This abdication,
this passion, represented the true enemy in Clerambault's eyes. And it
was his task, he thought, to break down its great suggestive power by
awakening doubt, the spirit that eats away all chains.
The chief seat of the disease was the idea of Nation; this inflamed
point could not be touched without howls from the beast. Clerambault
attacked it at once, without gloves.
_What have I to do with your nations? Can you expect me to love or
hate a nation? It is men that I love or hate, and in all nations
you will find the noble, the base, and the ordinary man. Yes, and
everywhere are few great or low, while the ordinary abound. Like or
dislike a man for what he is, not for what others are; and if there
is one man who is dear to me in a whole nation, that prevents me from
condemning it. You talk of struggles and hatred between races? Races
are the colours of life's prism; it binds them together, and we have
light. Woe to him who shatters it! I am not of one race, I belong to
life as a whole; I have brothers in every nation, enemy or ally, and
those you would thrust upon me as compatriots are not always the
nearest. The families of our souls are scattered through the world.
Let us re-unite them! Our task is to undo these chaotic nations, and
in their place to bind together more harmonious groups.
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