If the “_Inferno_” describes worse torments, it contains no words more scathing in their disdain than these which describe “those inert ones who are pleasing neither to God nor to his enemies.” The misers who carry burdens, the evil-tempered who struggle in a bog, the voluptuous dragged into an endless whirl-wind, the rogues plunged into a lake of boiling pitch, have deserved their punishment by their acts, and have asserted themselves in evil-doing. The others have asserted themselves neither in evil nor in good. Neither virtuous nor vicious, we do not know what they were. Dull, flabby, and soft, they have not left behind the memory of any personality. They scarcely lived; they were afraid to live. For the fear of living means precisely that,--to deserve neither blame nor praise. It is the constant all-prevailing desire for peace. It is the flight from responsibilities, struggles, risks, and efforts. It is the careful avoidance of danger, fatigue, exaltation, passion, enthusiasm, sacrifice, every violent action, everything that disturbs and upsets. It is the refusal of life’s claims upon our hearts, our sweat, and our blood. In short, it is the pretence of living, while limiting life, while setting bounds to our destinies. It is that passive selfishness which would rather retrench its appetite than seek the food which it requires; the selfishness which is meanly content with a colorless, dull life, provided it is sure of meeting with no shocks, no difficulties, no obstacles, like the traveler who will only journey along plains and on rubber tires. Must we quote examples? It is the fear of living which inspires a young man in the choice of a profession, which shows him the special advantages of an official career providing him, in return for work that is moderate in amount and does not take up much time, with a fixed salary and a pension; that modest dream which inspired Goncourt to make this epigram--“France is a country where one sows functionaries and reaps taxes.” Is it not this fear much more often than a keen sense of justice, that drives the weak and envious to that Socialism which would result in the establishment of an all-round equality of mediocrity?