The interior deprives men of their senses. Here, the eerie stillness of the wilderness and the darkness of night render the men both deaf and blind. Without eyes or ears, they have no frame of reference-and without a frame of reference, they have no clear identities.

There is never enough time to say our last word-the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt.

Going home must be like going to render an account.

Youth is insolent; it is its right - its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence.

It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes upon itself a face of pain; and some of our griefs (some only, not all, for it is the capacity for suffering which makes man August in the eyes of men) have their source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling com passion as the common inheritance of us all.

The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free.

Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without force is a but a rotten reed to lean upon.