Page 608 - the-idiot

umph of morality, that well-known verse of Gilbert’s:
‘0, puissent voir longtemps votre beaute sacree Tant
d’amis, sourds a mes adieux! Qu’ils meurent pleins de jours,
que leur mort soit pleuree, Qu’un ami leur ferme les yeux!’
‘But believe me, believe me, my simple-hearted friends,
that in this highly moral verse, in this academical blessing
to the world in general in the French language, is hidden
the intensest gall and bitterness; but so well concealed is the
venom, that I dare say the poet actually persuaded himself
that his words were full of the tears of pardon and peace,
instead of the bitterness of disappointment and malice, and
so died in the delusion.
‘Do you know there is a limit of ignominy, beyond which
man’s consciousness of shame cannot go, and after which
begins satisfaction in shame? Well, of course humility is a
great force in that sense, I admit that—though not in the
sense in which religion accounts humility to be strength!
‘Religion!—I admit eternal life—and perhaps I always
did admit it.
‘Admitted that consciousness is called into existence by
the will of a Higher Power; admitted that this consciousness
looks out upon the world and says ‘I am;’ and admitted that
the Higher Power wills that the consciousness so called into
existence, be suddenly extinguished (for so—for some un-
explained reason—it is and must be)—still there comes the
eternal question—why must I be humble through all this?
Is it not enough that I am devoured, without my being ex-
pected to bless the power that devours me? Surely—surely I
need not suppose that Somebody—there—will be offended

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