Perhaps these mystical revolutionaries are forerunners of mutations
that are brooding in the race--which may brood for centuries
and perhaps never burst forth. For there are millions of latent
possibilities in nature, for one realised in the time allotted to our
humanity. And it is perhaps this obscure sentiment of what might be,
but will not come to pass, which sometimes gives to this sort of
mysticism another form, rarer, more tragical--an exalted pessimism,
the dangerous attraction of sacrifice. How many of these
revolutionists have we seen secretly convinced of the overwhelming
force of evil, and the certain defeat of their cause, and yet
transported with love for a lost cause "... _sed victa Catoni_"
... and filled with the hope of dying for her, destroying or being
destroyed. The crushed Commune gave rise to many aspirations, not for
its victory, but for a similar annihilation!--In the hearts of the
most materialistic there burns forever a spark of that eternal fire,
that hope so often buffeted and denied, but still maintained, of an
imperishable refuge for all the oppressed in some better Hereafter.
These young people welcomed Clerambault with great affection and
esteem, hoping to make him one of themselves. Some of them read in
his ideas a reflection of their own, while others saw in him just
a sincere old _bourgeois_ whose heart had been hitherto his only
guide--a rather insufficient, though generous one.
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