The look of his young friend had revealed an unknown treasure to poor
Clerambault, and the knowledge of the divine message with which he was
entrusted re-established his lost union with other men. He had
only contended with them because he was their hardy pioneer, their
Christopher Columbus forcing his way across the desert ocean, that he
might open the road to the New World. They deride, but follow him; for
every true idea, whether understood or not, is a ship under weigh, and
the souls of the past are drawn after in its wake.
From this day onward he averted his eyes from the irreparable present
of the war and its dead, and looked towards the living, and the future
which is in our hands. We are hypnotised, obsessed by the thought of
those that we have lost, and the morbid temptation to bury our hearts
in their graves, but we must tear ourselves away from the baleful
vapours that rise, as in Rome, from The Way of the Tombs. March on!
This is no time to halt. We have not yet earned the right to rest with
them, for there are others who need us. There, like the wrecks of the
Grand Army, you can see in the distance those who drag themselves
along, searching on the dreary plain for the half-effaced path.
The thought of the sombre pessimism which threatened to overwhelm
these young men after the war was a grave anxiety to Clerambault.
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