Prayer on the Acropolis       

 It was not until I was well advanced in life that I began to have any souvenirs. The imperious necessity which compelled me during my early years to solve for myself, not with the leisurely deliberation of the thinker, but with the feverish ardour of one who has to struggle for life, the loftiest problems of philosophy and religion never left me a quarter of an hour's leisure to look behind me. Afterwards dragged into the current of the century in which I lived, and concerning which I was in complete ignorance, there was suddenly disclosed to my gaze a spectacle as novel to me as the society of Saturn or Venus would be to any one landed in those planets. It struck me as being paltry and morally inferior to what I had seen at Issy and St. Sulpice; though the great scientific and critical attainments of men like Eugene Burnouf, the brilliant conversation of M. Cousin, and the revival brought about by Germany in nearly all the historical sciences, coupled with my travels and the fever of production, carried me away and prevented me from meditating on the years which were already relegated to what seemed like a distant past. My residence in Syria tended still further to obliterate my early recollections. The new sensations which I experienced there, the glimpses which I caught of a divine world, so different from our frigid and sombre countries, absorbed my whole being. My dreams were haunted for a time by the burnt-up mountain-chain of Galaad and the peak of Safed, where the Messiah was to appear, by Carmel and its beds of anemone sown by God, by the Gulf of Aphaca whence issues the river Adonis.

        Strangely enough, it was at Athens, in 1865, that I first felt a strong backward impulse, the effect being that of a fresh and bracing breeze coming from afar. The impression which Athens made upon me was the strongest which I have ever felt. There is one and only one place in which perfection exists, and that is Athens, which outdid anything I had ever imagined. I had before my eyes the ideal of beauty crystallised in the marble of Pentelicus. I had hitherto thought that perfection was not to be found in this world; one thing alone seemed to come anywhere near to perfection. For some time past I had ceased to believe in miracles strictly so called, though the singular destiny of the Jewish people, leading up to Jesus and Christianity, appeared to me to stand alone. And now suddenly there arose by the side of the Jewish miracle the Greek miracle, a thing which has only existed once, which had never been seen before, which will never be seen again, but the effect of which will last for ever, an eternal type of beauty, without a single blemish, local or national. I of course knew before I went there that Greece had created science, art, and philosophy, but the means of measurement were wanting. The sight of the Acropolis was like a revelation of the Divine, such as that which I experienced when, gazing down upon the valley of the Jordan from the heights of Casyoun, I first felt the living reality of the Gospel. The whole world then appeared to me barbarian. The East repelled me by its pomp, its ostentation, and its impostures. The Romans were merely rough soldiers; the majesty of the noblest Roman of them all, of an Augustus and a Trajan, was but attitudinising compared to the ease and simple nobility of these proud and peaceful citizens. Celts, Germans, and Slavs appeared as conscientious but scarcely civilised Scythians. Our own Middle Ages seemed to me devoid of elegance and style, disfigured by misplaced pride and pedantry, Charlemagne was nothing more than an awkward German stableman; our chevaliers louts at whom Themistocles and Alcibiades would have laughed. But here you had a whole people of aristocrats, a general public composed entirely of connoisseurs, a democracy which was capable of distinguishing shades of art so delicate that even our most refined judges can scarcely appreciate them. Here you had a public capable of understanding in what consisted the beauty of the Propylon and the superiority of the sculptures of the Parthenon. This revelation of true and simple grandeur went to my very soul. All that I had hit her to seen seemed to me the awkward effort of a Jesuitical art, a rococo mixture of silly pomp, charlatanism, and caricature. These sentiments were stronger as I stood on the Acropolis than anywhere else.

        An excellent architect with whom I had travelled would often remark that to his mind the truth of the gods was in proportion to the solid beauty of the temples reared in their honour. Judged by this standard, Athens would have no rival. What adds so much to the beauty of the buildings is their absolute honesty and the respect shown to the Divinity. The parts of the building not seen by the public are as well constructed as those which meet the eye; and there are none of those deceptions which, in French churches more particularly, give the idea of being intended to mislead the Divinity as to the value of the offering. The aspect of rectitude and seriousness which I had before me caused me to blush at the thought of having often done sacrifice to a less pure ideal. The hours which I passed on the sacred eminence were hours of prayer. My whole life unfolded itself, as in a general confession, before my eyes. But the most singular thing was that in confessing my sins I got to like them, and my resolve to become classical eventually drove me into just the opposite direction.

