sympathise with characters engaged in the activity demands that their
author should participate in the illusions. He, too, must be surprised
at the disaster which he himself has proved inevitable. It is not enough
that he should pity them; he must share in their effort, and be
discomfited at their discomfiture.

Such exercises of the soul are impossible to a real acquiescence, which
cannot even permit itself the inspiration of the final illusion that the
wreck of human hopes, being ordained, is beautiful. The man who
acquiesces is condemned to stand apart and contemplate a puppet-show
with which he can never really sympathise.

'De toutes les définitions de l'homme la plus mauvaise me paraît
celle qui en fait un animal raisonnable. Je ne me vante pas
excessivement en me donnant pour doué de plus de raison que la
plupart de ceux de mes semblables que j'ai vus de près ou dont j'ai
connu l'histoire. La raison habite rarement les âmes communes, et
bien plus rarement encore les grands esprits.... J'appelle
raisonnable celui qui accorde sa raison particulière avec la raison
universelle, de manière à n'être jamais trop surpris de ce qui
arrive et à s'y accommoder tant bien que mal; j'appelle raisonnable
celui qui, observant le désordre de la nature et la folie humaine,
ne s'obstine point à y voir de l'ordre et de la sagesse; j'appelle
raisonnable enfin celui qui ne s'efforce pas de l'être.'

The chasm between living and being wise (which is to be _raisonnable_)
is manifest. The condition of living is to be perpetually surprised,
incessantly indignant or exultant, at what happens. To bridge the chasm
there is for the wise man only one way. He must cast back in his memory
to the time when he, too, was surprised and indignant. No man is, after