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<h2> BOOK SEVENTH.—PARENTHESIS </h2>
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<h2> CHAPTER I—THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA </h2>
<h3> This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. </h3>
<p>Man is the second.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
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