 disordered1 care-ridden4 ,memory exists to see that justice is done4 ,to it falls the divine rle of restoring and1 at times1 pardoning4 7,it is memory which1 in the last resort1 vindicates and judges4 ,it is in its light that things appear to us under the aspect of eternity47 ,none of our thoughts would be really happy that had not received the approbation of memory1 that did not find themselves sealed at last with its sovereign imprint4 ,we do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory4 ,like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath1 our sentiments take on color2 and only then1 after that recoil and that transfiguration1 do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor4 ,days of ours that had seemed to us dull and hopeless show themselves in memory luminous and decisive4 ,journeys undertaken without eagerness1 without enthusiasm1 and without any of the freshness of surprise1 become1 from a distance1 fruitful in revelations and discoveries4 ,every reality develops with time a thousand aspects of itself that are just as real1 as charged with meaning and consequence1 as the original aspect4 ,we cannot foretell what memory will contrive for us4 ,it is a treasure all the more precious and unexpected because it is so independent of our rudimentary logic4 ,for the logic of memory is more subtle than ours2 it seems entirely free from our miserable calculations2 it draws its inspirations from our true interests1 which we ourselves are forever misapprehending4 ,the slow task it pursues testifies to so rare a virtue and so munificent a wisdom that man1 struck with his own unworthiness1 might well seek there the signs of a divine intervention4 ,sometimes it is a friend1 whom we have misunderstood or misjudged1 who takes on in memory his true aspect and his true stature and reveals the profound influence which1 without our knowing it1 he has exercised over our thoughts4 ,sometimes it is a word which we heard at first with an inattentive or distrustful ear1 and which we find again engraved in letters of gold over the portico of the secret temple where we love to collect our thoughts4 ,like some skilful goldsmith1 memory seizes the materials that our life accumulates haphazard4 ,it submits them to the touchstone1 fashions them1 embellishes them and imprints upon them that mysterious sheen which gives them their distinctive meaning and their value4 ,v ,the cult of memory should not turn us away from the present out of which memory itself draws its nourishment4 ,we sometimes meet men of whom plain people say1 with profound wisdom1 8,their mind is elsewhere40 ,it is true2 they are the timid and tormented souls who have early sought in memory a refuge which nothing1 it seems1 could ever make them renounce4 ,let us beware of troubling this retreat4 ,some day1 perhaps1 we may long for one like it4 ,but however deeply one may seem to have taken refuge in memory1 one cannot escape the clutch1 the invasion of the present4 ,it is best1 therefore1 and with all the strength that is in us1 to accept1 honor1 love this present as the principal source of our riches4 ,if the true cult of memory were a less exceptional moral usage1 many men would hesitate to create bad memories for themselves2 for our worst memories are not those of our sufferings1 our ordeals1 our privations1 but of our shameful acts1 our cowardices and our betrayals4 ,our weakness lasted only a moment2 must we really1 for thirty years1 feel the hostile stare of that moment resting heavily upon us8 ,who knows8 ,hope1 even so1 in the clemency of memory1 which is able to mitigate and pardon everything4 ,it is indulgent and full of pity4 ,in a world given over to spite and reprisals1 it remains the only inviolable refuge of the outcast1 as the cathedrals used to be in the days of the right of sanctuary4 ,for him who descends with true fervor into his own depths1 memory always preserves some corner pure from all baseness4 ,do we not know1 moreover1 that in order to console us memory consents to work in concert even with its enemy1 forgetfulness8 ,,vi ,who can dispute with us the world of memory8 ,no one6 ,and who would dare1 without fear1 to do so8 ,it is because we are more ardently attached to this possession than to any other4 ,at times1 a clumsy or malevolent hand succeeds in smirching one of our dear memories4 ,then we experience an indignation and a despair as lasting and profound as if these sentiments recognized their cause in the loss or the fall of a loved being4 ,happily this criminal work implies a rarely evil spirit1 a sort of perverse genius of which humanity is none too prodigal4 ,and then our memory is a territory too vast1 too mountainous1 too impregnable as a whole for the rage of hostile destruction to be able to defile or mar large portions of it4 ,the best of our memories thus remain in safety and for us alone4 ,besides1 we keep careful watch around this fortune4 ,our great memories are actual moral personages1 so necessary to our happiness that we bear them under a sacred arch1 sheltered from all injury1 from all contact4 ,it is into this solitude that we go ceaselessly to question them1 invoke them1 call them to witness4 ,a past in common does not always give memories in common1 so true it is that the heart defends itself1 in its innermost retreat1 as the physical self defends its flesh against the intrusions of the stranger4 ,it sometimes happens that men find pleasure in recalling in our presence the episodes of an existence that was passed1 by themselves or by them and us1 in companionship4 ,it is then that we measure the road our soul has travelled on its solitary path3 these things of which they speak to us1 these deeds which1 it seems1 we have performed1 these landscapes which they remember having crossed in our company1 we no longer recognize2 we do not even wish to recognize them4 ,we smile in an embarrassed1 awkward1 unhappy way4 ,our whole attitude says3 8,is it really true that we have drunk from the same cup8 ,for all that1 it was not the same wine we drank1 and my intoxication is not yours40 ,we cannot give to one who is dear to us a greater proof of love than to admit him to the intimacy of our memories4 ,we have need of all our tenderness to help us to introduce another soul into the subterranean basilica1 to lead that soul as close as possible to the refuge where1 in spite of all1 there is only room for one4 ,perfect communion in memory is an extraordinary favor1 and an admonition4 ,if it is given to you to enjoy it1 open your arms and receive one elect soul4 ,,vii ,no doubt you have had the experience1 when passing through a country where you were travelling for the first time1 of stopping short1 as you rounded a mountain1 before some unknown horizon1 and finding it strangely familiar4 ,no doubt you have had the experience of arriving at night in a dark square where you knew you had never been before1 and briskly finding your way through it1 just as if you were resuming some old habit4 ,at times the spectacle of a smiling valley arrests you at the top of some hill4 ,you thought you knew nothing of this country1 and yet strange and sure impressions guide you2 they are like old memories4 ,you advance1 and behold1 you are looking at everything as if you recognized it4 ,that road which winds between the pastures1 as supple and sinuous as a beautiful river of yellow water1--you are almost certain you have followed it long ago1 in some misty1 far-off existence which1 nevertheless1 is not your own4 ,there are times1 too1 when you are dreaming1 as you sit alone1 and suddenly a memory passes over you3 the memory of some act the man you are surely never performed4 ,yet it is not a fabrication1 an invention4 ,you know1 you feel1 that it is a personal memory4 ,a memory of what world8 ,of what life8 ,do not reject this shadowy treasure1 and do not tremble6 ,do not accept complacently the explanations of the superstitious or of the pseudo-scientists4 ,the flesh of your flesh was not born yesterday4 ,something survives in it that is contemporaneous with all the generations4 ,many a revelation awaits us4 ,let us keep for them a soul that is accessible1 experienced1 and not too distrustful4 ,,viii ,do not imagine that to possess memory is to possess a dead world4 ,among your friends there is surely one who has a house and a garden4 ,from time to time he invites you to visit him4 ,every time you enter his house you observe some striking change3 he has connected two parts of the building which till then had no means of communication4 ,he has planted some new trees4 ,the old elms are flourishing4 ,some rosebushes have died4 ,urns have been set out on the lawn4 ,the life of men1 of animals1 of plants has drawn the inanimate world into its toils1 modeled it1 sculptured it1 forced it to take part in the movement of the soul4 ,it is in like fashion that the domains of memory cultivate themselves and live4 ,they are not ruins1 inalterable1 rigid1 fixed forever in the ice of some past epoch4 ,life still penetrates and moves them2 they do not cease to share in its enterprises1 its labors1 its festivals4 ,when a man has opened for you several times the same gate in the wall1 when several times he has related the same adventure to you1 with intervals of a few months or a few years1 observe closely the spots to which he leads you and the persons to whom he presents you4 ,every time you will find new things1 you will find that roads have been laid out1 underbrush cut down1 windows opened and unexpected supernumeraries called in4 ,is it true then that that was a dead tale1 wrapped up in what we call the shroud of the past8 ,the world of 8living memory0 is so indissolubly bound up with our resolutions and our acts that in accumulating memories we feel we are preparing1 erecting our future itself4 ,,ix ,there is another refuge6 8,what makes hope so intense a pleasure10 writes ,m4 ,bergson1 8is that the future1 which we fashion to suit ourselves1 appears to us at one and the same time under a multitude of forms1 all equally smiling1 equally possible4 ,even if the most desirable of them all is realized1 we must have sacrificed the others1 and we shall have lost much4 ,the idea of the future1 pregnant with infinite possibilities1 is therefore more fertile than the future itself1 and that is why we find more charm in hope than in possession1 in reverie than in reality40 ,the idea of the future