" There are moments," writes the latter (in Best) —
" and it is only a matter of five or six seconds — when you
suddenly feel the presence of the eternal harmony. This
phenomenon is neither terrestial nor celestial, but it is an
indescribable something, which man, in his mortal body,
can scarcely endure — ^he must either undergo a physical
transformation or die. It is a clear and indisputable
feeling : all at once, you feel as though you were placed in
contact with the whole of nature, and you say, * Yes ! this
is true.' When God created the world. He said, at the
end of every day of creation, * Yes ! this is true ! this is
good ! *. And it is not tenderness, nor yet joy. You
do not forgive anything, because there is nothing to for-
give. Neither do you love — oh ! this feeling is higher
than love 1 The terrible thing is the frightful clearness
with which it manifests itself, and the rapture with which
it fills you. If this state were to last more than five
seconds, the ^oul could not endure it, and would have to
disappear. During those five seconds, I live a whole
human existence, and for that I would give my whole
life and not think I was paying it too dearly.'

" * You are not epileptic ? '

"^No.»

** * You will become so. I have heard that it begins

' "There is a fatality," says Goncourt, *'in the first chance which
suggests your idea. Then there is an unknown force^ a superior will, a
sort of necessity of writing which command your work and guide your
pen ; so much so, that sometimes the book which leaves your hands does
not seem to have come out of yourself ; it astonishes you, like some-
thing which was in you, and of which you were unconscious. That
is the impression which So^ur Philomlne gives me " {Journal des Gon^
court, Paris, 1888). 