CHAPTER VIII.
FAITH, LAW.
A few words more. We blame the Church when it is steeped in intrigues.We scorn the spiritual when it is not in accord with the temporal; butwe honor the thoughtful man wherever we find him.
We bow to the man who kneels.
A faith of some kind is necessary to man. Alas for him who believesnothing!
We are not necessarily idle because we are absorbed. Labor may beinvisible as well as visible.
To reflect is to labor; to think is to act.
The folded arms labor, the clasped hands work. The gaze directed toheaven is a labor.
Thales stayed immovable for four years. He founded philosophy.
In our opinion, monks are not drones, and hermits are not idlers.
To think of the future life is a serious business.
Without withdrawing at all from the position which we have just taken,we believe that a continual reminder of the tomb is good for theliving. On this point the priest and the philosopher agree. _We mustdie._ The Trappist Abbé replies to Horace.
To mix with his life some presence of the tomb is the law of the wiseman; and it is also the law of the recluse. Here recluse and wise managree.
There is such a thing as material growth; we are glad of it. There isalso such a thing as moral grandeur; we insist upon it.
Thoughtless and hasty spirits say: "What is the use of these figuresmotionless by the side of mystery? What purpose do they serve? Whatgood do they do?"
Alas! In presence of the darkness which envelops us, and which awaitsus, not knowing what will become of us in the dispersion of all things,we answer, "There is no work more sublime, perhaps, than that whichthese souls are doing." And we add, "There is, perhaps, no work moreuseful."
Those who always pray are needed for those who never pray.
In our opinion, it all depends on the amount of thought that entersinto the prayer.
Leibnitz in prayer, this is grand. Voltaire in adoration, this issublime. _Deo erexit Voltaire._
We are on the side of religion against religions.
We believe in the worthlessness of supplications and the sublimity ofworship.
Besides, at this moment through which we are passing, a moment whichluckily will not leave its imprint upon the nineteenth century, atthis hour when so many men have the forehead low and the soul far fromlofty, among so many beings whose code is selfish enjoyment, and whoare taken up with material things, ephemeral and shapeless, he whoexiles himself seems to us worthy of veneration.
The monastery is a renunciation. Mistaken sacrifice is still sacrifice.To mistake for duty a serious error, this has its noble side.
Taken by itself ideally, and looking on all sides of truth until wehave exhausted impartially all its aspects, the monastery and stillmore the convent for women,--for in our society woman is the greatestsufferer, and her protest appears in this exile of the cloister,--theconvent for women has undeniably a certain grandeur.
This cloistered life so austere and so sad, some of whose features wehave pointed out, is not life, for it is not liberty; it is not thetomb, for it is not lasting. It is the weird place from which is seenas from the crest of a high mountain on one side the abyss in which wenow are, on the other, the abyss in which we shall be; it is a narrowand misty boundary which separates two worlds, cast into light and intoshadow by both at a time, where the weak ray of life blends with theflickering ray of death; it is the penumbra of the tomb.
While we do not believe as these women do, we live like them by faith;and we have never been able to think, without a kind of terror,religious and tender, without a sort of pity mixed with envy, of thesedevoted creatures, trembling and trusting, these souls humble andproud, who dare to live on the very border of mystery, waiting betweenthe world which is closed, and heaven which is not yet open, facedtoward the light which they do not see, having only the consolationof thinking that they know where it is, longing for the gulf and theunknown, with eyes fixed upon the motionless darkness, kneeling,distracted, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted at times by the deepbreathing of eternity.
BOOK VIII
CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT IS GIVEN THEM.