Chương Chương 131 · THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite.

Man is the second.

Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road,

it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which is

common to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well

as to modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well

as to Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to

the Infinite.

This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain

ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our

restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we

encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel

ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the

mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate,

and a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind,

and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the

human wall!