voice:

"Every false idea is dangerous. People think that dreamers do no harm.
They are mistaken: dreamers do a great heal of harm. Even apparently
inoffensive utopian ideas really exercise a noxious influence. They tend
to inspire disgust at reality."

"It is, perhaps, because reality is not beautiful," said Paul Vence.

M. Garain said that he had always been in favor of all possible
improvements. He had asked for the suppression of permanent armies in
the time of the Empire, for the separation of church and state, and had
remained always faithful to democracy. His device, he said, was "Order
and Progress." He thought he had discovered that device.

Montessuy said:

"Well, Monsieur Garain, be sincere. Confess that there are no reforms
to be made, and that it is as much as one can do to change the color of
postage-stamps. Good or bad, things are as they should be. Yes, things
are as they should be; but they change incessantly. Since 1870 the
industrial and financial situation of the country has gone through four
or five revolutions which political economists had not foreseen
and which they do not yet understand. In society, as in nature,
transformations are accomplished from within."

As to matters of government his ideas were terse and decided. He was
strongly attached to the present, heedless of the future, and the
socialists troubled him little. Without caring whether the sun and
capital should be extinguished some day, he enjoyed them. According
to him, one should let himself be carried. None but fools resisted the
current or tried to go in front of it.

But Count Martin, naturally sad, had, dark presentiments. In veiled
words he announced catastrophes. His timorous phrases came through the
flowers, and irritated M. Schmoll, who began to grumble and to prophesy.
He explained that Christian nations were incapable, alone and by
themselves, of throwing off barbarism, and that without the Jews and the
Arabs Europe would be to-day, as in the time of the Crusades, sunk in
ignorance, misery, and cruelty.

"The Middle Ages," he said, "are closed only in the historical manuals
that are given to pupils to spoil their minds. In reality, barbarians
are always barbarians. Israel's mission is to instruct nations. It was
Israel which, in the Middle Ages, brought to Europe the wisdom of ages.
Socialism frightens you. It is a Christian evil, like priesthood. And
anarchy? Do you not recognize in it the plague of the Albigeo