ng and to motion; when the first light of day
strikes upon creation, and brings it to life again, as the magic wand
struck the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the wood! It is a moment of
rest from every misery; the sufferings of the sick are allayed, and a
breath of hope enters into the hearts of the despairing. But, alas! it
is but a short respite! Everything will soon resume its wonted course:
the great human machine, with its long strains, its deep gasps, its
collisions, and its crashes, will be again put in motion.

The tranquillity of this first morning hour reminds me of that of our
first years of life. Then, too, the sun shines brightly, the air
is fragrant, and the illusions of youth-those birds of our life's
morning-sing around us. Why do they fly away when we are older? Where
do this sadness and this solitude, which gradually steal upon us,
come from? The course seems to be the same with individuals and with
communities: at starting, so readily made happy, so easily enchanted;
and at the goal, the bitter disappointment or reality! The road, which
began among hawthorns and primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in
precipices! Why is there so much confidence at first, so much doubt at
last? Has, then, the knowledge of life no other end but to make it
unfit for happiness? Must we condemn ourselves to ignorance if we would
preserve hope? Is the world and is the individual man intended, after
all, to find rest only in an eternal childhood?

How many times have I asked myself these questions! Solitude has the
advantage or the danger of making us continually search more deeply into
the same ideas. As our discourse is only with ourself, we always give
the same direction to the conversation; we are not called to turn it
to the subject which occupies another mind, or interests another's
feelings; and so an involuntary inclination makes us return forever to
knock at the same doors!

I interrupted my reflections to put my attic in order. I hate the
look of disorder, because it shows either a contempt for details or an
unaptness for spiritual life. To arrange the things among which we have
to live, is to establish the relation of property and of use between
them and us: it is to lay the foundation of those habits without which
man tends to the savage state. What, in fact, is social organization but
a series of habits, settled in accordance with the dispositions of our
nature?

I distrust both the intellect and the mor