will-less knowledge--has gradually invaded all hearts; and the
restless, shifting sea (which is passion) shrinks to its furthest
limits.

"There have been Messiahs, there have been persecutions, but the Word
has been preached unintermittently. Crowds have gathered to listen
to the wild-eyed prophets. You see them on the desert promontories,
preaching that human life must cease; they call it a disgraceful
episode in the life of one of the meanest of the planets--you see
them hunted and tortured as were their ancestors, the Christians of
the reign of Diocletian. You see them entering cottage doors and
making converts in humble homes. The world, grown tired of vain
misery, accepts oblivion.

"The rage and the seething of the sea is the image I select to
represent the struggle for life. The dawn is my image for the
diffusion and triumph of sufficient reason. In a couple of hundred
lines I have set my scene, and I begin. It is in the plains of
Normandy; of countless millions only two friends remain. One of them
is dying. As the stars recede he stretches his hand to his companion,
breathes once more, looking him in the face, joyous in the attainment
of final rest. A hole is scraped, and the last burial is achieved.
Then the man, a young beautiful man with the pallor of long vigils
and spiritual combat upon his face, arises.

"The scene echoes strangely the asceticism that produced it.
Rose-garden and vineyard are gone; there are no fields, nor
hedgerows, nor gables seen picturesquely on a sky, human with smoke
mildly ascending. A broken wall that a great elm tears and rends,
startles the silence; apple-orchards spread no flowery snow, and the