There are, then, two immortalities: the subjective immortality which a man accords himself readily, even necessarily, and the objective immortality, of which Pratinas has been robbed and which is a fact. If what we have said be true and if, in the absence of precise methods of analysis, the first--religious or literary--no longer admits of other than philosophic--that is to say, vague--reflections, objective immortality, on the other hand, is a less abstract subject for discussion. It would even be possible, with a little good will, to bring all history within its scope; but French literature forms a long and brilliant enough cavalcade for our purpose. The moment words clasp beneath their wings a certain amount of perceptible reality, they readily yield their formula. Glory is life in the memory of men. But of what men, what life? M. Stapfer[8] has attempted to enumerate the works which, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, have lasted--what is called "lasting" in professional critical language. This chapter, wittily entitled (with a touch of Jansenism) "the little number of elect," would be brief were it but a catalogue. In short--and this may be admitted provisionally--among all the French writers of the last three centuries, twenty-five or thirty may be said to have achieved what is called glory; but of these thirty, the majority are scarcely more than a name. What life, and of what men? M. Stapfer is thinking of works that it might occur to a modern Frenchman, "of average culture," to glance at on a rainy day. It is impossible to make a serious analysis if we permit such expressions as "average culture" to enter our reasoning. A man of "average culture" may very possibly enjoy Saint-Simon, without owning either a Pascal, a Bossuet, a Corneille or a Malherbe. A man can read and reread Pascal, yet have little taste for Rabelais. But these amateurs of hard reading are professors, churchmen, lawyers--men who, even if they are not writers themselves, have a professional interest in letters, and are obliged to keep in touch with the classic period of French literature. And where have they learned that Boileau is a better poet than Théophile or Tristan? At college, for it is through the college that literary glory maintains itself in the bored recollection of heedless generations. There is no "average culture" that can be felt and figured by a flexible curve; but there are programmes. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam invented the "Glory Machine." There is, in the Ministry of Public Instruction, a hall on the door of which should be read: "Bureau of Glory." It is the seat of the Superior Council which elaborates the study programme. This programme is the "stuffer" which produces average cultures. Names omitted from it will remain eternally unknown to generations whose paternal guide it will be. But an educator's conscience will not permit him to impose upon children knowledge of writers whose morality is not universally admitted.