Page 144 (1/1)

That edifice is colossal Some compiler of statistics has calculated, that if all the volu's day were to be piled one upon another, they would fill the space between the earth and the randeur of which ished to speak Nevertheless, when one tries to collect in one'sdown to our own days, does not that total appear to us like an i upon the entire world, at which humanity toils without relaxation, and whose monstrous crest is lost in the profound ence It is the hive whither coolden bees, with their honey

The edifice has a thousand stories Here and there one beholds on its staircases the gloomy caverns of science which pierce its interior Everywhere upon its surface, art causes its arabesques, rosettes, and laces to thrive luxuriantly before the eyes There, every individual work, however capricious and isolated it may seem, has its place and its projection Harmony results from the whole From the cathedral of Shakespeare to the mosque of Byron, a thousand tiny bell towers are piled pell-ht At its base are written soistered To the left of the entrance has been fixed the ancient bas-relief, in white lot Bible rears its seven heads The hydra of the Romancero and soen bristle further on

Nevertheless, the prodigious edifice still reiant machine, which incessantly pumps all the intellectual sap of society, belches forth without pause fresh materials for its work The whole hus Each mind is a mason The humblest fills his hole, or places his stone Retif dè le Bretonne brings his hod of plaster Every day a new course rises Independently of the original and individual contribution of each writer, there are collective contingents The eighteenth century gives the Encyclopedia, the revolution gives the Moniteur Assuredly, it is a construction which increases and piles up in endless spirals; there also are confusion of tongues, incessant activity, indefatigable labor, eager coence, a new Flood against an overflow of barbarians It is the second tower of Babel of the human race