At my friend
----'s house I found them all full of excitement, gratitude, and joy.
July 5, 1880.--There are some words which have still a magical virtue
with the mass of the people: those of State, Republic, Country, Nation,
Flag, and even, I think, Church. Our skeptical and mocking culture knows
nothing of the emotion, the exaltation, the delirium, which these words
awaken in simple people. The blases of the world have no idea how the
popular mind vibrates to these appeals, by which they themselves are
untouched. It is their punishment; it is also their infirmity. Their
temper is satirical and separatist; they live in isolation and
sterility.
I feel again what I felt at the time of the Rousseau centenary; my
feeling and imagination are chilled and repelled by those Pharisaical
people who think themselves too good to associate with the crowd.
At the same time, I suffer from an inward contradiction, from a
two-fold, instinctive repugnance--an aesthetic repugnance toward
vulgarity of every kind, a moral repugnance toward barrenness and
coldness of heart.
So that personally I am only attracted by the individuals of cultivation
and eminence, while on the other hand nothing is sweeter to me than to
feel myself vibrating in sympathy with the national spirit, with the
feeling of the masses.
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