The statues of the gods watched over this treasure. Today, the most beautiful springs are guarded by railings; one goes to a wicket and pays in order to drink there. In the same way, all the springs of joy seem to have been sequestered for the profit of a few people. This is not always for the sake of gain. In most cases it is simply for exclusiveness. The man who owns something capable of giving joy naïvely imagines that he will be happier if he is the only one to drink from this inexhaustible breast. He becomes infatuated with it and thinks of nothing but how to shut up his treasure. He puts up a wall and provides it with fragments of sharp glass, so that the wall may show its teeth, so that it may be not only defensive but, in some sense, offensive. At times, yawning with ennui in the very midst of his material prosperity, he makes an opening in the wall, only to correct this imprudence with a ditch; and from behind this he seems to say, “Now see how rich I am; look and proclaim it in a loud voice, you who pass by, for I am beginning not to be so sure of it myself.” To shut up a picture, a beautiful tree, a sumptuous tapestry for one’s own exclusive benefit is, after all, only a trifling folly; but there are some who undertake to capture a river, a mountain, a horizon, the sea. A few years ago, I visited the shore of the Mediterranean, between Cannes and Menton. I was struck by a strange thing: the road that follows the edge of the sea, at the foot of the hills, through a thousand natural beauties, continually loses sight of the waves; it seems as if pushed back, held aside. People have appropriated the horizon; they have driven their fortune like a wedge between the divine sea and the road of the common folk. They wish to be the only ones to possess the ocean, dawn, the gold and sapphire of moon, the tempests and the thunders of the open sea. Do not be alarmed, mistaken brothers, do not tremble; we shall not throw down your walls. Live in peace in your sumptuous prison, our portion remains so beautiful and so great that we shall never exhaust it. Close your gates, you will not shut in the perfume of your shrubbery, nor all the wind, nor all the sky. You will not imprison the fragrant odor of your flower-beds. We shall breathe them, as we pass, lovingly, and continue on our way. We shall go on still further, for we have many things to acquaint ourselves with, we divine so many, many of them that a whole life is short in the light of such a destiny. But if it pleases you to join our vagabond company you will discover, perhaps, the other side of your own walls, which are hung with flax-weed and wild geranium. The road that skirts them outside leads to joy also. And besides, one does not find these ingenuous walls everywhere. The greed of men has not yet subjected all the beauty of things. You have snatched up in your fingers a fleeting draught of water: the ocean does not seem to be aware of it.