There would have been a vast
accumulation of science, but all the virtues engendered by suffering and
devotion--that is to say, by the family and society--would have no
existence. And for this there would be no compensation.
Blessed be childhood for the good that it does, and for the good which
it brings about carelessly and unconsciously by simply making us love it
and letting itself be loved. What little of paradise we see still on
earth is due to its presence among us. Without fatherhood, without
motherhood, I think that love itself would not be enough to prevent men
from devouring each other--men, that is to say, such as human passions
have made them. The angels have no need of birth and death as
foundations for their life, because their life is heavenly.
February 16, 1868.--I have been finishing About's "Mainfroy (Les
Mariages de Province)." What subtlety, what cleverness, what _verve_,
what _aplomb_! About is a master of epithet, of quick, light-winged
satire. For all his cavalier freedom of manner, his work is conceived at
bottom in a spirit of the subtlest irony, and his detachment of mind is
so great that he is able to make sport of everything, to mock at others
and himself, while all the time amusing himself extremely with his own
ideas and inventions.
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