         An old document which I have lighted upon among my memoranda of travel contains the following: Prayer which I said on the Acropolis when I had succeeded in understanding the perfect beauty of it.

        "Oh! nobility! Oh! true and simple beauty! Goddess, the worship of whom signifies reason and wisdom, thou whose temple is an eternal lesson of conscience and truth, I come late to the threshold of thy mysteries; I bring to the foot of thy altar much remorse. Ere finding thee, I have had to make infinite search. The initiation which thou didst confer by a smile upon the Athenian at his birth I have acquired by force of reflection and long labour.

        "I am born, O goddess of the blue eyes, of barbarian parents, among the good and virtuous Cimmerians who dwell by the shore of a melancholy sea, bristling with rocks ever lashed by the storm. The sun is scarcely known in this country, its flowers are seaweed, marine plants, and the coloured shells which are gathered in the recesses of lonely bays. The clouds seem colourless, and even joy is rather sorrowful there; but fountains of fresh water spring out of the rocks, and the eyes of the young girls are like the green fountains in which, with their beds of waving herbs, the sky is mirrored.

        "My forefathers, as far as we can trace them, have passed their lives in navigating the distant seas, which thy Argonauts knew not, I used to hear as a child the songs which told of voyages to the Pole; I was cradled amid the souvenir of floating ice, of misty seas like milk, of islands peopled with birds which now and again would warble, and which, when they rose in flight, darkened the air.

        "Priests of a strange creed, handed down from the Syrians of Palestine, brought me up. These priests were wise and good. They taught me long lessons of Cronos, who created the world, and of his son, who, as they told me, made a journey upon earth. Their temples are thrice as lofty as thine, O Eurhythmia, and dense like forests. But they are not enduring, and crumble to pieces at the end of five or six hundred years. They are the fantastic creation of barbarians, who vainly imagine that they can succeed without observing the rules which thou hast laid down, O Reason! Yet these temples pleased me, for I had not then studied thy divine art and God was present to me in them. Hymns were sung there, and among those which I can remember were: "Hail, star of the sea.... Queen of those who mourn in this valley of tears ..." or again, "Mystical rose, tower of ivory, house of gold, star of the morning...." Yes, Goddess, when I recall these hymns of praise my heart melts, and I become almost an apostate. Forgive me this absurdity; thou canst not imagine the charm which these barbarians have imparted to verse, and how hard it is to follow the path of pure reason.

        "And if thou knewest how difficult it has become to serve thee. All nobility has disappeared. The Scythians have conquered the world. There is no longer a Republic of free citizens; the world is governed by kings whose blood scarcely courses in their veins, and at whose majesty thou wouldst smile. Heavy hyperboreans denounce thy servants as frivolous.... A formidable Panbaeotia, a league of fools, weighs down upon the world with a pall of lead. Thou must fain despise even those who pay thee worship. Dost thou remember the Caledonian who half a century ago broke up thy temple with a hammer to carry it away with him to Thule? He is no worse than the rest.... I wrote in accordance with some of the rules which thou lovest, O Theonoe, the life of the young god whom I served in my childhood, and for this they beat me like a Euhemerus and wonder what my motives can be, believing only in those things which enrich their trapezite tables. And why do we write the lives of the gods if it is not to make the reader love what is divine in them, and to show that this divine past yet lives and will ever live in the heart of humanity?

        "Dost thou remember the day when, Dionysodorus being archon, an ugly little Jew, speaking the Greek of the Syrians, came hither, passed beneath thy porch without understanding thee, misread thy inscriptions, and imagined that he had discovered within thy walls an altar dedicated to what he called the Unknown God? Well, this little Jew was believed; for a thousand years thou hast been treated as an idol, O Truth! for a thousand years the world has been a desert in which no flower bloomed. And all this time thou wert silent, O Salpinx, clarion of thought. Goddess of order, image of celestial stability, those who loved thee were regarded, as culprits, and now, when by force of conscientious labour we have succeeded in drawing near to thee, we are accused of committing a crime against human intelligence because we have burst the chains which Plato knew not.

