1.C.7.1. THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA
This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite.
Man
is the second.
Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be
on our road, it has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because
the convent, which is common to the Orient as well as to the
Occident, to antiquity as well as to modern times, to paganism,
to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to Christianity, is
one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the Infinite.
This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain
ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves,
our restrictions, and even our indignations, we must
say that every time we encounter man in the Infinite, either
well or ill understood, we feel ourselves overpowered with respect.
There is, in the synagogue, in the mosque, in the
pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, and
a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the
mind, and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation
of God upon the human wall!