lf a psalm or canticle. This man of profound erudition
had as pure and simple a heart as ever dwelt in mortal. He loved to stop
by the road and talk with children, and knew how to hold their attention
whilst teaching them a lesson. Seeing boy or girl in charge of a cow, he
would ask: "How is it that you, a little child, are able to control that
animal, so much bigger and stronger?" And he would show the reason,
speaking of the human soul. All this about Tillemont is new to me; well
as I knew his name (from the pages of Gibbon), I thought of him merely as
the laborious and accurate compiler of historical materials. Admirable
as was his work, the spirit in which he performed it is the thing to
dwell upon; he studied for study's sake, and with no aim but truth; to
him it was a matter of indifference whether his learning ever became
known among men, and at any moment he would have given the fruits of his
labour to any one capable of making use of them.

Think of the world in which the Jansenists were living; the world of the
Fronde, of Richelieu and Mazarin, of his refulgent Majesty Louis XIV.
Contrast Port-Royal with Versailles, and--whatever one's judgment of
their religious and ecclesiastical aims--one must needs say that these
men lived with dignity. The Great Monarch is, in comparison, a poor,
sordid creature. One thinks of Moliere refused burial--the king's
contemptuous indifference for one who could do no more to amuse him being
a true measure of the royal greatness. Face to face with even the least
of these grave and pious men, how paltry and unclean are all those
courtly figures; not _there_ was dignity, in the palace chambers and the
stately gardens, but in the poor rooms where the solitaries of Port-Royal
prayed and studied and taught. Whether or not the ideal for mankind,
their life was worthy of man. And what is rarer than a life to which
that praise can be given?



IX.


It is amusing to note the superficial forms of reaction against
scientific positivism.