"Yes, you speak of abstract ideas," rejoined Magnani, thoughtfully, "and I think that I understand you; but in the concrete the question is not solved. The society of the present day is struggling between two reefs, resignation and resistance. Through love for my class I choose to suffer and protest with it. From the same motive, perhaps, you choose to fight and triumph in its name. These two methods of action seem to exclude and condemn each other. Before the divine tribunal which will prevail, sentiment or idea? You say, both. But on earth, where men are not governed by divine laws, how can we possibly make those two extremes harmonize? I seek in vain a means." "But why seek it?" said Michel; "it does not exist on earth at this moment. The people may free themselves and make themselves famous as a whole by glorious battles, by good morals, by civic virtues, but each individual of the people has his individual destiny; the destiny of the man who feels that he was born to touch hearts is to live on fraternal terms with the simple; of him who feels that his calling is to enlighten men's minds, to seek light, though it be in solitude, though it be among the enemies of his race. The great masters of art worked, from a material standpoint, for wealth, but, from a moral standpoint, for all mankind; for the poorest of the poor can obtain from their works a revelation and appreciation of the beautiful. Let every man follow his inspiration therefore, and bow to the mysterious designs of Providence with respect to him! My father loves to sing rollicking ballads in taverns; he electrifies his companions with them; the stories that he tells sitting on a bench at a street corner, his cheery humor, and his ardor in singing or in the common toil inspire all those who see and hear him. Heaven has endowed him with the power of acting directly, by the simplest means, on the vital fibres of his brethren, zeal in labor, expansiveness in the hours of rest. For my part, I have a liking for solitary temples, sumptuous, dark old palaces, venerable masterpieces, studious reverie, the refined enjoyments of art. The society of patricians has no terrors for me. I consider them too degenerate to be feared; their names have for me a poesy which makes of them mere figures, ghosts, if you choose, and I love to walk smiling among those ghosts who do not frighten me. I love the dead; I live with the past; and from the past I acquire my idea of the future; but I confess that I have but little notion of the present, that the precise moment of my existence has no existence for me, because I am always delving in the past, and pushing all realities forward. In that way I transform them and idealize them. You see that I should not reach the same ends as my father and you, even if I used the same means. It is not in me to do it."