Page 99 - les-miserables

them, create individualities in unity, proportions in extent,
the innumerable in the infinite, and, through light, produce
beauty. These conjunctions are formed and dissolved inces-
santly; hence life and death.
He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back
against a decrepit vine; he gazed at the stars, past the puny
and stunted silhouettes of his fruit-trees. This quarter of an
acre, so poorly planted, so encumbered with mean build-
ings and sheds, was dear to him, and satisfied his wants.
What more was needed by this old man, who divided the
leisure of his life, where there was so little leisure, between
gardening in the daytime and contemplation at night? Was
not this narrow enclosure, with the heavens for a ceiling, suf-
ficient to enable him to adore God in his most divine works,
in turn? Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and what
is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to
walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one’s feet that
which can be cultivated and plucked; over head that which
one can study and meditate upon: some flowers on earth,
and all the stars in the sky.

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