JOURNAL, 1940
115
Providence-that my cry of despair would break out. I never
regret not
believing;
but I am often impelled to say "Fortunately,
I do not
believe!"
"Perhaps truth is sad" (I would like to be sure I am quoting
Renan's little sentence accurately, but am ignorant of its source).
This
mot,
which throws people into ecstacies, annoys me. Truth
cannot be either sad or cheerful. But to wake from a dream, to
think oneself God-forsaken because one began by believing in
Providence-yes, that can be very distressing at first. The fact
that two and two make but four saddens only the man who had
fancied that they "made" more.
There is a certain romanticism in grieving because things are
not other than they are: than they can be, that is. It is on the real,
not the imaginary, that we must build our wisdom. Even death
ought to be accepted by us, and we should raise ourselves to the
level of understanding it, understanding that the astonishing beauty
of death arises precisely from the fact that nothing endures in it,
that ceaselessly
this
must yield room and matter to allow
that,
which has not yet been, to come forth; the same, but renewed,
rejuvenated; the same, yet imperceptibly nearer the perfection in
knowledge for which it strives and from which the very face of
God is gradually formed. Ceaselessly in the process of becoming
and never completed, from the unthinkable gulf of the past to the
unthinkable "consummation of the ages."
Nothing is more irritating and absurd than: "What is any–
thing that is not everlasting?"-when said without irony.
"A fastidious person declared: 'There is no truth except in
nuance.' Was he not one of those colorless writers who get lost
in
the search for a tone when it is impossible for them to reflect
the light?" Certainly not! I am pretty sure that the writer was
Renan, and I fear that this is a profound misinterpretation of the
sentence quoted from him.
This handful of intellectuals uttering their
mea culpa
now–
adays, and accusing themselves of having "loved literature too
much"-will they never understand how prejudicial to culture is
the abandonment and repudiation of certain graces of the spirit?
Are we to turn our backs in a "strategic retreat" on everything
