formulate general ideas is to change saltpetre into powder, and the
Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the
juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not
believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion carried
them away like grains of dust into the abyss of universal doubt.

It was a denial of all heavenly and earthly facts that might be termed
disenchantment, or if you will, despair; as if humanity in lethargy had
been pronounced dead by those who felt its pulse. Like a soldier who is
asked: "In what do you believe?" and who replies: "In myself," so the
youth of France, hearing that question, replied: "In nothing."

Then formed two camps: on one side the exalted spirits, sufferers, all
the expansive souls who yearned toward the infinite, bowed their heads
and wept; they wrapped themselves in unhealthful dreams and nothing could
be seen but broken reeds in an ocean of bitterness. On the other side
the materialists remained erect, inflexible, in the midst of positive
joys, and cared for nothing except to count the money they had acquired.
It was but a sob and a burst of laughter, the one coming from the soul,
the other from the body.

This is what the soul said:

"Alas! Alas! religion has departed; the clouds of heaven fall in rain;
we have no longer either hope or expectation, not even two little pieces
of black wood in the shape of a cross before which to clasp our hands.
The star of the future is loath to appear; it can not rise above the
horizon; it is enveloped in clouds, and like the sun in winter its disc
is the color of blood, as in '93. There is no more love, no more glory.
What heavy darkness over all the earth! And death will come ere the day