ing like light. I understand of what a great tribune's sorrow
is made; and I can only dream of him who, visibly summarizing the
immense crisis of human necessity in a work which forgets nothing,
which seems to forget nothing, without the blot even of a misplaced
comma, will proclaim our Charter to the epochs of the times in which we
are, and will let us see it. Blessed be that simplifier, from whatever
country he may come,--but all the same, I should prefer him, at the
bottom of my heart, to speak French.

Once more, he intervenes within me who first showed himself to me as
the specter of evil, he who guided me through hell. When the
death-agony was choking him and his head had darkened like an eagle's,
he hurled a curse which I did not understand, which I understand now,
on the masterpieces of art. He was afraid of their eternity, of that
terrible might they have--when once they are imprinted on the eyes of
an epoch--the strength which you can neither kill nor drive in front of
you. He said that Velasquez, who was only a chamberlain, had succeeded
Philip IV, that he would succeed the Escurial, that he would succeed
even Spain and Europe. He likened that artistic power, which the Kings
have tamed in all respects save in its greatness, to that of a
poet-reformer who throws a saying of freedom and justice abroad, a book
which scatters sparks among humanity somber as coal. The voice of the
expiring prince crawled on the ground and throbbed with secret blows:
"Begone, all you voices of light!"

* * * * * *

But what shall _we_ say? Let us spell out the Magna Charta of which we
humbly catch sight. Let us say to the people of whom all peoples are
made: "Wake up and understand, look and see; and having begun again
the consciousness which was mown down by slavery, decide that
everything must be begun again!"

Begin again, entirely. Yes, that first. If the human charter does not
re-create everything, it will create nothing.

Unless they are universal, the reforms to be carried out are utopian
and mortal. National reforms are only fragments of reforms. There
must be no half measures. Half measures are laughter-provoking in
their unbounded littleness when it is a question for the last time of
arresting the world's roll down the hill of horror. There must be no
half measures because there are no half truths. Do all, or you will do
nothing.

Above all, do not let the reforms