"Who  would  have  thought  that  Paris  would  make
you  a  poet  of  the  fields?"  he  would  say  to  Henri.
"That's  the  punishment  for  idleness.  Instead  of
going  into  ecstasies  over  an  oak  tree,  get  into  the
stream  of  action  in  the  world,  turn  back  your  cuffs,
make  me  a  roll  of  paper  out  of  this  tree,  bring  up  your
ignorant  workers  to  some  conception  of  industry,
increase  the  substance  of  mortal  man:  these  are
worth  more  than  plain  living  and  high  thinking."

"It's  true  I've  stupidly  wasted  my  life,"  replied
Henri.  "It  might  have  been  good  and  useful.  Only,
the  sort  of  thing  you  call  action  isn't  the  only  action.
Your  paper  isn't  worth  anything  except  for  the  ideas
which  the  spirit  of  man  prints  on  it.  You  are  an
agent,  a  middleman,  not  a  master.  It's  the  ecstasy
of  the  world,  at  which  you  are  laughing,  which  ex-
plains you  and  justifies  you.  From  it  come,  day  by
day,  the  sensations  that  move  men,  and  the  maker
of  paper  even — you  have  confessed  it — is  moved  by
a  feeling  for  art."

"And  is  it  from  the  great  life  of  Paris,  as  M.  HarlS
calls  it,  that  you  bring  back  this  philosophy?"

"No,  madame.  I  found  it  here — too  late.  I
lived  stupidly  with  the  empty  gestures  of  my  class,
the  sad  remnants  of  a  vanished  glory.  I  am  forty
years  old.  Whatever  is  left  of  my  strength  is  useless
for  any  purpose.  I  have  lost  my  fortune  and  my


20  THE  STRONGEST

youth,  and  here  I  am,  a  peasant,  just  where  I  began.
