‘this ink with which I am writing to you, which indeed was Péguy’s ink, made of the oak, coal-black, indelible; and his pens--they too would have gone into his Paradise, certainly, all his pens! You have understood I am sure; Péguy extends the future life, not only to souls and sentiments, but to all that has achieved existence; a resurrection not only of the flesh but of the things made, cherished, and perfected by man on earth.’ It was more or less Swedenborg’s Paradise. In Péguy’s eyes the soul vivified and transfigured and made alive all that it touched. Hence his utter incomprehension of all attempts to examine matter that the soul had _not_ transfigured, his withering contempt for science and scientists, the scorn he would pour on those miserable insects, the ‘puissants millepieds’ of the University, in their laboratories and archives:-- ‘Et ce ne sera pas ces distingués cloportes Qui viendront nous chercher dans notre enterrement.... Et ce ne sera pas par leur usage externe Que nous nous lèverons de notre pourriture; Mais la Foi qui nous sauve et seule nous discerne Saura nous retrouver dans la fange et l’ordure.’ (_Eve._) What discussions I have had with Daniel Halévy concerning the final value of this poem of _Eve_, whose mighty jog-trot extends interminably over a length which exceeds the _Odyssey_ and the _Iliad_ together! My friend, to whose opinion I attach the greatest weight, insists on ranking Péguy with Victor Hugo for poetry and with Rabelais for prose! And no doubt he emphasises his expressions in order to spur my tranquil spirit to the fray. Indeed the incitement never yet failed of its effect; I rush to the encounter; sometimes, at the point of the bayonet, M. Halévy recedes from his position as regards Victor Hugo; but he maintains unshaken that comparison with the creator of Pantagruel. Well, all that is vain; Péguy now will never fill his measure. His monument is a broken column, like those we see in cemeteries. In these brief passages of recollection, I may not even stay to point out the extraordinary design and intention of that monument; nor to quote that prose, surely unlike any other prose, which creeps up, wave after wave, with infinite repetitions and over-lappings, until, like the tide on the strand, it has submerged and sucked in all the subject it meant to cover. How, in two words, could I give an idea of that style?