Page 2084 - les-miserables

These passages of arms for the sake of progress often suf-
fer shipwreck, and we have just explained why. The crowd
is restive in the presence of the impulses of paladins. Heavy
masses, the multitudes which are fragile because of their
very weight, fear adventures; and there is a touch of adven-
ture in the ideal.
Moreover, and we must not forget this, interests which
are not very friendly to the ideal and the sentimental are in
the way. Sometimes the stomach paralyzes the heart.
The grandeur and beauty of France lies in this, that she
takes less from the stomach than other nations: she more
easily knots the rope about her loins. She is the first awake,
the last asleep. She marches forwards. She is a seeker.
This arises from the fact that she is an artist.
The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic,
the same as the beautiful is nothing but the summit of the
true. Artistic peoples are also consistent peoples. To love
beauty is to see the light. That is why the torch of Europe,
that is to say of civilization, was first borne by Greece, who
passed it on to Italy, who handed it on to France. Divine, il-
luminating nations of scouts! Vitaelampada tradunt.
It is an admirable thing that the poetry of a people is
the element of its progress. The amount of civilization is
measured by the quantity of imagination. Only, a civilizing
people should remain a manly people. Corinth, yes; Sybaris,
no. Whoever becomes effeminate makes himself a bastard.
He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso: but he must
be artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine,
but he must sublime. On this condition, one gives to the hu-

2084 Les Miserables