alone interests us3 that alone is our treasure1 that alone is endowed with existence4 ,it is that indeed which we call the future4 ,and if ,m4 ,bergson1 at the end of these admirable lines1 creates a distinction between the future and the idea of the future1 he does not make us forget that he has just1 and as if by design1 caused the confusion2 for what 8we fashion to suit ourselves0 is the idea of the future1 and nothing else4 ,but1 following the example of ,m4 ,bergson1 let us call our idea of the future the future itself4 ,this idea is our cherished fortune4 ,certainly we take a passionate interest in seeking1 in what flows out of the present1 something that resembles the realization of our dreams4 ,and yet their realization1 like their failure1 marks1 in every sense1 their end1 their exhaustion4 ,and that is insupportable to us4 ,whatever fate the present reserves for our imaginings1 we labor every day1 as fast as time devours them and destroys them by making them finite1 to push them further back into the infinite1 to prolong them1 to reconstruct them1 so that we may never have less of a future at our disposal4 ,this need of a future1 which has no other connection than our hope with the rugged actuality of the present1 is so deep-rooted1 so generally human a thing1 that one cannot contemplate it without a respect which is almost religious4 ,in order that this future1 so pregnant with dreams1 should be as necessary as it is to the moral life of most men1 it must represent a truly incomparable treasure4 ,the embrace we throw around it is the close and powerful embrace we reserve for those possessions that lie nearest our hearts4 ,and1 since we have already detached the word 8possession0 from the gross meaning that is usually attributed to it1 let us say that the possession of a dream1 when it assures our happiness1 is a reality less debatable and less illusory than the possession of a coal-mine or a field of wheat4 ,but as there is no possession without conquest1 without effort1 we must merit our dreams and cultivate them lovingly4 ,if people who have taken the mould of reason reproach us with distracting for a moment the men of that practical reality which pretends to be preparing the future1 we are ready to reply to them3 8,glance at those men to whom our words are addressed4 ,you know that they are crushed with fatigue and privation4 ,they have experienced every danger and every sort of weariness4 ,by what right will you hinder them from taking refuge in a world which is henceforth the least contestable of their domains8 ,do not1 on their account1 be afraid of reverie2 it could never fill them with as much bitterness as does this modern reality of which you are the unpunished builders4 8,if you are not weary of glimpsing your future through the specifications1 the account-books1 the cage-bars1 and the unbreathable fumes of industrialism1 at least allow these to cherish a marvelous and1 in spite of all its disappointments1 an efficacious future4 ,it is not a question of forgetting life1--that is too beautiful and too desirable1 but rather of amplifying and fertilizing it4 ,whatever may be the outcome of a generous dream1 it always ennobles the man who has entertained it4 ,allow the unhappy to be rich in a possession that costs them only love and simple faith4 ,do not let your reason dispossess them of the only treasure that your greed has not been able to snatch from them4 ,it is the cult of the future and of memory that sustains man in the uncertainty of the present hour4 ,if he walks by instinct towards these refuges1 do not turn him aside1 and think1 ,o priests of reason1 of the warning of ,pascal3 #8,it is on the knowledge of the heart and of the instincts that ,reason has to lean1 and establish there the whole of her discourse'40 ,x ,i have seen thousands of men suffer and die4 ,every day ,i see new ones enter the somber arena and struggle4 ,my part is to help them in this torment1 to assure them aid and hope4 ,i have a wide experience of these things now and ,i know that men are never denied a future1 even when life is on the point of betraying them4 ,philosophers and poets1 led astray by religion or by a mystical passion for death1 have given the severe counsel that we should never conceal from the dying the approach of their annihilation4 ,it is a theoretical view of charity1 an artificial1 mischievous doctrine that does not stand the test1 that should not be put to the test4 ,its partisans suspect falsehood where there is only pity and modesty1 for it is not the part of man to be so proud of his own judgment as to take away from someone with the certitude of life that fabulous future which is more precious than life itself4 ,i remember1 in #aiae1 a wounded man1 who had just received the visit of a priest moved by praiseworthy intentions and a clumsy exaltation1 saying to me suddenly1 8,i know now that ,i am going to die60 and beginning to weep terribly4 ,i went to see the priest and reproached him for his behavior4 8,what60 that eloquent man replied haughtily1 8do you who are incapable of preserving this unhappy man's earthly life blame me for assuring him his future life80 ,alas6 ,alas6 ,i still think of the sobs of that wounded man2 they were those of one who has just lost his supreme wealth and to whom nothing else can make amends4 ,soldiers who1 in the full vigor of their youth1 suffer a severe1 a final mutilation experience at first that is like a veritable amputation of their future1 so true is it that every part of our physical self is intimately bound up with the labors of our dream4 ,then1 with surprising rapidity1 and long before the disorder of the tissues has been exorcised1 one sees them filling in the moral breach1 raising up the crumbled wall1 propping it hastily and reconstructing1 quite as new but quite complete and tightly shut1 the sacred fortress outside which their soul remains vulnerable and disarmed4 ,in truth1 the man who is condemned to death is still rich in the future1 even when his body sinks1 ten times pierced by bullets1 even when he has only one drop of blood left1 one flickering spark of life4 ,,xi ,o present hour1 magnificent1 foaming fountain1 you know very well that we shall be faithful to you6 ,with your thousand animated faces1 your landscapes1 your problems1 your combats and that heavy burden of jostling ideas you carry with you1 you will always attract us1 you will see us all together drinking of your waters4 ,but when you no longer contain for us anything but anger and hatred1 greed and cruelty1 then indeed we must each of us abandon you and turn to our refuges2 we must each of us withdraw into the ,thebaid where all things still respond to our voice1 to our voice alone4 ,may our fate preserve us from the greatest of all misfortunes6 ,may our refuges never lose in our eyes their virtue and their security6 ,this supreme affliction at times befalls us1 and it is then that our souls1 exiled from their homeland1 must set themselves humbly to the search for the lost grace4 ,,viii ,,the ,,choice ,,of ,,the ,,graces ,i ,what man1 tell me1 what man1 were he suddenly delivered from disgust with himself1 from terror of the world1 from the sadness of an age that is without pity1 from remorse for a thing he has done1 from the fear of things he has to do1 what man1 suffering from one of these evils1 or from several of them or from all at once1 would not experience an immense relief1 would not feel a certain absolution for the errors of the universe1 a certain alleviation of his own in the contemplation of this little osier-bed which ,i descry this evening1 at the turning of a lane8 ,what is there so profound1 so divine in that scene8 ,nothing1 nothing1 no doubt4 ,everything1 perhaps4 ,for who would venture to maintain that there is anything in the world that might not be a sign for my heart and yet be nothing more8 ,i was following a stone wall1 an indecipherable wall at present1 without significance1 without compassion1 an enemy4 ,it shut in my view and my thoughts1 it was covered with cold mosses and all the dampness of winter4 ,and then1 all at once1 the wall ended and there was a little valley crowned with these osiers4 ,yes1 ,i mean crowned1 for it seemed as if all its desires had been granted1 all its aspirations satisfied1 all its prayers fulfilled4 ,thousands of crimson branches rose in a chorus toward heaven1 like clusters of some smooth1 straight1 up-springing coral4 ,all the branches rose together1 with one brotherly impulse1 like the desires of a world freed from ambitions and vowed to the one1 the noblest ambition of all4 ,but why seek for words1 why strive to paint it8 ,surely it was not the flaming sap of the young shoots any more than the little rivulets smoking like censers at their feet1--it was neither of these things that promised relief and deliverance4 ,it was the entire world that manifested itself in this1 its smallest fragment1 just as the most secretive man will betray himself by the trembling of his little finger or the flutter of an eyelash4 ,,ii ,i was once saved by the tarpaulin of a humble delivery wagon4 ,that tarpaulin certainly knew no more about it than did the men who owned it1 or had the use of it here below4 ,there are1 in every object1 qualities we are ignorant of and that are precisely those through which this object fulfils its most beautiful rle in the universe1 those to which it inclines as if toward some miraculous purpose1 which are indeed its vocation and its true destiny4 ,i remember it was a morning in ,february1 one of those hopeless mornings which we feel do not deserve the evening and will hardly attain it4 ,i do not know what ,i had done to myself or to my men to have so completely lost all courage and purpose2 but that morning ,i was certainly the most destitute of beings and the least worthy of an act of grace4 ,yet for all that1 grace was shown me1 for that marvelous tarpaulin appeared4 ,it was of heavy canvas1 yellow and green4 ,its color1 its folds1 its whole appearance1 the form it concealed1 in fact ,i know not what element in it1 showed me that ,i still could live1 that my faults were forgiven me1 that nothing about me was irremediable4 ,i am willing to pass for a man who is eager for forgiveness1 a man who is satisfied with little4 ,we wish to set our own value on everything1 as if the things of the spirit meant the same thing as money1 as if they did not depend