Saint-Simon goes calmly on with his story; but for one
second we seem to have compared all this jubilant vanity and
ephemeral rejoicing, this brazen-tongued falsehood that secretly
trembles, with the serene, unvarying loftiness of those strenuous,
tranquil souls. It is as though there should suddenly appear in the
midst of a band of children--who are plucking flowers, it may be,
stealing fruit, or playing forbidden games--a priest or an aged man,
who should go on his way, letting fall not one word of rebuke. The
games are suddenly stopped; startled conscience awakens; and
unbidden thoughts of duty, reality, truth, rush in on the mind; but
with men no more than with children are impressions of long
duration, though they spring from the priest, or the sage, or only
the thought that has passed and gone on its way. But it matters not,
they have seen; and the human soul, for all that the eyes are only
too willing to close or turn away, is nobler than most men would
wish it to be, for it often troubles their peace; and the soul is
quick to declare its preference for that it has seen, and fain would
abandon its enforced and wearisome idleness. And although we may
smile and make merry as the sage disappears in the distance, he has,
though he know it not, left a clear track in the midst of our error
and folly, where, haply, it still will abide for a long time to
come.
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