s essential to the doing
of anything useful; and they shall stand us in good stead, too, when
our own hour of danger draws nigh. But for all that, we do not pretend
that there truly is no other force--that all things can be governed by
our will and our intellect. These must be trained to act like the
soldiers of a conquering army; they must learn to thrive at the cost of
all that opposes them; they must find sustenance even in the unknown
that towers above them. Those who desire to emerge from the ordinary
habits of life, from the straitened happiness of mere pleasure-seeking
men, must march with deliberate conviction along the path that is known
to them, yet never forget the unexplored regions through which this
path winds. We must act as though we were masters--as though all things
were bound to obey us; and yet let us carefully tend in our soul a
thought whose duty it shall be to offer noble submission to the mighty
forces we may encounter. It is well that the hand should believe that
all is expected, foreseen; but well, too, that we should have in us a
secret idea, inviolable, incorruptible, that will always remember that
whatever is great most often must be unforeseen. It is the unforeseen,
the unknown, that fulfil what we never should dare to attempt; but they
will not come to our aid if they find not, deep down in our heart, an
altar inscribed to their worship. Men of the mightiest will--men like
Napoleon--were careful, in their most extraordinary deeds, to leave
open a good share to fate. Those within whom there lives not a generous
hope will keep fate closely confined, as they would a sickly child; but
others invite her into the limitless plains man has not yet the
strength to explore, and their eyes follow her every movement.

23. These feverish hours of history resemble a storm that we see on the
ocean; we come from far inland; we rush to the beach, in keen
expectation; we eye the enormous waves with curious eagerness, with
almost childish intensity. And there comes one along that is three
times as high and as fierce as the rest. It rushes towards us like some
monster with diaphanous muscles. It uncoils itself in mad haste from
the distant horizon, as though it were bearer of some urgent, complete
revelation. It ploughs in its wake a track so deep that we feel that
the sea must at last be yielding up one of her secrets; but all things
happen the same as on a breathless and cloudless day, when languid
wavelets