upon quite another spirit than that of the accountants and geometricians4 ,i met a priest1--it was since the war began1--with whom ,i often talked about penance and contrition4 ,i asked him one day what price he would ask for the remission of the heaviest burden on one's conscience4 ,he answered without hesitation3 8,three paters and three aves40 ,this man was corrupted by the customs of the world and its authorities4 ,he filled me with a sort of desire to insult him1 and ,i confess ,i gave him some rude shocks4 ,since then ,i have reflected4 ,i have not become reconciled to the memory of that priest1 but ,i believe that grace touches us in a most unforeseen way2 it shines out suddenly1 without any reason1 like the radiant blue in a sky where one has not expected it4 ,it manifests itself without regard to the efforts we make to deserve it1 and the occasions it selects are not in proportion to our distress4 ,but how sovereign it is1 how much the most desirable of all blessings6 ,remember1 remember6 you were walking through the streets1 a prey to some irremediable pain4 ,your poverty seemed unlimited1 for it could not be palliated by more money1 an improvement in your health or the renewal of a broken friendship4 ,and yet1 nevertheless1 you suddenly breathed in the wind an imperceptible odor1 familiar1 charged with memories1 you suddenly encountered in the color of a house1 or in the look of an unknown face1 some mysterious sign1 and you felt that your wealth had been given back to you1 that it flowed through you once more as the saving blood returns to the heart of the dying man4 ,i was walking one day along the banks of the ,aisne1 the prey of an illimitable mental torture which1 just because there was no reason for it1 seemed incurable4 ,the image of a bridge in the water suddenly gave me back my confidence in myself and my accustomed joyousness4 ,it was only a reflection2 but never believe those who tell you that these things are nothing but reflections4 ,,iii ,when a man who is cruelly wounded in his body or his spirit preserves a cheerful faith and never ceases to be the master of his misfortune1 ,i say that he has grace4 ,when a true man is able1 for an hour1 to contemplate without uneasiness his own thoughts and actions1 ,i say that he is touched with grace1 and ,i hope that hour may last a day and that day an entire life4 ,like a sailing-vessel that stretches through the air its slender1 vibrant cables1 probes the sky with its strong and supple masts1 offers to the wind1 at ever-varying angles1 the white resistance of its sails and marvelously dominates all the forces of the air while seeming to obey them1 the man who possesses grace enjoys a communion that is profound1 perfect1 exquisite1 not only with whatever in the world is perceptible to us1 but above all with what is unknown4 ,that man weighs much in the baskets of the winnower4 ,that man does not see only within the limits of his own flesh4 ,he fills in his own self almost the whole universe1 participates gloriously in the infinite4 ,i know that it often happens that the beautiful ship sees its sails sinking in distress and no longer feels its ropes trembling in the wind4 ,the time comes when it stops painfully in the stupor and indifference of noon4 ,the time comes when the rich man suddenly finds himself on ,job's dung-heap4 ,the time comes when1 without reason1 grace deserts the heart4 ,wait expectantly1 with sails spread like an ear1 with rigging firm1 and perhaps1 where others less trustful would find themselves abandoned1 you will perceive a certain relenting breeze4 ,you must never lose contact with the universe if you wish to live in the state of grace4 ,,iv ,welcome your own true thought1 whatever may be the hour at which it visits you4 ,if it chooses to rouse you in the middle of the night1 rise to do it honor and look at it with clear eyes4 ,there are some who have just missed an hour of greatness because they preferred to slumber under the warm eiderdown4 ,the spirit called them in a low voice1 in the darkness of the cold room2 they did not rise and they will never know what they might have become4 ,they will try to console themselves by thinking they have dreamed2 will they ever console themselves8 ,there are some who1 suddenly1 through the mist of tobacco smoke1 have seen their souls1 like some long-awaited supernatural being1 watching them4 ,at the moment they were playing cards or reading their paper2 they thought3 8,wait1 ,i'll join you in a moment40 ,the game ended1 or the paper thrown aside1 the visitor had departed4 ,they rushed forth in pursuit1 their hearts convulsed with shame and anguish4 ,alas6 the deep melancholy glance will perhaps never shine upon them again4 ,perhaps they will never again come face to face with themselves4 ,in the midst of pleasure1 when you are enjoying the company of a woman or the conversation of bold1 intelligent men1 if you chance to hear the voice of solitude singing like a siren at your feet1 leave everything to flee with her4 ,v ,when ,epictetus said3 8,our good and evil exist only in our own will10 he misstated the problem4 ,that is one way of solving it1 but more often it is a way of assuming that it has been solved1 an expedient for passing it over4 ,i am not happy today2 ,i am not pleased with myself1 ,i am not pleased with anyone2 ,i feel quite certain that everything ,i undertake will be a failure1 above all1 above all1 ,i do not want to undertake anything2 ,i view all things with an unprofitable eye1 an irritable and apparently dried-up soul4 ,i am driven to suffer myself and make others suffer4 ,oh6 ,i am without grace6 ,i know it and ,i am far from admiring myself4 ,secretly ,i long to feel grace at last descending on my head and shoulders like a mantle of soft sunshine1 like the honeyed perfume that falls from the lime-trees4 ,what does that old man want8 ,why does he repeat with a sort of obstinacy3 8,it depends upon you to make a good use of every event08 ,no doubt it depends upon me6 ,but what are we to do when nothing can be blamed upon events8 ,and what when1 indeed1 there are no events4 ,is it true that it depends upon me to be myself at such times also8 ,answer me1 great1 silent trees6 ,answer me1 fir-tree1 weighted down with sleet and dreaming--,heine has told me--of the palm consumed with burning heat in the tropics4 8,drive out10 replies the philosopher1 8drive out your desires and your fears and you will never again suffer tyranny40 ,true2 but ,i have only one fear3 not to be the best man ,i may2 only one desire1 not to give in to myself4 ,the sage shrugs his shoulders and then says in a gentle voice3 8,bear and forbear40 ,and he is not thinking only of the storms that come from without4 ,he says this because he well knows that in order to be happy one must be visited by grace4 ,all the stoics have drawn up rules of virtue4 ,not one has suggested the means that will give us the strength to apply them4 ,for the wish is not enough4 ,the gift is necessary1 that secret impulse which is grace itself4 ,,vi ,praise be to thee1 divine world1 that hast delivered me from anger by revealing to me in time that trembling blossom of the convolvulus6 ,praise be to thee1 divine world1 that1 at the very limit of my fatigue1 in the midst of my perils1 hast chosen mysterious ways to light me with an inner smile6 ,millions of unhappy men who are suffering at this moment on the fields of distracted ,europe are aware that at the blackest moment of distress a strange consolation can penetrate them2 it is as if the fingers clutching one's heart suddenly relaxed their grip4 ,there are some who call this ,god4 ,many others give no name to the miracle1 but long for it on their knees all the same4 ,the voice no longer speaks from the burning bush4 ,sometimes it is the sound of last year's leaves still rustling in the branches of an oak4 ,sometimes there is no sound2 only the speaking glance of a veronica in ecstasy among the ,april fields4 ,i am quite willing to bear1 but ,i do not wish to forbear4 ,i do not wish not to meet grace halfway1 not to seek for it in the night flooded with frosty perfumes1 in the tossing forest where two interlocked branches groan through the long hours1 on the plateau haunted with thistles that labor with feverish piety to perpetuate their innumerable lineage4 ,i ask only to be allowed to interrogate the earth like those who seek minerals and water-courses1 and to experience every morning the green ascent of the spring-time over the rocky slopes4 ,i do not know by what path joy will come2 ,i ask only to be permitted1 none the less1 to go to meet it1 for truly ,i cannot sit here by this mile-post at the cross-roads1 and placidly await it4 ,one joy has come to me during the war1 one that is undoubtedly the greatest joy of my life3 that of having a child4 ,my reason did not revolt at it1 it did not dare to tell me that it was foolhardy to desire a child at a time when the human world was left without defense against confusion1 disorder and crime4 ,yes1 ,i rejoiced to have a man-child born to me now when the future of men seems to be corrupted for long years to come4 ,i even hailed the child as a savior4 ,you see1 the paths of joy are as unknown to us as those of grace4 ,i shall not forbear1 therefore1 and when ,i feel my heart bleeding from an unjust wound ,i shall go with respectful steps and recover myself in the world of solitude4 ,i shall not ask in the name of justice1 ,i shall not insist1 ,i shall not importune2 ,i shall wait until it manifests itself and sets me free1 ,i shall wait until at last it bestows upon me the grace which1 like a fine sap1 like mother's milk1 it always contains4 ,solitude6 ,i can still conquer it among a hundred thousand chattering companions2 ,i know how to sing to myself little songs that surround me with the silence of the steppes4 ,i will go back again to the ravine where1 the whole summer long1 a blackbird ,i know of whistles that same liquid song that grows purer and more perfect from week to week4 ,ten notes are his whole career and his reason for being4 ,perhaps on a day that music will be just what my soul needs to recover its flight1 like a stranded bark which a lazy wave has just set floating4 ,i will go back to the spots where ,i have been happy1 and ,i do not think this will be very imprudent2 for1 like the perfume a woman leaves in her garments1 like a drop of wine in the bottom of