and fro, he returns; his hand opens and empties itself,
fills itself and empties itself again and again; the sombre plain is
stirred, the deeps of nature open, the unknown abyss of creation begins
its work; the waiting dews fall, the spear of wild grain quivers and
reflects that the sheaf of wheat will succeed it; the sun, hidden
behind the horizon, loves what that workman is doing, and knows that
his rays will not be wasted. Sacred and mysterious work!

The orator is the sower. He takes from his heart his instincts, his
passions, his beliefs, his sufferings, his dreams, his ideas, and
throws them, by handfuls, into the midst of men. Every brain is to him
an open furrow. One word dropped from the tribune always takes root
somewhere, and becomes a thing. You say, "Oh! it is nothing--it is a
man talking," and you shrug your shoulders. Shortsighted creatures! it
is a future which is germinating, it is a new world bursting into
bloom.

VII

WHAT THE TRIBUNE ACCOMPLISHED

Two great problems hang over the world. War must disappear, and
conquest must continue. These two necessities of a growing civilization
seemed to exclude each other. How satisfy the one without failing the
other? Who could solve the two problems at the same time? Who did solve
them? The tribune! The tribune is peace, and the tribune is conquest.
Conquest by the sword,--who wants it? Nobody. The peoples are
fatherlands. Conquest by ideas,--who wants it? Everybody. The peoples
are mankind. Now two preeminent tribunes dominated the nations--the
English tribune doing business, and the French tribune creating ideas.
The French tribune had elaborated after '89 all the principles which
form the political philosopher's stone, and it had begun to elaborate
since 1848 all the principles which form the social philosopher's
stone. When once a principle had been released from confinement and
brought into the light, the French tribune threw it upon the world,
armed from head to foot, saying: "Go!" The victorious principle took
the field, met the custom-house officers on the frontier, and passed in
spite of their watch-dogs; met the sentinels at the gates of cities,
and passed despite their pass-words; travelled by railway, by
packet-boat, scoured continents, crossed the seas, accosted wayfarers
on the highway, sat at the firesides of families, glided between friend
and friend, between brother and brother, between man and wife, between
master and slave, betw