He stayed in the house for several days, for this first contact with the outside world had depressed him, and the friend on whom he had relied for guidance had failed him miserably.  He was much troubled, for Clerambault was weak and unused to stand alone.  Poet as he was, and absolutely sincere, he had never felt it necessary to think independently of others; he had let himself be carried along by their thought, making it his own, becoming its inspired voice and mouth-piece.  Now all was suddenly changed.  Notwithstanding that night of crisis, his doubts returned upon him; for after fifty a man’s nature cannot be transformed at a touch, no matter how much the mind may have retained the elasticity of youth.  The light of a revelation does not always shine, like the sun in a clear summer sky, but is more like an arc-light, which often winks and goes out before the current becomes strong.  When these irregular pulsations fade out, the shadows appear deeper, and the spirit totters and then—.  It was hard for Clerambault to get along without other people.

He decided to visit all his friends, of whom he had many, in the literary world, in the University, and among the intelligent bourgeoisie.  He was sure to find some among them who, better than he, could divine the problems which beset him, and help him in their solution.

Timidly, without as yet betraying his own mind, he tried to read theirs, to listen and observe; but he had not realised that the veil had fallen from his eyes; and the vision that he saw of a world, once well-known to him, seemed strange and cold.

The whole world of letters was mobilised; so that personalities were no longer to be distinguished.  The universities formed a ministry of domesticated intelligence; its functions were to draw up the acts of the State, its master and patron; the different departments were known by their professional twists.

The professors of literature were above all skilful in developing moral arguments oratorically under the three terms of the syllogism.  Their mania was an excessive simplification of argument; they put high-sounding words in the place of reason, and made too much of a few ideas, always the same, lifeless for lack of colour or shading.  They had unearthed these weapons of a so-called classic antiquity, the key to which had been jealously guarded throughout the ages by academic Mamelukes, and these eloquent antiquated ideas were falsely called Humanities, though in many respects they offended the common-sense and the heart of humanity as it is today.  Still they bore the hall-mark of Rome, prototype of all our modern states, and their authorised exponents were the State rhetoricians.