I do not regret my youth and its beliefs.  Up to now, I have wasted my time to live.  Youth is the true force, but it is too rarely lucid.  Sometimes it has a triumphant liking for what is now, and the pugnacious broadside of paradox may please it.  But there is a degree in innovation which they who have not lived very much cannot attain.  And yet who knows if the stern greatness of present events will not have educated and aged the generation which to-day forms humanity’s effective frontier?  Whatever our hope may be, if we did not place it in youth, where should we place it?

Who will speak—­see, and then speak?  To speak is the same thing as to see, but it is more.  Speech perpetuates vision.  We carry no light; we are things of shadow, for night closes our eyes, and we put out our hands to find our way when the light is gone; we only shine in speech; truth is made by the mouths of men.  The wind of words—­what is it?  It is our breath—­not all words, for there are artificial and copied ones which are not part of the speaker; but the profound words, the cries.  In the human cry you feel the effort of the spring.  The cry comes out of us, it is as living as a child.  The cry goes on, and makes the appeal of truth wherever it may be, the cry gathers cries.

There is a voice, a low and untiring voice, which helps those who do not and will not see themselves, a voice which brings them together, Books—­the book we choose, the favorite, the book you open, which was waiting for you!

Formerly, I hardly knew any books.  Now, I love what they do.  I have brought together as many as I could.  There they are, on the shelves, with their immense titles, their regular, profound contents; they are there, all around me, arranged like houses.

* * * * * *

Who will tell the truth?  But it is not enough to say things in order to let them be seen.

Just now, pursued by the idea of my temptation at the War Museum, I imagined that I had acted on it, and that I was appearing before the judges.  I should have told them a fine lot of truths, I should have proved to them that I had done right.  I should have made myself, the accused, into the prosecutor.

No!  I should not have spoken thus, for I should not have known!  I should have stood stammering, full of a truth throbbing within me, choking, unconfessable truth.  It is not enough to speak; you must know words.  When you have said, “I am in pain,” or when you have said, “I am right,” you have said nothing in reality, you have only spoken to yourself.  The real presence of truth is not in every word of truth, because of the wear and tear of words, and the fleeting multiplicity of arguments.  One must have the gift of persuasion, of leaving to truth its speaking simplicity, its solemn unfoldings.  It is not I who will be able to speak from the depths of myself.  The attention of men dazzles me when