        "Thou alone art young, O Cora; thou alone art pure, O Virgin; thou alone art healthy, O Hygeia; thou alone art strong, O Victory! Thou keepest the cities, O Promachos; thou hast the blood of Mars in thee, O Area; peace is thy aim, O Pacifica! O Legislatress, source of just constitutions; O Democracy thou whose fundamental dogma it is that all good things come from the people, and that where there is no people to fertilise and inspire genius there can be none, teach us to extricate the diamond from among the impure multitudes! Providence of Jupiter, divine worker, mother of all industry, protectress of labour, O Ergane, thou who ennoblest the labour of the civilised worker and placest him so far above the slothful Scythian; Wisdom, thou whom Jupiter begot with a breath; thou who dwellest within thy father, a part of his very essence; thou who art his companion and his conscience; Energy of Zeus, spark which kindles and keeps aflame the fire in heroes and men of genius, make us perfect spiritualists! On the day when the Athenians and the men of Rhodes fought for the sacrifice, thou didst choose to dwell among the Athenians as being the wisest. But thy father caused Plutus to descend in a shower of gold upon the city of the Rhodians because they had done homage to his daughter. The men of Rhodes were rich, but the Athenians had wit, that is to say, the true joy, the ever-enduring good humour, the divine youth of the heart.

        "The only way of salvation for the world is by returning to thy allegiance, by repudiating its barbarian ties. Let us hasten into thy courts. Glorious will be the day when all the cities which have stolen the fragments of thy temple, Venice, Paris, London, and Copenhagen, shall make good their larceny, form holy alliances to bring these fragments back, saying: "Pardon us, O Goddess, it was done to save them from the evil genii of the night," and rebuild thy walls to the sound of the flute, thus expiating the crime of Lysander the infamous! Thence they shall go to Sparta and curse the site where stood that city, mistress of sombre errors, and insult her because she is no more.

        "Firm in my faith, I shall have force to withstand my evil counsellors, my scepticism, which leads me to doubt of the people, my restless spirit which, after truth has been brought to light, impels me to go on searching for it, and my fancy which cannot be still even when Reason has pronounced her judgment. O Archegetes, ideal which the man of genius embodies in his masterpieces, I would rather be last in thy house than first in any other. Yes, I will cling to the stylobate of thy temple, I will be a stylites on thy columns, my cell shall be upon thy architrave and, what is more difficult still, for thy sake I will endeavour to be intolerant and prejudiced. I will love thee alone. I will learn thy tongue, and unlearn all others. I will be unjust for all that concerns not thee; I will be the servant of the least of thy children. I will exalt and natter the present inhabitants of the earth which thou gavest to Erechthea. I will endeavour to like their very defects; I will endeavour to persuade myself, O Hippia, that they are descendants of the horsemen who, aloft upon the marble of thy frieze celebrate without ceasing their glad festival. I will pluck out of my heart every fibre which is not reason and pure art. I will try to love my bodily ills, to find delight in the flush of fever. Help me! Further my resolutions, O Salutaris! Help, thou who savest!

        "Great are the difficulties which I foresee. Inveterate the habits of mind which I shall have to change. Many the delightful recollections which I shall have to pluck out of my heart. I will try, but I am not very confident of my power. Late in life have I known thee, O perfect Beauty. I shall be beset with hesitations and temptation to fall away. A philosophy, perverse no doubt in its teachings, has led me to believe that good and evil, pleasure and pain, the beautiful and the ungainly, reason and folly, fade into one another by shades as impalpable as those in a dove's neck. To feel neither absolute love nor absolute hate becomes therefore wisdom. If any one society, philosophy, or religion, had possessed absolute truth, this society, philosophy, or religion, would have vanquished all the others and would be the only one now extant. All those who have hitherto believed themselves to be right were in error, as we see very clearly. Can we without utter presumption believe that the future will not judge us as we have judged the past? Such are the blasphemous ideas suggested to me by my corrupt mind. A literature wholesome in all respects like thine would now be looked upon as wearisome.

        "Thou smilest at my simplicity. Yes, weariness. We are corrupt; what is to be done? I will go further, O orthodox Goddess, and confide to you the inmost depravation of my heart. Reason and common sense are not all-satisfying. There is poetry in the frozen Strymon and in the intoxication of the Thracian. The time will come when thy disciples will be regarded as the disciples of _ennui_. The world is greater than thou dost suppose. If thou hadst seen the Polar snows and the mysteries of the austral firmament thy forehead, O Goddess, ever so calm, would be less serene; thy head would be larger and would embrace more varied kinds of beauty.

        "Thou art true, pure, perfect; thy marble is spotless; but the temple of Hagia-Sophia, which is at Byzantium, also produces a divine effect with its bricks and its plaster-work. It is the image of the vault of heaven. It will crumble, but if thy chapel had to be large enough to hold a large number of worshippers it would crumble also.

