Neither will be wise.
But precisely because they are not wise, they will seek the company of
wise men. Their own attitude will not wear. The ecstasy will fail, the
will to renunciation falter; the gray reality which permits no one to
escape it altogether will filter like a mist into the vision and the
cell. Then they will turn to the wise men. They will find comfort in the
smile to which they could not frame their own lips, and discover in it
more sympathy than they could hope for.
Among the wise men whom they will surely most frequent will be Anatole
France. His company is constant; his attitude durable. There is no
undertone of anguish in his work like that which gives such poignant and
haunting beauty to Tchehov. He has never suffered himself to be so
involved in life as to be maimed by it. But the price he has paid for
his safety has been a renunciation of experience. Only by being involved
in life, perhaps only by being maimed by it, could he have gained that
bitterness of knowledge which is the enemy of wisdom.
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