“The bridge which it remained to me to build between Judaism and Christianism is built.... In the ‘Life of Jesus’ I tried to exhibit the majestic growth of the Galilean tree from the stock of its roots to the summit, where sing the birds of heaven. In the volume just finished I have sought to make known the subsoil in which shot the roots of Jesus. Thus my principal duty is accomplished. At the Academy the work on the Rabbins also nears conclusion, and the _Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticorum_ is in excellent hands. So that now, having paid all my debts, I am free enough to amuse myself a little, and without scruples to indulge myself with the pleasure of gathering these leaves, often light enough.” So radiant was the author, at sixty-nine, having achieved the main schemes of a life which, at forty, was threatened with ruin by intolerance. Of course it was but a small part of what he would fain have accomplished. Last year (September 11) there was a festival, in the Island of Bréhat, where Renan was the chief speaker. In the course of his address he said: “Every year I used to come hither with my mother to visit my aunt Périne, who loved me much, for she thought me like my father. Here on your rocks, and in your paths, I formed plans and dreamed dreams, of which I have realised a third or a quarter. That is much; I consider myself fortunate; I hold myself among the privileged ones of life. I have been more sad than now, for I feared I might die young (misfortune notably not arrived) and never produce what was in my mind. Oh certainly, could I live a long time yet, I would know what to do. I have schemes of work for three or four lives. I would write a history of the French Revolution, showing it an attack of fever, grand, strange, horrible, and sublime; the foundation, let us hope of something better. I would compose a history of Athens, almost day by day; also a history of science and freethought, telling by what steps man has come to know something of how the world is made; I would write a history of Brittany in six volumes. I would study Chinese, and review critically all the problems of Chinese history and literature. Of all that I would make nothing. There is a crowd of things I wish to know and shall never know. But why reproach nature for refusing me? Let us recognise what she has given us. I have traversed the world at an interesting moment in its development, and, after all, have seen enough. After my time humanity will do surprising things: I can rest content during eternity.”