a glass1 a little happiness often remains attached to things4 ,i shall go out again behind the hamlet1 where ,i know that every morning a couple of turtle-doves mingle a plaint that secretly cuts the silence1 hollows it with a melodious tunnel4 ,and ,i shall stretch myself out there1 my face to the sky1 like a well-exposed vine that longs to ripen some fine fruit4 ,i am saying what ,i shall do1 with the sole purpose1 with the deep desire1 that you will all do the same1 and that you will each turn to your favorite star2 and all this with the earnest desire that you will not be content to remain sheep marked1 without redemption1 for the knife4 ,it requires little at times4 ,the soul is not more exacting than the body4 ,i have seen exhausted soldiers whom a single swallow of brandy raised up again to the heights of courage4 ,i have seen seriously wounded men brought back to life when their bodies were turned a little in order to facilitate the uncertain flow of the blood4 ,the soul is no less fragile1 no less sensitive4 ,if the western view keeps you sad1 turn lightly to the south4 ,we do not know what the divine world holds in store4 ,,vii ,happy are those who are able to pray4 ,it is thus that ,christians solicit grace4 ,it is easy to fall on one's knees2 but to be able to pray one must already possess that grace which one implores4 ,it is so great a gift1 the gift of prayer1 that it is almost indelicate to desire anything else from it4 ,to drink is a small matter4 ,to be thirsty is everything4 ,why do the ,christians1 who counsel us to pray in order to obtain grace1 never tell us what we must do in order to be able to pray8 ,it is not for nothing1 nevertheless1 that they arrange the play of light and shade through their stained-glass windows1 the odor of stones and incense1 the silence of the vaults and the propitiatory sights of the organ1 all those harmonious snares set for the wandering prayer4 ,as for me1 ,i shall take a staff and go out seeking the solitude of the world4 ,if this world is a city street at dawn1--that will do6 ,a misty dock1 its outline broken by rails and masts1--that will do6 ,a sunken road1 lighted by the flowering broom1--that will do6 ,the court of a barrack1 the muddy enclosure of a prison-camp1 oh6 pitiful as it may seem to me1 may it still seem good6 ,if ,i can walk1 straight before me or far and wide1 ,i can pray4 ,if ,i can see a scrap of the sky1 ,i can pray4 ,and with all nature offered to my soul1 ,i can pray1 ,i can pray in spite of everything and as if without willing it4 ,i must see that osier-bed1 or the radiant awning of that wagon1 or the image of the bridge in the water4 ,i must hear the moaning of those interlaced branches2 then ,i am able to feel myself bathed in grace4 ,grace6 ,it is indeed the fleeting consciousness man has of his divinity4 ,and now1 now especially1 and more than ever1 we say to ourselves1 man must have faith in his divinity6 ,,ix ,,apostleship ,i ,the beautiful legend of the multiplication of the loaves of bread is miraculous only in the material order to which we try to confine it4 ,but the infinite multiplication of moral nourishment is our daily spectacle1 our joy1 our encouragement4 ,we know that the possession of material goods inclines us to exclusiveness1 solitary satisfaction3 if ,i wish to share with you this beautiful apple ,i hold in my hand1 ,i must make up my mind to enjoy only half of it myself4 ,and if there are four of us the part each one has will be proportionally reduced4 ,ah6 blessed would be the wonder-worker who could refresh us all with a single glass of water1 stay us all with a single mouthful of bread4 ,that miracle flashes forth every day before our eyes4 ,all moral wealth seems to increase by being possessed in common4 ,the more a truth is spread abroad the more its beauty1 its prestige1 and in a way its efficacy1 grows4 ,the veneration a hundred peoples throw round a painting of da ,vinci's1 a song of ,glck's1 or a saying of ,spinoza's has not partitioned these lovely treasures but has added to their importance and their glory1 has developed and opened up the whole sum of joy that lies latent in them4 ,great ideas have such radiant strength6 ,they cross space and time like avalanches3 they carry along with them whatever they touch4 ,they are the only riches that one shares without ever dividing them4 ,this fact invites each one of us to make himself the modest and persevering apostle of his own truths1 the propagator of his discoveries1 the dispenser of his moral riches4 ,our own interest demands it imperatively1 no less than the interest of others4 ,we shall never be really happy until we have admitted and converted to our joy those whom we love2 and we shall love them all the better for having brought them some joy1 for being among the causes of their comfort4 ,the journeys we have made alone without companions leave us a memory that is melancholy and without warmth4 ,it is because we have had no one to whom we could communicate our admiration1 our wonder4 ,seated alone before the most majestic landscapes1 we have had no one to whom we could express our enthusiasm1 and deprived of this expansion it has been stunted1 it has remained1 we might say1 poor4 ,sharing it would have enriched it4 ,we love solitude1 indeed2 it is the cold and silent fountain at which our soul is purified and confirmed4 ,but what would it profit us to have amassed great riches1 by the help of solitude1 if we had no one to whom to offer them8 ,it is because he feels this anxiety that man seeks a lasting union4 ,among a thousand generosities1 love offers him the opportunity to enjoy companionship without renouncing solitude4 ,a happy home is the solitude of many a soul4 ,the man who has entered into a beautiful union is sure of at least one person to whom he can give the best that he possesses4 ,,ii ,perhaps you will say to me3 8,how can ,i be an apostle when ,i have in myself only a wavering faith8 ,i would enjoy being generous1 but ,i am obliged to beg from the generosity of others4 ,such advice is for those rich souls who1 precisely because they are rich1 have no need of advice4 ,it is with this kind of fortune as it is with money1 it crowns those who already possess it6 ,my soul is poor and timid2 what sort of comfort would it be for other souls that are poor and timid also80 ,o my friend1 how deceived you are in yourself6 ,how much like ingratitude your modesty seems6 ,first of all1 let me tell you that the heart that doubts its resources is rich without knowing it4 ,the passion of humility weighs it down2 let it free itself without becoming proud6 ,in the realm of the intelligence1 you have surely observed1 it is only actual imbeciles who never doubt their faculties4 ,the man who can admit his own insufficiency at once gives proof of a rare perspicacity4 ,in the same way1 if you think you are poor it is because you are not4 ,the only natures that are truly arid are those who do not recognize and never will recognize their own sterility4 ,this morning you went out at dawn to take up your duties4 ,in the marsh that slumbers along the edge of the road there were such delicate green and purple reflections that you were struck by them4 ,you spoke to me about them1 very subtly and sensitively1 as soon as you were able to see me4 ,you were generous with me4 ,you shared your good fortune with me4 ,thank you6 ,who spoke to me about ,faisne's unhappiness8 ,who suddenly opened my eyes and made me realize the profound misery of that soul8 ,it was you6 ,i am still touched by your affectionate insight1 ,i still marvel at your fortune4 ,you remember that night when we were lying stretched out together in the fields1 looking up at a sky that was rippling with milky light4 ,you said nothing to me1 but ,i understood that evening that you were possessed1 to the point of intoxication1 with an immense1 terrible idea1 that of infinity4 ,thanks to your silence1 ,i shared with you that overwhelming treasure4 ,who lent me that beautiful ,swedish book ,i did not know8 ,who spoke to me so enthusiastically about it8 ,it was you1 you again6 ,who sings to me1 when ,i am tired1 that song as poignant and serene as a breath that has come from beyond the midnight oceans8 ,you know very well1 my friend1 it is you4 ,i could tell you of a thousand instances of your generosity1 a thousand apostolic words that have issued from your lips4 ,ah6 my friend1 can you disavow such riches8 ,can you show at the same time such bitterness and such prodigality8 ,every day you discover a means of transforming into happiness the elements that others possess and neglect4 ,do not hesitate1 therefore3 show them the fruitful use they ought to make of their blessings4 ,and do not ask any other recompense than the pleasure of having been the giver1 the initiator4 ,the total amount of joy that prevails on the face of our world is of great importance to you and to me4 ,one must always labor to augment it1 whoever the direct beneficiaries may be4 ,there is no one who1 in the end1 will not catch its echo1 who will not receive his own personal profit from it4 ,and that is also why1 in the present immense misery of the world1 the selfish pleasure-seekers feel themselves ill at ease1 even when their untimely pleasures are seen by nobody4 ,,iii ,if you will1 we can begin with the resolution never to undeceive anyone who thinks he possesses anything4 ,there are some who make it their care and pride to deprive their neighbors of those illusions that ,ibsen calls 8the vital illusions40 ,the characteristic of these illusions is that they cannot be replaced4 ,to tear them away leaves a man mutilated1 without any possible reparation4 ,young people1 assuredly1 have a very exuberant sap and all sorts of encumbering shoots4 ,skillful and careful shears may well cut off1 here and there1 these over-greedy branches--and the tree will bear heavier and more fragrant fruit4 ,but can you without guilt take away his wealth from that old man whose illusion is his only pleasure8 ,beware of cutting off all its leaves from that old trunk that will never bring forth again and has nothing but its foliage with which to subsist and feel the sun4 ,distrust those men who have what is like a false passion for truth4 ,they are swollen with presumptuous vanity4 ,they do not know that real truth exists only where there is faith1 even faith without an object4 ,of what importance is the object8 ,it is in faith itself that our grandeur lies4 ,in my childhood1 ,i often used to stop in to see a certain humble1 white-haired shopkeeper4 ,she vegetated in a dark little shop and was always sitting behind her window1 where the dust lay thick over the toys and trinkets4 ,her business was very poor1 but she loved to say at night3 8,the passers-by were very good today4 ,they looked in the window a great deal40 ,i noticed1 in fact1 that nearly all who went by turned toward the dark shop a long1 dreamy look1 full of unusual interest1 that sometimes caused them to stop short4 ,one day1 as ,i was myself passing before the poor little display1 ,i suddenly understood what it was the passers-by looked at so kindly3 it was their own faces reflected in the dark window-pane4 ,i was still very young1 but ,i realized vaguely that it would never do to disclose this disastrous discovery to my old friend4 ,,iv ,but this passive good will is not enough4 ,it is not enough not to harm things4 ,marcus ,aurelius1 ,i believe1 has said2 8,one is often as unjust in doing nothing as in doing what one does40 ,you must understand1 therefore1 that not to share your inner fortune is1 in some sort1 to rob those who surround you4 ,we must first declare our blessings3 we must try to do this without shame and without arrogance4 ,those who enjoy an intense and efficacious inner life draw from it a great deal of pride2 they would gladly communicate it if they did not know that these treasures seem ridiculous to the common men2 it is really shame1 therefore1 that prevents them from being proud4 ,in spite of the cry of ,hamlet1 it is through words that one discovers and possesses the world4 ,the rhetoricians have done their work so well that at times words seem dry1 empty of pulp1 empty of juice4 ,they are no longer nourishing food1 they are discordant sounds4 ,it needs only a little confidence and generosity to restore their meaning and their weight4 ,then they become precious and faithful4 ,we call them1 like devoted persons1 to our aid2 they come at once out of the shadow and show themselves docile to our wishes4 ,marcus ,aurelius1 of whom we have just spoken1 has said this also3 8,i wish always to define or describe the object that presents itself to my thoughts1 so as to see1 distinctly and in its nakedness1 what it is in its substance1 considered as a whole1 and separately in all its parts1 so as to be able to tell myself its true name as well as the true names of the parts of which it is composed and into which it can be resolved4 ,for nothing is so suited to elevate the soul as to analyze as much as possible1 with method and justice1 everything that one meets with in life1 and always to examine each object so as to be able to recognize at once to what order of things it belongs1 of what1 use it is1 and what is its importance in the universe and1 relatively1 to man40 ,it is with words that this task is accomplished4 ,i have noted another beautiful expression on this subject2 it is from ,m4 ,anatole ,france4 8,words10 he says1 8are ideas4444 ,i think the highest race in the world is that which has the best syntax4 ,it often happens that men cut each other's throats over words they do not understand4 ,if they understood each other they would embrace each other40 ,be very sure then that the words of which we make use are deserving of all our care1 all our respect4 ,they are the witnesses of our thoughts4 ,they will betray us if we degrade them to base uses4 ,choose them with great tenderness2 that is a quality as enviable as precision4 ,and by means of these choice words1 loyally express your fortune4 ,tell what you have discovered1 what you know4 ,in affirming your possession you render it sure1 positive4 ,you labor for others and for yourself4 ,you give form to your treasure and yield it1 as if perfected1 to those who truly wish to avail themselves of it4 ,v ,yes1 in acting in this way1 you are also working for your own profit4 ,do not let us leave this burning subject too quickly4 ,if ,i were not afraid of giving a conviction the form of a whim1 ,i should say3 8,you do your work and it does good to you40 ,among the ideas that are dear to you and that you are glad to express are not only certainties1 verified results1 the testimony of experience4 ,there are many wishes1 many longings1 too4 ,by virtue of being enunciated1 these end by reacting upon you1 by gently imprisoning you4 ,when you speak of virtue1 or happiness1 or the spirit of adventure or courage1 you further certain things that are indeed your own2 you further also many other things that you passionately wish to have become your own1 your unique and recognized quality4 ,by virtue of expressing them1 it comes to pass that they in turn react upon you2 a moment arrives when you are morally constrained to become the product of your opinions4 ,in this sense your work does for you the good that you have done for it4 ,admit1 therefore1 that if it pleases you to see and to paint your life in generous1 harmonious colors1 it is inevitable that harmony and generosity should little by little imprint their stamp on your serious thoughts and on your acts4 ,therefore speak1 speak of your dream4 ,every time someone tells you3 8,you do not live up to what you say10 think1 with a smile3 8,not yet1 undoubtedly2 but ,i feel sure that one day my words1 that is to say1 my thoughts1 will prove to be truer than my vagaries40 ,when you have tried and proved this method1 you will attempt to bestow it upon others4 ,to that end strive to win a reputation among uncertain1 hesitating people4 ,be prudent3 this is the time when it is of great importance to choose the right ideas and words4 ,but if you see one of your companions torn between two opposing reputations1 imprison him in the better of the two4 ,i once knew a man who had done many good acts and a considerable number of reprehensible ones4 ,one day1 when ,i saw him hesitating between these two different tendencies1 ,i began to address certain phrases to him that opened somewhat like this3 8,you who are so good4444 ,you who have done such and such fine things40 444 ,and the result was that that man became really good1 in order not to betray the reputation he had gained4 ,i foresee that you are about to pronounce the word vanity4 ,stop a moment6 ,it is not a base stratagem that causes a barren soul to bring forth a fine harvest4 ,if ,i had called the attention of that man to what was mean and sordid in his character1 he would have perhaps become a villain altogether1 and that would have been a shame for him1 for me1 and for everybody4 ,,vi ,we have discovered together1 you will recall1 that the world is offered to all men that it may be possessed by each with the help of all4 ,you see1 then1 that in your modest rle of apostle there is a means of making others rich while securing their help for your own undertakings4 ,estimate your wealth according to the importance of what you give4 ,dispossess yourself boldly4 ,everything will be returned to you at the right time and a hundredfold4 ,if the great apostles were able to bring the good news1 it was because they had faith2 but nothing could have exalted their faith more than to bring the good news4 ,if you have been interested in something you have read1 in a walk1 if you have been astonished at some spectacle1 invite all those whom you know to read what you have read1 to take that walk1 to contemplate that spectacle4 ,show some discernment in your invitations4 ,distrust the sceptics a little1 the ironical1 cruel1 or contradictory spirits4 ,distrust them1 but do not abandon them3 they are the strayed sheep whose return ought to rejoice your heart supremely4 ,when you have made them admit3 8,yes1 there's something really fine6 ,yes1 there's something interesting1 there's something worth the pain of living60 you may fall asleep with a smile2 your day will not have been lost4 ,at times1 you will make a discovery so rare1 so delicate that1 by some secret warning1 you will know it cannot be communicated1 that it is strictly individual1 that it ought to remain as a private relation between the world and your soul4 ,in that case1 keep your own counsel4 ,perhaps a day will come when your thought will have gained in precision through being amplified2 on that day you will be mysteriously informed that your treasure has lost its private character1 that it has become suitable for sustaining your communion with others4 ,when that day comes1 speak forth4 ,until that day1 however1 be patient2 do not fall into the error of those spirits who are called obscure because they offer us impressions that have been insufficiently ripened and experienced1 impressions that are not for all humanity4 ,on the other hand1 when someone offers you one of these obscure impressions1 do not reject it1 do not laugh with disdain4 ,force yourself to feel what has been pictured for you in this faulty fashion4 ,you will do your partner a service in visualizing his discovery1 and you will perhaps be able to increase your own stock4 ,perhaps there will be something worth seizing and understanding at the bottom of it4 ,always seek communion4 ,it is the most precious thing men possess4 ,in this respect1 the symbol of the religions is indeed full of majesty4 ,where there is communion there is something that is more than human1 there is surely something divine4 ,when you deem that you have grasped a truth do not forget1 in communicating it to others1 that there are two conditions of truth4 ,any truth one receives is but a small fortune in comparison with the value of that which one experiences4 ,therefore persuade those you love into the experiencing of truths1 into the religious1 courageous1 persistent experiencing of the well-beloved truth4 ,,vii ,one dreams of a life in which everyone would be the apostle of what he possesses and where all would be the disciples of each4 ,if you wish to be an apostle1 begin by never mislaying any of your wealth4 ,i once had a friend who said to me almost every day3 8,this morning ,i had a beautiful thought2 but ,i can't find it again1 ,i've forgotten it1 ,i've lost it40 ,you have a purse to contain your money2 condescend to have a scrap of paper on which you can put your thoughts1 where you can set them in order4 ,it is a slight means to what will eventually be a great end4 ,be economical of your treasures so that you may be lavish of them at the opportune moment4 ,do