Recollections of My Youth | Page 5

in the
future. A narrow-minded, democratic _régime_ is often, as we know,
very troublesome. But for all that men of intelligence find that they can
live in America, as long as they are not too exacting. Noli me tangere is
the most one can ask for from democracy. We shall pass through
several alternatives of anarchy and despotism before we find repose in
this happy medium. But liberty is like truth; scarcely any one loves it
on its own account, and yet, owing to the impossibility of extremes,
one always comes back to it.
We may as well, therefore, allow the destinies of this planet to work
themselves out without undue concern. We should gain nothing by
exclaiming against them, and a display of temper would be very much
out of place. It is by no means certain that the earth is not falling short
of its destiny, as has probably happened to countless worlds; it is even
possible that our age may one day be regarded as the culminating point
since which humanity has been steadily deteriorating; but the universe
does not know the meaning of the word discouragement; it will
commence anew the work which has come to naught; each fresh check
leaves it young, alert, and full of illusions. Be of good cheer, Nature!
Pursue, like the deaf and blind star-fish which vegetates in the bed of
the ocean, thy obscure task of life; persevere; mend for the millionth

time the broken meshes of the net; repair the boring-machine which
sinks to the last limits of the attainable the well from which living
water will spring up. Sight and sight again the aim which thou hast
failed to hit throughout the ages; try to struggle through the scarcely
perceptible opening which leads to another firmament. Thou hast the
infinity of time and space to try the experiment. He who can commit
blunders with impunity is always certain to succeed.
Happy they who shall have had a part in this great final triumph which
will be the complete advent of God! A Paradise lost is always, for him
who wills it so, a Paradise regained. Often as Adam must have
mourned the loss of Eden, I fancy that if he lived, as we are told, 930
years after his fall, he must often have exclaimed: _Felix culpa!_ Truth
is, whatever may be said to the contrary, superior to all fictions. One
ought never to regret seeing clearer into the depths. By endeavouring to
increase the treasure of the truths which form the paid-up capital of
humanity, we shall be carrying on the work of our pious ancestors, who
loved the good and the true as it was understood in their time. The most
fatal error is to believe that one serves one's country by calumniating
those who founded it. All ages of a nation are leaves of the self-same
book. The true men of progress are those who profess as their
starting-point a profound respect for the past. All that we do, all that we
are, is the outcome of ages of labour. For my own part, I never feel my
liberal faith more firmly rooted in me than when I ponder over the
miracles of the ancient creed, nor more ardent for the work of the future
than when I have been listening for hours to the bells of the city of Is.
[Footnote 1: Upon the very day that this volume was going to press,
news reached me of the death of my brother, snapping the last thread of
the recollections of my childhood's home. My brother Alain was a
warm and true friend to me; he never failed to understand me, to
approve my course of action and to love me. His clear and sound
intellect and his great capacity for work adapted him for a profession in
which mathematical knowledge is of value or for magisterial functions.
The misfortunes of our family caused him to follow a different career,
and he underwent many hardships with unshaken courage. He never
complained of his lot, though life had scant enjoyment save that which

is derived from love of home. These joys are, however, unquestionably
the most unalloyed.]

THE FLAX-CRUSHER.

PART I.
Tréguier, my native place, has grown into a town out of an ancient
monastery founded at the close of the fifth century by St. Tudwal (or
Tual), one of the religious leaders of those great migratory movements
which introduced into the Armorican peninsula the name, the race, and
the religious institutions of the island of Britain. The predominating
characteristic of early British Christianity was its monastic tendency,
and there were no bishops, at all events among the immigrants, whose
first step, after landing in Brittany, the north coast of which must at that
time have