        "A vast stream called Oblivion hurries us downward towards a nameless abyss. Thou art the only true God, O Abyss! the tears of all nations are true tears; the dreams of all wise men comprise a parcel of truth; all things here below are mere symbols and dreams. The Gods pass away like men; and it would not be well for them to be eternal. The faith which we have felt should never be a chain, and our obligations to it are fully discharged when we have carefully enveloped it in the purple shroud within the folds of which slumber the Gods that are dead."

          Je n'ai commence d'avoir des souvenirs que fort tard. L'imperieux devoir qui m'obligea, durant les annees de ma jeunesse, a resoudre pour mon compte, non avec le laisser aller du speculatif, mais avec la fievre de celui qui lutte pour la vie, les plus hauts problemes de la philosophie et de la religion, ne me laissait pas un quart d'heure pour regarder en arriere. Jete ensuite dans le courant de mon siecle, que j'ignorais totalement, je me trouvai en face d'un spectacle en realite aussi nouveau pour moi que le serait la societe de saturne ou de venus pour ceux a qui il serait donne de la voir. Je trouvais tout cela faible, inferieur moralement a ce que j'avais vu a Issy et a saint-Sulpice; cependant la superiorite de science et de critique d'hommes tels qu'Eugene Burnouf, l'incomparable vie qui s'exhalait de la conversation de M. Cousin, la grande renovation que l'Allemagne operait dans presque toutes les sciences historiques, puis les voyages, puis l'ardeur de produire, m'entrainerent et ne me permirent pas de songer a des annees qui etaient deja loin de moi. Mon sejour en Syrie m'eloigna encore davantage de mes anciens souvenirs. Les sensations entierement nouvelles que j'y trouvai, les visions que j'y eus d'un monde divin, etranger a nos froides et melancoliques contrees, m'absorberent tout entier. Mes reves, pendant quelque temps, furent la chaine brule de Galaad, le pic de Safed, ou apparaitra le messie; le carmel et ses champs d'anemones semes par dieu; le gouffre d'Aphaca, d'ou sort le fleuve Adonis. Chose singuliere!

         Ce fut a Athenes, en 1865, que j'eprouvai pour la premiere fois un vif sentiment de retour en arriere, un effet comme celui d'une brise fraiche, penetrante, venant de tres loin. L'impression que me fit Athenes est de beaucoup la plus forte que j'aie jamais ressentie. Il y a un lieu ou la perfection existe; il n'y en a pas deux: c'est celui-la. Je n'avais jamais rien imagine de pareil. C'etait l'ideal cristallise en marbre pentelique qui se montrait a moi. Jusque-la, j'avais cru que la perfection n'est pas de ce monde; une seule revelation me paraissait se rapprocher de l'absolu. Depuis longtemps, je ne croyais plus au miracle, dans le sens propre du mot; cependant la destinee unique du peuple juif, aboutissant a Jesus et au christianisme, m'apparaissait comme quelque chose de tout a fait a part. Or voici qu'a cote du miracle juif venait se placer pour moi le miracle grec, une chose qui n'a existe qu'une fois, qui ne s'etait jamais vue, qui ne se reverra plus, mais dont l'effet durera eternellement, je veux dire un type de beaute eternelle, sans nulle tache locale ou nationale. Je savais bien, avant mon voyage, que la Grece avait cree la science, l'art, la philosophie, la civilisation; mais l'echelle me manquait. Quand je vis l'acropole, j'eus la revelation du divin, comme je l'avais eue la premiere fois que je sentis vivre l'evangile, en apercevant la vallee du Jourdain des hauteurs de Casyoun. Le monde entier alors me parut barbare. L'orient me choqua par sa pompe, son ostentation, ses impostures. Les romains ne furent que de grossiers soldats; la majeste du plus beau romain, d'un Auguste, d'un Trajan, ne me sembla que pose aupres de l'aisance, de la noblesse simple de ces citoyens fiers et tranquilles. Celtes, germains, slaves m'apparurent comme des especes de scythes consciencieux, mais peniblement civilises. Je trouvai notre moyen age sans elegance ni tournure, entache de fierte pedlacee et de pedantisme. Charlemagne m'apparut comme un gros palefrenier allemand; nos chevaliers me semblerent des lourdauds, dont Themistocle et Alcibiade eussent souri. Il y a eu un peuple d'aristocrates, un public tout entier compose de connaisseurs, une democratie qui a saisi des nuances d'art tellement fines que nos raffines les apercoivent a peine. Il y a eu un public pour comprendre ce qui fait la beaute des propylees et la superiorite des sculptures du parthenon. Cette revelation de la grandeur vraie et simple m'atteignit jusqu'au fond de l'etre. Tout ce que j'avais connu jusque-la me sembla l'effort maladroit d'un art jesuitique, un rococo compose de pompe niaise, de charlatanisme et de caricature. C'est principalement sur l'acropole que ces sentiments m'assiegeaient.

