of philosophy. So long then as the life of nations is in need
of religion as a motive and sanction of morality, as food for faith,
hope, and charity, so long will the masses turn away from pure reason
and naked truth, so long will they adore mystery, so long--and rightly
so--will they rest in faith, the only region where the ideal presents
itself to them in an attractive form.

* * * * *

OCTOBER 26TH, 1870.--If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular
morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of
the cultivated classes. The modern separation of enlightenment and
virtue, of thought and conscience, of the intellectual aristocracy from
the honest and vulgar crowd, is the greatest danger that can threaten
liberty. When any society produces an increasing number of literary
exquisites, of satirists, skeptics, and _beaux esprits_, some chemical
disorganization of fabric may be inferred. Take, for example, the
century of Augustus and that of Louis XV. Our cynics and railers are
mere egotists, who stand aloof from the common duty, and in their
indolent remoteness are of no service to society against any ill which
may attack it. Their cultivation consists in having got rid of feeling.
And thus they fall farther and farther away from true humanity, and
approach nearer to the demoniacal nature. What was it that
Mephistopheles lacked? Not intelligence, certainly, but goodness.

* * * * *

DECEMBER 11TH, 1875.--The ideal which the wife and mother makes for
herself, the manner in which she understands duty and life, contain the
fate of the community. Her faith becomes the star of the conjugal ship,
and her love the animating principle that fashions the future of all
belonging to her. Woman is the salvation or destruction of the family.
She carries its destinies in the folds of her mantle.

* * * * *

JANUARY 22D, 1875.--The thirst for truth is not a French passion. In
everything appearance is preferred to reality, the outside to the
inside, the fashion to the material, that which shines to that which
profits, opinion to conscience. That is to say, the Frenchman's centre
of gravity is always outside him,--he is always thinking of others,
playing to the gallery. To him individuals are so many zeros: the unit
which turns them into a number must be added from outside; it may be
royalty, the writer of the day,