Page 386 - swanns-way

vre school of painting speak to him of some rare or eminent
artist, ‘I’d a hundred times rather,’ he would reply, ‘have the
Verdurins.’ And, with a solemnity of diction which was new
in him: ‘They are magnanimous creatures, and magnanim-
ity is, after all, the one thing that matters, the one thing that
gives us distinction here on earth. Look you, there are only
two classes of men, the magnanimous, and the rest; and I
have reached an age when one has to take sides, to decide
once and for all whom one is going to like and dislike, to
stick to the people one likes, and, to make up for the time
one has wasted with the others, never to leave them again
as long as one lives. Very well!’ he went on, with the slight
emotion which a man feels when, even without being fully
aware of what he is doing, he says something, not because it
is true but because he enjoys saying it, and listens to his own
voice uttering the words as though they came from some
one else, ‘The die is now cast; I have elected to love none but
magnanimous souls, and to live only in an atmosphere of
magnanimity. You ask me whether Mme. Verdurin is really
intelligent. I can assure you that she has given me proofs of a
nobility of heart, of a loftiness of soul, to which no one could
possibly attain—how could they?—without a corresponding
loftiness of mind. Without question, she has a profound un-
derstanding of art. But it is not, perhaps, in that that she is
most admirable; every little action, ingeniously, exquisitely
kind, which she has performed for my sake, every friendly
attention, simple little things, quite domestic and yet quite
sublime, reveal a more profound comprehension of exis-
tence than all your textbooks of philosophy.’

386 Swann’s Way