Every book is a deed--bad or good, but at any rate accomplished--and a
series of them, written with a special aim, is an accomplished purpose
of life; it is a feast during which the workers have the right to
receive a wreath, and to sing: "We bring the crop, the crop!"

Evidently the merit depends on the result of the work. The profession
of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream. A
farmer, bringing the crop to his barn, has this absolute surety, that
he brings wheat, rye, barley, or oats which will be useful to the
people. An author, writing even with the best of faith, may have
moments of doubt, whether instead of bread he did not give poison,
whether his work is not a great mistake or a great misdeed, whether it
has brought profit to humanity, or whether, were it not better for the
people and himself, had he not written anything, nothing accomplished.

Such doubts are foes to human peace, but at the same time they are a
filter, which does not pass any dirt. It is bad when there are too
many of them, it is bad when too few; in the first case the ability
for deeds disappears, in the second, the conscience. Hence the
eternal, as humanity, need of exterior regulator.

But the French writers always had more originality and independence
than others, and that regulator, which elsewhere was religion, long
since ceased to exist for them. There were some exceptions, however.
Balzac used to affirm that his aim was to serve religion and monarchy.
But even the works of those who confessed such principles were not in
harmony with themselves. One can say that it pleased the authors to
understand their activity in that way, but the reading masses could
understand it and often understood it as a negation of religious and