In these moments he felt an unbounded ecstasy, and his playing would take on a richness and colour that transfigured the light music he interpreted; then a veil would be dropped over the vision, and there would come unbidden thoughts of the hopelessness of all high endeavour, the sad end, the open failure of all noble, unselfish lives, the uselessness of all great enthusiasms, all the gallant efforts of the pure minorities of the world, all the eager aspirations of reformers, preachers, prophets, swept away and forgotten in the commonplace corruptions, needs, vices, failings, and blindness of humanity. And these reflections were as a bitter blankness of soul to Luc, and the comfortable room would darken round him like the jaw of hell itself. But with equal conviction would come the afterthought that these broken lives, these lost causes, these ridiculed endeavours, these failures, these minorities had handed on the light from one century to another, and kept alive truth, courage, and all that is beautiful in the heart of man. Luc felt the intense force of the stirrings in his own bosom to be a response to these prophets, martyrs, lonely standard-bearers who were calling him to be one of them, to come forth from the sheltered happiness of common men and join the shadowy multitude who had climbed and perished and left a glimmering name behind. Life was little, yet tremendous; it was all a man had. Though its doings, its greatest events were so small, yet some could make marvels out of those few short years. Millions did nothing with their lives, but all were not the same; the oak is large compared to the cherry tree, thought Luc, and some men can lift themselves. After the playing was over, and he was alone in his chamber, he would put some of his thoughts on paper for want of a better confidant--carefully concealing them, for his father considered it degradation for a gentleman to compose a line of verse or prose. So the winter passed, and Luc remained in Aix doing homage to custom and family pride and family tradition and family affection. It happened that, at Christmas, a friend came from Paris and spent a few days with the de Clapiers; he was neither fashionable, nor of the Court, nor any admirer of M. de Voltaire and the new school of thought, but his speech unconsciously betrayed knowledge of a world that was alive with energy, change, and endeavour. Luc did not speak much with him, and never questioned him on any of those subjects on which he was burning to be enlightened; but when the visitor had left, Luc went to his chamber and wrote two letters, one to the King, one to M. Amelot, Minister for Foreign Affairs, both with the same request--that they would find him some employment for his eager abilities.