Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the one hundred thirty-seventh chapter of Les Miserables.

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>> Brie Carlisle: Take it chapter by chapter one

fight M at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

take it word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

>> Brie Carlisle: Welcome to Byte at a time books where we read you your

favorite classics one byte at a time. my name is

Bre Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to

share my passion with listeners like you. If you

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>> Brie Carlisle: Values today well be

continuing.

Les Miserables by Victor

Hugo chapter

eight faith

law a few words

more we blame the church when she is

saturated with intrigues. We despise the

spiritual, which is harsh toward the temporal.

But we everywhere honor the thoughtful man.

We salute the man who kneels of,

faith. This is a necessity for

Mandev. Woe to him who believes nothing.

One is not unoccupied because one is

absorbed. There is visible labor and

invisible labor. To contemplate

is to labor. To think is to act.

Folded arms toil, clasped

hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven

is a work. Thales remained motionless for

four years. He founded philosophy. in our

opinion, cenobites are not lazy men and

recluses are not idlers. To meditate on

the shadow is a serious thing without

invalidating anything that we have just said. We believe

that a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the

living. On this point, the

priest and the philosopher agree we

must die. The abbe de la trappe

replies to Horace to mingle with ones

life. A certain presence of the sepulchre

this is the law of the sage, and it is the

law of the ascetic. In this respect, the

ascetic and the sage converge. There is a

material growth, we admit it.

There is a moral grandeur. We hold to

that thoughtless and vivacious spirits say,

what is the good of those motionless figures on the side of

mystery? What purpose do they serve?

What do they do, alas, in the presence of

the darkness which environs us and which awaits

us in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of us?

We reply, there is probably no work more

divine than that performed by these

souls. And we add, there is

probably no work which is more useful.

There certainly must be some who pray constantly

for those who never pray at all. In our opinion,

the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is mingled with

prayer. Leibniz praying is

grand. Voltaire adoring is

fine. Deo erechtse d voltaire

we are for religion as against religions.

We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of

arisens, in the sublimity of prayer.

Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,

a minute which will not fortunately leave its impress.

In the 19th century, at this hour, when

so many men have low brows and souls but little

elevated among so many mortals whose

mortality consists in enjoyment, and who are busied

with the brief and misshapen things of matter,

whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration.

To us, the monastery is a

renunciation. Sacrifice, wrongly

directed, is still sacrifice. To mistake

a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its own,

taken by itself and ideally, and in order

to examine the truth on all sides until all aspects have

been impartially exhausted. The

monastery, the female convent in

particular, for in our century, it is

woman who suffers the most. And in this exile of

the cloister, there is something of protestation.

A female convent has incontestably a certain

majesty. This cloistered

existence, which is so austere, so depressing,

a few of whose features we have just traced, is not

life, for it is not liberty,

it is not the tomb, for it is not

plenitude. It is a strange place whence

one beholds as from the crest of a lofty

mountain, on one side the abyss where we

are, on the other the abyss whither we shall

go. It is the narrow and misty frontier

separating two worlds, illuminated and obscured

by both at the same time, where the ray of

life which has become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray

of death. It is the half obscurity of the

tomb. We

who do not believe what these women believe, but who,

like them, live by faith. We have never

been able to think without a sort of tender and religious

terror, without a sort of pity that is full of

envy of those devoted, trembling and

trusting creatures, of these humble and

august souls who dare to dwell on the very brink of the

mystery waiting between the world which is

closed and heaven, which is not yet open.

Turned towards the light which one cannot see.

Possessing, the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it

is. Aspiring towards the gulf

and the unknown. Their eyes fixed

motionless on the darkness. Kneeling, bewildered,

stupefied, shuddering. Half lifted at times

by the deep breaths of eternity.

Thank you for joining bite at a time books today while

we wrote a bite of one of your favorite classics.

Again, my name is Brie Carlisle and I

hope you come back tomorrow, for the next bite of

le Miserable.

>> Brie Carlisle: Dont forget to sign up for our

newsletter@biteattimebooks.com and check

out the shop. You can check out the show notes or

our website, biteatatimebooks.com, for

the rest of the links for our show. wed love to hear from you on

social media as well.

>> Brie Carlisle: Take a look and look and let's

see what we can find

take it chapter by chapter,

one at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

line by line, one bite at a time.