not lose what you wish to give away4 ,you are like the seeker after gold1 on your knees by the bank of a river that rolls with sand and with nuggets4 ,the rushing flood of your soul flows by1 and you watch it with fear and delight4 ,every sort of thing is in it3 mud1 grass1 gold1 flowers1 formless and nameless debris4 ,gather to one side what you deem worthy to be preserved1 do not let it escape in the torrent4 ,this mass of thoughts that crowd and elbow one another1 this storm that tumbles its way over you1 this unending dream that you have when you are awake1 when your soul abandons itself to its natural1 spontaneous impulses1 there1 indeed1 is matter to terrify you6 ,so many things appear and are swallowed up again that scandalize or horrify you2 so many contradictions bewilder you1 so many jewels shine furtively forth1 that you are by turns filled with consternation1 stupefied1 dazzled4 ,you must choose among all these things4 ,you must draw out of the current what you recognize as of value to you1 and let the rest sink4 ,i beg you1 keep the reckoning of your own soul4 ,keep a little book in your pocket that is carefully brought up to date4 ,and do not trust your memory2 it is a net full of holes2 the most beautiful prizes slip through it4 ,you must not have too much fear of not being up to your task when you are approaching great problems and great works4 ,that is something worth meditating for him who sets himself to obtaining possession of the world1 who wishes to invite his companions to do the same4 ,though it may have all the appearance of navet1 confidence is less to be feared than the terror of ridicule that paralyzes so many souls at the beginning of the most beautiful adventures4 ,the fear of enthusiasm does as much harm as obvious wickedness4 ,it is better to pass for a simpleton and become the laughing-stock of the disillusioned than to miss the opportunity to serve as the apostle of one's beloved verities4 ,it is better to squander one's fortune than to run the risk of being the only one to profit from it4 ,there will always be a farthing to fall into eager hands4 ,the main thing is to be1 above everything else1 a man of good will4 ,the true enemy1 if there is any such1 is the pharisee1 the man of outward observance1 he who adopts every religion as a matter of fashion1 who speaks frequently and passionately of his soul in the same way in which he speaks of his necktie4 ,,viii ,if you are only two against a thousand in leading this beautiful1 pure life1 rejoice that there are at least two of you and do not despair of your course of action4 ,is it not ,renan who has uttered this profound saying3 8,the great things in any race are usually accomplished by the minority08 ,do not rejoice because there are slaves4 ,let their example be a fearful warning to you2 let it fill you with an overmastering desire to free them from servitude4 ,to the apostle ,paul is ascribed that disquieting utterance of the conquering soldier3 8,oportet hreses esse40 ,yes1 undoubtedly1 whoever wishes to fight needs an enemy4 ,the dazzling chance of such conquests is not1 alas1 the thing you will be most likely to miss4 ,but every conquest is vain that does not tend toward peace4 ,one thinks with ecstasy of the joy of a universal communion1 from which no one would be left out1 in which no one would be the victim4 ,must there be heretics8 ,yes6 ,to convince them1 but not to vanquish them1 and still less to put them to the stake4 ,x ,,on ,,the ,,reign ,,of ,,the ,,heart 8,the knowledge of external things does not make up for me1 in times of affliction1 for my ignorance of the moral world2 but my knowledge of the moral world always consoles me for my ignorance of external things40--,pascal4 ,i ,it has come1 the time of affliction6 ,whatever may be the outcome of this war1 it marks a period of profound despair for humanity4 ,however great may be the pride of victory1 however generous such a victory may be1 under whatever light the distant consequences may be presented to us1 we live1 none the less1 in a blighted age1 on an earth that will be devastated for long years1 in the midst of a society that is decimated1 ruined1 crushed by its wounds4 ,among all our disillusionments1 if there is one that remains especially painful to us it is the sort of bankruptcy of which our whole civilization is convicted4 ,man had never been prouder than at the beginning of the twentieth century of the discoveries he had realized in the domain of what ,pascal called 8the external sciences40 ,we must admit that there was some excuse for this intoxication1 this error4 ,in its struggle with matter1 humanity had experienced a success that was so daring1 so disconcerting1 and above all so repeated that it lost a just conception of its adversary and forgot that its principal enemy was itself4 ,events have recalled this to it in a flash4 ,in the last year or two it has expressed its discomfiture through millions of simple lips4 ,it has asked with anguish how 8a century so advanced in civilization0 could give birth to this demoralizing catastrophe4 ,stupefied1 it sees turning against itself all those inventions which1 it had been told1 were made for its happiness4 ,for hardly one is absent4 ,even those that seemed the highest in moral significance1 even they1 have contributed in some degree to the disaster4 ,only the fear of creating an uncontrollable situation has prevented certain of the belligerents from forming an alliance with the very germs of epidemic diseases and thus debasing the noblest of all the acquisitions of science4 ,a doubt has grown up in all hearts3 what1 after all1 is this civilization from which we draw such pride and which we claim the right to impose upon the peoples of the other continents8 ,what is this thing that has suddenly revealed itself as so cruel1 so dangerous1 as destitute of soul as its own machines8 ,eyes have been opened1 spirits have been illuminated3 never did barbarism1 in all its brutality and destructiveness1 attain results as monstrous as those of which our industrial and scientific civilization has proved itself capable4 ,is it indeed anything but a travesty on barbarism8 ,what inclines one to believe this is that the peoples which have dedicated to the gods of the factory and the laboratory the most fervent and the most vainglorious worship have shown themselves in this way by far the cruellest1 the most fertile in inhumane and disgraceful inventions4 ,m4 ,bergson has said1 of the intelligence1 that it is 8characterized by a natural incomprehension of life40 ,to this one might add3 and by a complete incomprehension of happiness1 which is the very aim of life4 ,with its retinue of ingenious inventions and clever complications1 the intelligence plays the part of something irresponsible or criminal in the great disorder of the world4 ,it seems not only incapable of giving happiness to men1 but actually adapted to bewilder them1 corrupt them1 set them quarreling4 ,it knows how to provoke conflicts2 it is unable either to exorcise them or to resolve them4 ,scientific and industrial civilization based upon the intelligence is condemned4 ,for long years it has monopolized and distracted all human energies4 ,its reign has ended in an immense defeat4 ,,ii ,it is toward the resources of the heart that our hope turns4 ,betrayed by this clever intelligence1 whose formidable works have at times the very look of stupidity itself1 we aspire to the reign of the heart2 all our desires turn toward a moral civilization1 such as is alone capable of exalting us1 satisfying us1 protecting us1 assuring us the true burgeoning of our race4 ,it is by juggling with words that people have been able to attach the idea of true progress to the development of the mechanical1 chemical or biological sciences4 ,true progress concerns nothing but the soul1 it remains independent of the expedients and the practices of science4 ,this latter is able to triumph even when the true progress1 the ascent of mankind toward happiness1 is interrupted and thwarted in its profoundest tendencies4 ,there are not lacking people to tell us that the war will mark with precision the advent of a new world1 that it has bought in the blood and the flame the moral elevation necessary for a fruitful and final peace4 ,we cannot share this optimism of official eloquence4 ,it is not the performance of tasks of murder that opens to men the road to justice and converts them to good customs4 ,humanity must grow unaccustomed to crime1 and it is not the armed intelligence that can accomplish this miracle4 ,the pacifying work of the war will remain in peril if everything that is healthy and generous in humanity does not labor to dethrone this scientific civilization which still abuses society after having reduced it to helplessness4 ,i consider as negligible the objection of the stoics who say that these miseries do not depend upon us and that we ought obstinately to seek our happiness through them1 isolate our happiness from the surrounding degradation4 ,no6 ,these miseries do depend upon us4 ,in spite of its disdainful nobility1 the stoic resignation has here too much the look of egoism4 ,this moral civilization1 when its hour comes1 will revive ,christianity and propagate it2 it will not leave the human race in the abandonment of the desperate misery of today4 ,,iii ,the naturalists and the sociologists have contributed to spread this idea that moral progress is1 for individuals1 a function of the anatomical complex1 and for societies of the complex of habits1 institutions and industries4 ,it is on this understanding that they have undertaken the classification of species and arranged the various human hierarchies4 ,that is a view entirely external to things1 it cannot be verified as regards individual thought1 it is a sheer fabrication as regards collectivities3 the war is a bloody refutation of it4 ,if we mean by moral progress that which affects the conditions of happiness1 nothing permits us to conjecture what advantages have been realized in this direction by the vegetable and animal organisms that have not chosen us as confidents4 ,habits1 as we observe them1 cannot be a criterion1 even if we admit that we ought to seek for evidence among them2 they seem as if designed to baffle all theories4 ,those animals whose anatomical structure closely resembles ours1 not to say that it is exactly analogous to ours1 such as cattle and