288 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



" And such an aim required long exertions. No- 

 thing is easy in this world, especially the useful. 

 There is no fresh task, however beneficent, which has 

 not, perhaps in the very ratio of the good it may do, 

 the ignorant and the malevolent for enemies; the 

 former, because they fail to understand the result 

 which you are aiming at, and are not in the secret of 

 your means or strength. They have to be enlightened. 

 Once converted, they become fervent disciples and 

 valuable auxiliaries. As to the others, the sceptics, 

 the haters, even the insulters, they deserve no atten- 

 tion. The Arab proverb says, ' The dogs bark, the 

 caravan passes.' I passed on. 



" If I thus explain my views to you with an emphasis 

 which may seem complacent, it is not for the empty 

 pleasure of talking of myself ; it is to justify you in 

 your own eyes for having chosen me by showing the 

 similitudes existing between my predecessor and my- 

 self. And as I am on this point there is one more 

 which I wish to notice in passing. Both of us were 

 accused, at starting, of a little too much imagination. 

 You know that in the poetical and ardent moments of 

 youth, and when entering on the study of the early 

 times of our race, Henri Martin so at least it is said 

 was smitten with the Druidical religion. This Celt 

 of St. Quentin had been initiated, it is alleged, into 

 the mysteries of the terrible religion. He was even 

 suspected of having secretly embraced it and of prac- 

 tising its rites in private. Is this true or false ? Did 