          Un excellent architecte avec qui j'avais voyage avait coutume de me dire que, pour lui, la verite des dieux etait en proportion de la beaute solide des temples qu'on leur a eleves. Jugee sur ce pied-la, Athene serait au-dessus de toute rivalite. Ce qu'il y a de surprenant, en effet, c'est que le beau n'est ici que l'honnetete absolue, la raison, le respect meme envers la divinite. Les parties cachees de l'edifice sont aussi soignees que celles qui sont vues. Aucun de ces trompe-l'oeil qui, dans nos eglises en particulier, sont comme une tentative perpetuelle pour induire la divinite en erreur sur la valeur de la chose offerte. Ce serieux, cette droiture, me faisaient rougir d'avoir plus d'une fois sacrifie a un ideal moins pur. Les heures que je passais sur la colline sacree etaient des heures de priere. Toute ma vie repassait, comme une confession generale, devant mes yeux. Mais ce qu'il y avait de plus singulier, c'est qu'en confessant mes peches, j'en venais a les aimer; mes resolutions de devenir classique finissaient par me precipiter plus que jamais au pole oppose.

         Un vieux papier que je retrouve parmi mes notes de voyage contient ceci: priere que je fis sur l'acropole quand je fus arrive a en comprendre la parfaite beaute:

        "o noblesse! o beaute simple et vraie! Deesse dont le culte signifie raison et sagesse, toi dont le temple est une lecon eternelle de conscience et de sincerite, j'arrive tard au seuil de tes mysteres; j'apporte a ton autel beaucoup de remords. Pour te trouver, il m'a fallu des recherches infinies. L'initiation que tu conferais a l'athenien naissant par un sourire, je l'ai conquise a force de reflexions, au prix de longs efforts.

        "je suis ne, deesse aux yeux bleus, de parents barbares, chez les cimmeriens bons et vertueux qui habitent au bord d'une mer sombre, herissee de rochers, toujours battue par les orages. On y connait a peine le soleil; les fleurs sont les mousses marines, les algues et les coquillages colories qu'on trouve au fond des baies solitaires. Les nuages y paraissent sans couleur, et la joie meme y est un peu triste; mais des fontaines d'eau froide y sortent du rocher, et les yeux des jeunes filles y sont comme ces vertes fontaines ou, sur des fonds d'herbes ondulees, se mire le ciel.

        "mes peres, aussi loin que nous pouvons remonter, etaient voues aux navigations lointaines, dans des mers que tes argonautes ne connurent pas. J'entendis, quand j'etais jeune, les chansons des voyages polaires; je fus berce au souvenir des glaces flottantes, des mers brumeuses semblables a du lait, des iles peuplees d'oiseaux qui chantent a leurs heures et qui, prenant leur volee tous ensemble, obscurcissent le ciel.

         "des pretres d'un culte etranger, venu des syriens de Palestine, prirent soin de m'elever. Ces pretres etaient sages et saints. Ils m'apprirent les longues histoires de Cronos, qui a cree le monde, et de son fils, qui a, dit-on, accompli un voyage sur la terre. Leurs temples sont trois fois hauts comme le tien, o Eurhythmie, et semblables a des forets; seulement ils ne sont pas solides; ils tombent en ruine au bout de cinq ou six cents ans; ce sont des fantaisies de barbares, qui s'imaginent qu'on peut faire quelque chose de bien en dehors des regles que tu as tracees a tes inspires o raison. Mais ces temples me plaisaient; je n'avais pas etudie ton art divin; j'y trouvais dieu. On y chantait des cantiques dont je me souviens encore: "salut, etoile de la mer,... reine de ceux qui gemissent en cette vallee de larmes." ou bien: "rose mystique, tour d'ivoire, maison d'or, etoile du matin..." tiens, deesse, quand je me rappelle ces chants, mon cour se fond, je deviens presque apostat. Pardonne-moi ce ridicule; tu ne peux te figurer le charme que les magiciens barbares ont mis dans ces vers, et combien il m'en coute de suivre la raison toute nue.