sheep1 give proof of a moral activity that is insignificant beside the real genius shown by the bee and so many other insects whose nervous systems are still rudimentary in comparison with those of the mammals4 ,certain sea animals1 the barnacles1 have suffered1 because of their sedentary existence1 an anatomical regression4 ,we know that the mobile larv of the barnacles possess more complicated organisms than those of the adult and stationary animal4 ,to conclude from that that this anatomical regression is a lowering of the species is to assume a great deal1 and it is to accord to movement a very debatable significance4 ,there exist species of plant life1 especially among the conifers and the ferns1 which1 for thousands of centuries1 seem to have remained in an almost stable anatomical and functional stage4 ,these species are none the less very widely scattered and very long-lived1 very adaptable4 ,they offer an outward appearance of happiness and prosperity4 ,on the other hand1 nothing permits us to affirm that certain species1 like the orchids1 which have undergone a delirious evolution resulting in forms of extreme anatomical complexity1 have attained a true progress1 have improved1 that is to say1 their moral destiny3 we see them subject to innumerable external servitudes4 ,their reproduction1 even1 is only possible thanks to the intervention of outside agencies and is fraught with perils4 ,a seductive argument that smacks of anthropomorphism inclines us to believe that these species1 intoxicated with their material difficulties1 ought to have a less free and less serene philosophical existence4 ,the complexity of the individual organism1 which corresponds strictly to the political1 economic and scientific complexity of societies1 adds neither to the possibilities of life1 nor to its scope of activity1 nor to its hopes4 ,certain fish1 the pleuronectes1 have sought their salvation in a very bold1 precocious development that ends in a displacement of their eyes1 of their mouth and in a profound disorder of their original symmetry4 ,looking at them1 one has the impression that this development has thrown them into an impasse1 into a cul-de-sac from which it would be difficult for them to escape into a new evolution2 one has the impression that this whole biological stratagem has considerably restricted the destiny of the species4 ,besides1 and the naturalists know it very well1 the species that are most highly evolved1 most differentiated1 to employ the consecrated expression1 are in a certain sense the oldest species1 imprisoned in their own tradition and scarcely to be counted upon for a new adaptation1 a profound reformation of their organs and their habits4 ,,iv ,this digression1 too long for our restlessness1 but too succinct in view of the facts it involves1 raises several criticisms4 ,one might1 in the first place1 object that evolution is a thing which species undergo and which they cannot influence themselves4 ,if that is true1 humanity finds itself forced into an adventure against which it is puerile and presumptuous to contend4 ,this attitude implies a submissive fatalism that denies both our sense of experience and our thirst for perfection4 ,we are apt to construe our lessons in such a way as to draw instruction from them4 ,we have shown this in many moments of crisis1 and we feel a certain repugnance to thinking that we cannot turn to our own profit the most majestic lesson that has ever been given to men4 ,certain minds1 on the other hand1 have concluded that humanity is altogether too old1 too highly evolved a species to be capable of ever again renouncing what is fundamental in its inveterate intellectual traditions1 its scientific acquisitions and the customs that have sprung from them4 ,if this conception of the world did not appear as if stamped with lassitude and scepticism1 it would seem to leave us in the presence of a desperate alternative3 either the acceptance of a life without restraint1 given over to every sort of folly1 exposed to every sort of lapse into crime1 or the solitary search for an oblivion that only waits for death4 ,but will the peoples who have struggled so fiercely for their material interests remain disarmed in the face of the moral danger that threatens the very morning of the race1 will they undertake nothing truly efficacious for the sake of posterity8 ,that is the anxiety that haunts generous souls today4 ,the political arrangements that will mark the end of this war will be of no real interest if the minds that control the spiritual direction of the peoples do not labor1 from now on-and in the future1 to modify the meaning of the ideas of progress and civilization4 ,we cannot believe that humanity is so deeply sunk in its convictions and its intellectual habits as to remain forever incapable of sudden change and reform4 ,the human world has already passed through important crises2 it has already been forced several times to reshape the idea it had formed of culture and civilization4 ,it has always been amid its ruins that it has meditated the conditions of a new life4 ,if it is true that ruins demand the revolution of customs1 let us admit that the heart of man has never been more urgently entreated than today4 ,in any case1 there is no question of giving up those customs that form an integral part of our vital economy4 ,it would be fantastic to consider the regeneration of a society that was deprived1 for example1 of the means of communication which have obtained for a century and which we could scarcely abandon now without suicide4 ,but it is fair to consider how great and dangerous is the hold of the false needs which the study of the 8external sciences0 creates in us and not to permit our ideal activity to be blindly enslaved any longer by our material ingenuity4 ,there exist in our nature ardent forces that one cannot condemn without appeal and that will manifest themselves against all discipline4 ,the passion of the sciences must be deeply-rooted when we see men1 in love with love1 peace1 humanity1 consecrating themselves1 as if in their own despite1 under the cover of some abstract sophistry1 to tasks whose results may contribute seriously to the wretchedness and the debasement of society4 ,if one might gather together all the faculties of the spirit for the single cause of happiness6 ,at least1 and from now on1 let us cease to consider that the monstrous development of industrial science represents civilization2 otherwise let us withdraw from this word its whole moral significance and seek another for the needs of our ideal4 ,let us cease humiliating moral culture1 the only pledge we have of peace and happiness1 before the irresponsible and unruly genius that haunts the laboratories4 ,scientific civilization1 let us say1 to allow it to keep this name for a moment1 has been for us so prodigal in bitterness that we can no longer abandon it uncontrolled to its devouring activity4 ,we must make use of it as a servant and cease any longer to adore it as a goddess4 ,v ,we must revise all our definitions1 all our values1 our whole vocabulary4 ,all fervent spirits should set themselves to this work1 and their task will be all the heavier the more widely extended they are assured their influence will be4 ,we must strive to make our stunned humanity realize that happiness does not consist in travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour1 rising up into the air on a machine or talking under the ocean1 but above all else in being rich in beautiful thoughts1 contented with its work1 honored with warm affections4 ,we must restore the cult of the arts which contribute to the purification of the soul1 which are consoling in times of affliction and remain1 by their nature1 incapable of serving ignoble ends4 ,we must employ our strength to altering the meaning of the words 8riches10 8possessions10 8authority10 to showing that they are things of the soul and that the material acceptance of these terms corresponds to realities that are perfidious and ironical4 ,we must at the same time transform the ideas of benevolence and ambition1 open a new career to these virtues1 create for them new ends and new satisfactions4 ,those who consider such a program with irony or scepticism make a great mistake4 ,its realization may seem illusory1 but it will undoubtedly become a necessity4 ,the material goods at the disposal of humanity will find themselves considerably reduced both by the destruction of which they have been the object and by the long arrest of the production of them4 ,their rarity and their growing expensiveness will be the source of grave and almost insoluble conflicts1 which new effusions of blood will only make more venomous4 ,humanity can hurl against this terrible future a defiance full of grandeur4 ,it can1 under the influence of its spiritual masters1 seek its happiness in a wise and passionate transformation of its desires4 ,let us not urge it toward resignation but toward the conquest of the true riches1 those that assure it the moral possession of the world4 ,,vi ,the economists1 whose science the war has so often tested1 are laboring to define what will be the conditions of life in the period that will follow the world war2 their estimates leave little room for the hope of an agreeable and easy material existence2 they hold over the mass of men1 conquered and conquerors alike1 the menace of desperate labor and slight and wretched returns4 ,these learned researches1 added to the similar conclusions of common sense1 do not seem to discourage the laborious race of men4 ,they have been told they must work1 and even now1 while they are struggling against a hundred fearful perils1 they are mentally preparing to earn their difficult living1 if only the war does not take away their lives4 ,the modern industrial monster sets these conditions in advance4 ,we already know that competition will be pitiless1 we know too that enjoyment will only be for the highest bidder4 ,individuals1 at the sight of this future1 mutually urge one another to be stubborn4 ,the world is preparing to take up again1 obstinately1 the old order that has cost it so many trials4 ,as yet no one speaks of a new life4 ,there will be so many voices to praise these desperate resolutions1 so many books will be written to persuade men to persevere in their old hatreds that a timid voice may well raise itself to protest against the consummation