the height of this example, though none has attained to
it.

Thus understood, the ideal individualist is more productive for human
society than the ideal communist, who would lead us to the mechanical
perfection of the bee-hive, and at the very least he is indispensable
as corrective and complement.

This proud individualism, stated by Froment with burning eloquence,
was a support to Clerambault's mind, prone to waver, and undecided
from good-nature, self-distrust, and the wish to understand others.

Froment rendered Clerambault another important service. More in the
current of world-thought, and through his family coming in closer
contact with foreign thinkers, an accomplished linguist besides,
Froment could bring to mind those other men in all nations who, great
in their isolation, fought for the right to a free conscience. It
was a consoling spectacle; all the work under the surface of thought
suppressed, but struggling towards truth, and the knowledge that
the worst tyranny that has crushed the soul of humanity since the
Inquisition has failed to stifle the indomitable will to remain free
and true.

No doubt these lofty individualities were rare, but their power was
all the greater; the fine outline was more striking, seen against the
dark horizon. In the fall of the nations to the foot of the precipice
where millions lie in a shapeless mass, their voices seemed to rise
with the only human note, and their action gained emphasis from the
anger with which it was met. A century ago Chateaubriand wrote:

"It is vain to struggle longer; henceforward the only important thing
is to be."

He did not know that "to be" in our time, be oneself, be free, implies
the greatest of combats. Those who are true to themselves dominate
through the levelling down of the rest.

Clerambault was not the only one to feel the benefit of of Froment's
energy, for at his bedside he was sure to find some friend who came,
perhaps without admitting it, more to get comfort than to bring it.
Two or three of these were young, about Edme's age, the others, men
over fifty, old friends of the family, or those who had known Froment
before the war.

One of these had been his professor, an old Hellenist, with a sweet
absent smile. Then there was a grey-haired sculptor, his face ploughed
by deep tragic lines; a country gentleman, clean-shaved, red-cheeked,
with the massive head of an old peasant; and finally a doctor. He had
a white beard,