         "et puis si tu savais combien il est devenu difficile de te servir! Toute noblesse a disparu. Les scythes ont conquis le monde. Il n'y a plus de republique d'hommes libres; il n'y a plus que des rois issus d'un sang lourd, des majestes dont tu sourirais. De pesants hyperboreens appellent legers ceux qui te servent... une pambeotie redoutable, une ligue de toutes les sottises, etend sur le monde un couvercle de plomb, sous lequel on etouffe. Meme ceux qui t'honorent, qu'ils doivent te faire pitie! Te souviens-tu de ce caledonien qui, il y a cinquante ans, brisa ton temple a coups de marteau pour l'emporter a Thule? Ainsi font-ils tous... j'ai ecrit, selon quelques-unes des regles que tu aimes, o Theonoe, la vie du jeune dieu que je servis dans mon enfance; ils me traitent comme un Evhemere; ils m'ecrivent pour me demander quel but je me suis propose; ils n'estiment que ce qui sert a faire fructifier leurs tables de trapezites. Et pourquoi ecrit-on la vie des dieux, o ciel! Si ce n'est pour faire aimer le divin qui fut en eux, et pour montrer que ce divin vit encore et vivra eternellement au cour de l'humanite?

          "te rappelles-tu ce jour, sous l'archontat de Dionysodore, ou un laid petit juif, parlant le grec des syriens, vint ici, parcourut tes parvis sans te comprendre, lut tes inscriptions tout de travers et crut trouver dans ton enceinte un autel dedie a un dieu qui serait le dieu inconnu. eh bien, ce petit juif l'a emporte; pendant mille ans, on t'a traitee d'idole, o verite; pendant mille ans, le monde a ete un desert ou ne germait aucune fleur. Durant ce temps, tu te taisais, o Salpinx, clairon de la pensee. Deesse de l'ordre, image de la stabilite celeste, on etait coupable pour t'aimer, et, aujourd'hui qu'a force de consciencieux travail nous avons reussi a nous rapprocher de toi, on nous accuse d'avoir commis un crime contre l'esprit humain en rompant des chaines dont se passait Platon.

        "toi seule es jeune, o Cora; toi seule es pure, o vierge; toi seule es saine, o Hygie; toi seule es forte, o victoire. Les cites, tu les gardes, o Promachos; tu as ce qu'il faut de mars, o Area; la paix est ton but, o pacifique. Legislatrice, source des constitutions justes; democratie, toi dont le dogme fondamental est que tout bien vient du peuple, et que, partout ou il n'y a pas de peuple pour nourrir et inspirer le genie, il n'y a rien, apprends-nous a extraire le diamant des foules impures. Providence de Jupiter, ouvriere divine, mere de toute industrie, protectrice du travail, o Ergane, toi qui fais la noblesse du travailleur civilise et le mets si fort au-dessus du scythe paresseux; sagesse, toi que Zeus enfanta apres s'etre replie sur lui-meme, apres avoir respire profondement; toi qui habites dans ton pere, entierement unie a son essence; toi qui es sa compagne et sa conscience; energie de Zeus, etincelle qui allumes et entretiens le feu chez les heros et les hommes de genie, fais de nous des spiritualistes accomplis. Le jour ou les atheniens et les rhodiens lutterent pour le sacrifice, tu choisis d'habiter chez les atheniens, comme plus sages. Ton pere cependant fit descendre Plutus dans un nuage d'or sur la cite des rhodiens, parce qu'ils avaient aussi rendu hommage a sa fille. Les rhodiens furent riches; mais les atheniens eurent de l'esprit, c'est-a-dire la vraie joie, l'eternelle gaiete, la divine enfance du cour.

         "le monde ne sera sauve qu'en revenant a toi, en repudiant ses attaches barbares. Courons, venons en troupe. Quel beau jour que celui ou toutes les villes qui ont pris des debris de ton temple, Venise, Paris, Londres, Copenhague, repareront leurs larcins, formeront des theories sacrees pour rapporter les debris qu'elles possedent, en disant: "pardonne-nous, deesse! C'etait pour les sauver des mauvais genies de la nuit", et rebatiront tes murs au son de la flute, pour expier le crime de l'infame Lysandre! Puis ils iront a Sparte maudire le sol ou fut cette maitresse d'erreurs sombres, et l'insulter parce qu'elle n'est plus.