of the error4 ,a man whom ,i love and esteem above all others once said to me3 8,when peace is signed and ,i return home1 ,i shall have to give up all the distractions ,i used to have if ,i wish to work as much as will be necessary to recover a situation as good as the one ,i had before40 ,believe me1 ,o my friend who said these words to me1 ,i love work too well to blame your decision2 but ,i was thinking only of your happiness1 and it was of your situation that you spoke to me4 ,are you sure that they are rightly related1 those two words1 those two ideas8 ,what do you hope from the future if you are not going to allow a large place in it to the soul8 ,what compensation will be left for our passion of today if we take up all our prejudices again1 if we return to our own vomit8 ,the old civilization seems condemned4 ,to break with it1 we must first of all seek our individual satisfaction outside money1 our happiness outside the whirlpool of pleasure4 ,we must flee deliberately from the tyranny of luxury4 ,in this way even the events of the present oblige us to seek our true path4 ,must we keep blindly and obstinately to the ways of slavery8 ,we have slighted the best sources of interest1 joy and wealth2 shall we misprize them now that they remain the only fresh and faithful things in the aridity of our time8 ,shall we neglect our souls again to seek a false fortune that can only betray us8 ,shall we contend with exasperated brutes over possessions we know to be unstable and deceptive8 ,no6 ,no6 ,here should lie the lesson and the one benefit of this war3 that we should undeceive ourselves about ourselves and about our ends6 ,let us not devote our courage to choosing a ferocious discipline devoid of the ideal4 ,let us once for all reject our calculating and demoralizing intelligence4 ,let us organize1 in the peace that returns1 the reign of the heart4 ,,vii ,the search for happiness cannot ignore the conditions of the material life4 ,undoubtedly1 well-being1 comfort1 dispose us to a happy view of things2 but will they ever replace what a poet has called 8the contented heart08 ,the ,anglo-,american peoples1 susceptible as they are to all the moral and religious revolutions1 have applied themselves to altering the original sense of simple well-being so as to identify it with luxurious comfort4 ,that is a way of giving a moral aspect to pleasure1 making an honest bargain with the corruptions of money4 ,the exigencies of this sort of life have largely contributed to involving these peoples in a frenzied whirlwind of business that wears a man out and bewilders him4 ,the anonymous writer of the 8,letters of an ,elderly ,american to a ,frenchman0 says to my countrymen3 8,your most beautiful country-houses and your best hotels are occupied most of the time by foreigners1 while your own people have to content themselves with miserable little cheap holes4 ,isn't it absurd60 ,perhaps1 ,o ,elderly ,american1 but that absurdity is dear to my heart4 ,may the ,god of journeys always turn my path away from the tainted spots where rise those buildings in which the existence you think so enviable is passed4 ,if we are to consecrate our friendship we ought to discuss the value of words3 what you call happiness does not tempt me4 ,the love of nature1 the taste for those simple1 healthy joys that were so vaunted by the philosophers of our eighteenth century have been the laughing-stock of our contemporary writers4 ,a laughable excess has led1 by reaction1 to a furious and ignoble excess4 ,the dramatists and novelists of our time who1 by the quality of their opinions or by their political positions are ostensibly laboring for a moral or religious end1 have betrayed1 in most of their works1 a servile and ill-concealed love of luxury4 ,it is useless to give names2 let us say only that none of the modern novels of certain of our authors lack those descriptions and professions of faith that reveal the quivering longing of the pauper for the delights and enjoyments on which all his eager desires are fixed4 ,it is partly to the influence of this literature that our old world owes the headlong rush of all classes of humanity toward those pleasures that are only the phantoms of happiness and will never be anything else4 ,if genius wishes to consecrate itself to a labor that is truly reconstructive1 truly pacific1 it must discover other subjects for its works4 ,,viii ,if the future laws governing labor do not allow enough time for the cultivation and the flourishing of the soul1 a sacred struggle will become inevitable4 ,the organizers of the modern world1 who have shown themselves powerless to avert war and did not realize the vanity of our old civilization1 do not yet seem to foresee the urgency of radical changes in the moral education of the peoples4 ,they continue to talk to us about the superhuman efforts we must make in order to redeem their faults4 ,no one shrinks before these efforts4 ,society is weary of crime but not of peaceful tasks4 ,everyone prepares with joyous energy to take up his former position and his tools again4 ,it rests with us all to mitigate the severity of economic conflicts by working to transform the current idea of happiness4 ,the possessors of material wealth have1 in general1 for centuries1 given to those whom they employ and direct so scandalous and basely immoral an example that they themselves are the principal fomenters of the attacks which they will henceforth have to undergo4 ,in the machinery of modern industry1 work has lost a great many of its attractive virtues3 all the methods in force tend to diminish the part played by the soul and the heart1 and the workman1 imprisoned in an almost mechanical function1 no longer expects from work the personal satisfaction he once obtained2 as a poet has said3 8,his empty labor is the fate he fights against40 ,certain ,american methods have based their theory upon a clever sophism2 they exaggerate the automatic under the pretext of thus cutting short the length of the work4 ,that is not a happy solution1 to cut short the hours of labor by emptying it of all joy1 of all professional interest4 ,it is better to undertake a long piece of work with relish than to hurry through a short task with repugnance4 ,the specialization that is rendered necessary by the very extent of scientific and industrial activity remains a dangerous thing1 especially among an old race of encyclopedists like ourselves4 ,however that may be1 the peoples consent to yield themselves to the discretion of the modern world4 ,may the monster leave them some scraps of a liberty that is still honorable enough for them to think of cultivating their souls4 ,there will not be lacking men of good will who will be glad to devote themselves to directing this liberty1 to transforming the meaning and the demands of joy1 propagating a culture which1 unlike those old errors1 will support education more readily than instruction1--men who will more often address themselves to the heart than to the disastrous reason4 ,,ix ,france has suffered1 suffers and will suffer more deeply than all the other countries of the world4 ,she is at once the altar and the holocaust4 ,she has sacrificed her men1 her cities1 and her soil4 ,it is in the heart of her beautiful fields that the devastating storm whirls and roars4 ,in the depths of my soul ,i hope that1 because of this great grief1 it will be ,france that will give the signal for redemption4 ,i hope that the reign of the heart will begin just here where the old civilization will leave imperishable traces of its murderous folly4 ,the resources of the ,french people in perseverance1 in self-reliance1 in goodness1 in subtle delicacy are so great that one feels a word would suffice to rally all hearts and give them their bearings4 ,one feels that at the mere phrase 8moral civilization0 thousands and thousands of noble heads will nod approval1 thousands of hands will reach out to find each other4 ,people who have obstinate views on the political meaning of wars1 on the eminently economic nature of the peril that has been run by humanity1 and on the efficacy of the industrial and scientific civilization1 will not fail to proclaim that ,france ought first of all to return to its furious task and apply itself to surpassing the peoples that have outstripped it along this path4 ,but ,france has always been the country of initiation and revelation4 ,it is the chosen land of spiritual revolutions4 ,may the bloody baptism it has received give it precedence in the discussion of the future6 ,do you wish it to lose the glorious rank it holds in the moral order1 at the head of the nations1 that it may fall in line behind the peoples who are enslaved by automatism and swear allegiance to a worn-out1 condemned1 bankrupt social and economic religion8 ,if the destiny of our country is to make a humanity that is plunged in affliction give ear to the words of peace1 consolation and love1 let it accomplish this beautiful mission1 let it teach the other peoples the generous laws of the true possession of the world4 ,x ,my work is finished1 and now the time has come for me to part with it4 ,it is going off into this misty autumn night4 ,my heart is both glad and sorrowful4 ,it is going away from me1 henceforth to follow a destiny of its own that will no longer depend only upon my love4 ,i shall turn to other duties1 ,i shall assume other cares4 ,a voice tells me that they will always be the same duties1 the same cares1 and that there is no longer but one great task for men1 one single task with a hundred radiant aspects4 ,it is late4 ,the night is drawing to a close2 it is calm and yet penetrated with a vast1 subdued murmur of joy4 ,they say it is one of the last nights of the war4 ,i hear about me the panting breath of the wounded4 ,there are several hundred of them2 they are sleeping or longing for sleep and rest4 ,their burning breath is like a lamentation4 ,many of them will never see the peace they have so dearly bought4 ,they are perhaps the wounded of the last battle1 the last victims1 the last martyrs4 ,over the whole face of the world souls are suffering with them1 for them1 souls which the angel of death laboring here this night will not deliver4 ,my work is finished4 ,it begins to withdraw from me4 ,if it can bring any consolation to a single one of these suffering souls1 let me believe that it has fulfilled its destiny4 ,,the ,,end