lerambault rejoiced in such visions, for nothing could have
harmonised better with his warm heart and inaccurate mind. If one has
but little self-possession it is easy to give oneself up to others, to
the world, to that indefinable Providential Force on whose shoulders
we can throw the burden of thought and will. The great current swept
on and these indolent souls, instead of pursuing their way along the
bank found it easier to let themselves be carried ...Where? No one
took the trouble to ask. Safe in their West, it never occurred to them
that their civilisation could lose the advantages gained; the march of
progress seemed as inevitable as the rotation of the earth. Firm in
this conviction, one could fold one's arms and leave all to nature;
who meanwhile was waiting for them at the bottom of the pit that she
was digging.

As became a good idealist, Clerambault rarely looked where he was
going, but that did not prevent him from meddling in politics in a
fumbling sort of way, as was the mania of men of letters in his day.
He had his word to say, right or wrong, and was often entreated to
speak by journalists in need of copy, and fell into their trap, taking
himself seriously in his innocent way. On the whole he was a fair poet
and a good man, intelligent, if rather a greenhorn, pure of heart
and weak in character, sensitive to praise and blame, and to all the
suggestions round him. He was incapable of a mean sentiment of envy or
hatred, and unable also to attribute such thoughts to others. Amid the
complexity of human feelings, he remained blind towards evil and
an advocate of the good. This type of writer is born to please the
public, for he does not see faults in men, and enhances their small
merits, so that even those who see through him are grateful. If we
cannot amount to much, a good appearance is a consolation, and we love
to be reflected in eyes which lend beauty to our mediocrity.

This widespread sympathy, which delighted Clerambault, was not less
sweet to the three who surrounded him at this moment. They were as
proud of him as if they had made him, for what one admires does seem
in a sense one's own creation, and when in addition one is of the same
blood, a part of the object of our admiration, it is hard to tell if
we spring from him, or he from us.

Agenor Clerambault's wife and his two children gazed at their great
man with the tender satisfied expression of ownership; and he, tall
and high-shouldered,