Sundry other ruminations on Marcel's aimless Parisian peregrination
38-9 Thus from age to age is born a certain realism which reacts against what the previous age has admired.
54 Passions an principle Thus, by a process of compensation, while virtuous young men abandon themselves in their later years to the passions of which they they at length become conscious, promiscuous youths turn into men of principle. 57 .. “Intelligence?” A form of "intelligence" which differs as much from the intelligence that characterises thinkers as the "intelligence" admired by the public in this or that rich man who has “been clever enough to make a fortune”. 63 Fake news We read the newspapers as we love, blindfold. We do not try to understand the facts. We listen to the soothing words of the editor as we listen to the words of our mistress. We are beaten and happy because we believe ourselves unbeaten and victorious. 73 .. An epic with words and phrases which are an contradiction in terms If is tiresome to be composing an epic with words and phrases which are - worse than an error of grammar or of taste - an appalling contradiction in terms, a vulgar affectation and pretension of the kind that you and I abominate, as bad as when people think it clever to say 'coke' instead of 'cocaine'. 97 That little cell, endowed with mind, that a human being is Of course my quarrels with Francoise or with Albertine had been merely private quarrels, of interest only to the life of that little cell, endowed with mind, that a human being is. But just as there are animal bodies and human bodies, each one of which is an assemblage of cells as large in relation to a single cell as Mount Blanc, so there exist huge organised accumulations of individuals which are called nations: their life does no more than repeat on a larger scale the lives of their constituent cells, and anybody who is incapable of comprehending the mystery, the reactions, the laws of these smaller lives, will only make futile pronouncements when he talks (98) about struggles between nation. But if he is the master of the psychology of individuals, then these colossal masses of conglomerated individuals will assume in his eyes, as they confront one another, a beauty more potent than that of the struggle which arises from a mere conflict between two characters. |
99 A law of inverse proportions They thought certainly of these hecatombs of regiments annihilated and passengers swallowed by the waves; but there is a law of inverse proportions which multiplies to such an extent anything that concerns our own welfare and divides by such a formidable figure anything that does not concern it, that the death of unknown millions is felt by us as the most insignificant of sensations, hardly even as disagreeable as a draught.
102 In every country fools form the bulk of the population In the first place, he (M de Charlus) was very intelligent and in every country fools form the bulk of the population; no doubt, had he lived in Germany, the German fools defending foolishly and with passion an unjust cause would have irritated him; but living as he did in France, the French fools defending feverishly and with passion a just cause irritated him quite as much. The logic of passion, even if it happens to be in the service of the best possible cause, is never irrefutable for the man who is not himself passionate. People who at end of the year were as confident in making fresh predictions as though they had never, with equal confidence, (103) made false ones, which they had, however, forgotten, saying, if they were reminded of them, that it ‘was not the same thing’. 107 Everything a military man did was right At that time everything that a military man did was right, even the irregularities of General de Boisdeffre, the disguises and strategies of Colonel du Paty de Clam, the forgery of Colonel Henry. .. .(it was in reality merely another aspect of the same very noble passion,. the passion of patriotism, which, from being militarist when it was struggling against Dreyfusism, a phenomenon of anti-militarist tendencies, had been obliged itself to become almost anti-militaristic now that the struggle was against the hyper-militaristic Germany)... 108 Poetry in a working-class home or coal mine Brichot, who could not be sarcastic enough about Zola for discovering more poetry in a working-class home or in a coal-mine than in the famous places of history.. 132 Every morning war is declared afresh It has been written 'Now that Germany has determined on war, the die is cast. The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors. |