       "ferme en toi, je resisterai a mes fatales conseilleres; a mon scepticisme, qui me fait douter du peuple; a mon inquietude d'esprit, qui, quand le vrai est trouve, me le fait chercher encore; a ma fantaisie, qui, apres que la raison a prononce, m'empeche de me tenir en repos. o Archegete, ideal que l'homme de genie incarne en ses chefs-d'oeuvre, j'aime mieux etre le dernier dans ta maison que le premier ailleurs. Oui, je m'attacherai au stylobate de ton temple; j'oublierai toute discipline hormis la tienne, je me ferai stylite sur tes colonnes, ma cellule sera sur ton architrave. Chose plus difficile! Pour toi, je me ferai, si je peux, intolerant, partial. Je n'aimerai que toi. Je vais apprendre ta langue, desapprendre le reste. Je serai injuste pour ce qui ne te touche pas; je me ferai le serviteur du dernier de tes fils. Les habitants actuels de la terre que tu donnas a Erechthee, je les exalterai, je les flatterai. J'essayerai d'aimer jusqu'a leurs defauts; je me persuaderai, o Hippia, qu'ils descendent les cavaliers qui celebrent la-haut, sur le marbre de ta frise, leur fete eternelle. J'arracherai de mon cour toute fibre qui n'est pas raison et art pur. Je cesserai d'aimer mes maladies, de me complaire en ma fievre. Soutiens mon ferme propos, o salutaire; aide-moi, o toi qui sauves!

         "que de difficultes, en effet, je prevois! Que d'habitudes d'esprit j'aurai a changer! Que de souvenirs charmants je devrai arracher de mon cour! J'essayerai; mais je ne suis pas sur de moi. Tard je t'ai connue, beaute parfaite. J'aurai des retours, des faiblesses. Une philosophie, perverse sans doute, m'a porte a croire que le bien et le mal, le plaisir et la douleur, le beau et le laid, la raison et la folie se transforment les uns dans les autres par des nuances aussi indiscernables que celles du cou de la colombe. Ne rien aimer, ne rien hair absolument, devient alors une sagesse. Si une societe, si une philosophie, si une religion eut possede la verite absolue, cette societe, cette philosophie, cette religion aurait vaincu les autres et vivrait seule a l'heure qu'il est. Tous ceux qui, jusqu'ici, ont cru avoir raison se sont trompes, nous le voyons clairement. Pouvons-nous sans folle outrecuidance croire que l'avenir ne nous jugera pas comme nous jugeons le passe? Voila les blasphemes que me suggere mon esprit profondement gate. Une litterature qui, comme la tienne, serait saine de tout point n'exciterait plus maintenant que l'ennui.

         "tu souris de ma naivete. Oui, l'ennui... nous sommes corrompus: qu'y faire? J'irai plus loin, deesse orthodoxe, je te dirai la depravation intime de mon cour. Raison et bon sens ne suffisent pas. Il y a de la poesie dans le Strymon glace et dans l'ivresse du Thrace. Il viendra des siecles ou tes disciples passeront pour les disciples de l'ennui. Le monde est plus grand que tu ne crois. Si tu avais vu les neiges du pole et les mysteres du ciel austral, ton front, o deesse toujours calme, ne serait pas si serein; ta tete, plus large, embrasserait divers genres de beaute.

         "tu es vraie, pure, parfaite; ton marbre n'a point de tache; mais le temple d'Hagia-Sophia, qui est a Byzance, produit aussi un effet divin avec ses briques et son platras. Il est l'image de la voute du ciel. Il croulera; mais, si ta cella devait etre assez large pour contenir une foule, elle croulerait aussi.

         "un immense fleuve d'oubli nous entraine dans un gouffre sans nom. o abime, tu es le dieu unique. Les larmes de tous les peuples sont de vraies larmes; les reves de tous les sages renferment une part de verite. Tout n'est ici-bas que symbole et que songe. Les dieux passent comme les hommes, et il ne serait pas bon qu'ils fussent eternels. La foi qu'on a eue ne doit jamais etre une chaine. On est quitte envers elle quand on l'a soigneusement roulee dans le linceul de pourpre ou dorment les dieux morts."

Ernest Renan 1865

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