ow all was suddenly changed. Notwithstanding that night
of crisis, his doubts returned upon him; for after fifty a man's
nature cannot be transformed at a touch, no matter how much the mind
may have retained the elasticity of youth. The light of a revelation
does not always shine, like the sun in a clear summer sky, but is more
like an arc-light, which often winks and goes out before the current
becomes strong. When these irregular pulsations fade out, the shadows
appear deeper, and the spirit totters and then--. It was hard for
Clerambault to get along without other people.

He decided to visit all his friends, of whom he had many, in the
literary world, in the University, and among the intelligent
_bourgeoisie_. He was sure to find some among them who, better than
he, could divine the problems which beset him, and help him in their
solution.

Timidly, without as yet betraying his own mind, he tried to read
theirs, to listen and observe; but he had not realised that the veil
had fallen from his eyes; and the vision that he saw of a world, once
well-known to him, seemed strange and cold.

The whole world of letters was mobilised; so that personalities were
no longer to be distinguished. The universities formed a ministry of
domesticated intelligence; its functions were to draw up the acts of
the State, its master and patron; the different departments were known
by their professional twists.

The professors of literature were above all skilful in developing
moral arguments oratorically under the three terms of the syllogism.
Their mania was an excessive simplification of argument; they put
high-sounding words in the place of reason, and made too much of a few
ideas, always the same, lifeless for lack of colour or shading. They
had unearthed these weapons of a so-called classic antiquity, the key
to which had been jealously guarded throughout the ages by academic
Mamelukes, and these eloquent antiquated ideas were falsely called
Humanities, though in many respects they offended the common-sense and
the heart of humanity as it is today. Still they bore the hall-mark
of Rome, prototype of all our modern states, and their authorised
exponents were the State rhetoricians.

The philosophers excelled in abstract constructions; they had the art
of explaining the concrete by the abstract, the real by its shadow.
They systematised some hasty partial observations, melted them in
their alembics, and from them deduced laws to r