Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the fourteenth chapter of Les Miserables.

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Take a look, in the book and let's see

what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter. One

fight at a time

so many adventures and

mountains we can climb

to give word for word, line by

line, one bite at a time.

Welcome to bite 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

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while we try to keep the text as close to the original as

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Values today well be

continuing. Les Miserable by Victor

Hugo, chapter 14

what he thought one

last word.

Since this sort of details might,

particularly at the present moment, and to use an

expression now in fashion, give to the bishop of Dee a

certain panatheistical physiognomy

and induce the belief, either to his credit or

discredit, that he entertained one of those personal

philosophies which are peculiar to our century,

which sometimes spring up in solitary spirits

and there take on a form and grow until they usurp the

place of religion. We insist upon it that

not one of those persons who knew Monsignor welcome would have

thought himself authorized to think anything of the sort.

That which enlightened this man was his heart.

His wisdom was made of the light which comes from there.

No systems. Many works

abstruse speculations contain vertigo.

No, theres nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in

apocalypses. The apostle may be daring, but the

bishop must be timid. He would probably have felt

a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain

problems which are in a manner reserved for terrible,

great minds. There is a sacred horror

beneath the porches of the enigma. Those gloomy

openings stand yawning there. But something tells

you. You, a passerby in life

that you must not enter. woe to him who penetrates

thither. Geniuses in the impenetrable

depths of abstraction and pure speculation,

situated, so to speak, above all dogmas,

propose their ideas to God. Their prayer

audaciously offers discussion. Their

adoration interrogates. This is

direct religion which is full of anxiety and

responsibility. For him who attempts at steep cliffs.

Human meditation has no limits. At his

own risk and peril, it analyzes and digs deep into

its own bedazzlement. One might

almost say that by a sort of splendid

reaction, it with it dazzles

nature. The mysterious world which surrounds

us renders back what it has received. It is

probable that the contemplators are contemplated,

however that may be. There are on earth men.

Who are they men perceived

distinctly at the verge of the horizons of reverie, the heights of the

absolute. And who have the terrible vision of the infinite

mountain. Monsignor welcome was one of these

men. Monsignor welcome was not a

genius. He would have feared those sublimities. When

some very great men, even like Swedenborg and

Pascal, have slipped into insanity.

Certainly these powerful reveries have their moral

utility. And, by these arduous paths one

approaches to ideal perfection. As for

him, he took the path which shortens

the gospels. He did not attempt to impart

his chasuble the folds of Elijah's mantle.

He projected nowhere future. Upon the dark groundswell of

events he did not see to condense, inflame the

light of things. He had nothing of the prophet and

nothing of the magician about him. This humble

soul loved, and that was all that

he carried. Prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration

is probable. One can no more pray

too much than one can love too much. And if

it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts,

St. Teresa and St. Jerome would be heretics.

He inclined towards all that groans and all that

expiates the universe appeared to him like an

immense malady. everywhere he felt fever.

Everywhere he heard the sound of suffering. And without

seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound.

A terrible spectacle of created things developed

tenderness in him. He was occupied only in

finding for himself and in inspiring others with. The

best way to compassionate and relieve

that which exists. Was for this good and rare priest.

A permanent subject of sadness which sought

consolation. There are men who toil

at extracting gold. He toiled at the

extraction of pity. Universal, misery was his

mine. The sadness which reigned everywhere

was but an excuse for unfailing kindness.

Love each other. He declared this to be

complete, desired nothing further. And that was the

whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who

believed himself to be a philosopher, the senator

whos already been alluded to, said to the bishop, just

survey the spectacle of the world. All war against

all. At the strongest has the most wit. Your love

each other is nonsense. Well, replied

Monsignor. Welcome. without contesting the point, if it

is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it as the

pearl in the oyster. Thus he shut

himself up. He lived there. He

was absolutely satisfied with it. Leaving on one side the

prodigious questions which attract and terrify

the fathomless perspectives of abstraction,

the precipices of metaphysics, all those

profundities which converge for the apostle and

God, for the atheist, in nothingness,

destiny, good and evil, the way of

being against being, the conscience of

man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the

animal, the transformation in death,

the recapitulation of existences which the tomb

contains, the incomprehensible grafting of

successive loaves on the persistent, ay,

the essence, the substance, the Nile and the

ends, the soul, nature, liberty,

necessity, perpendicular problems,

sinister obscurities where lean the gigantic

archangels of the human mind, formidable

abysses which Lucretius, manu,

St. Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes flashing

lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on

the infinite to cause stars to blaze forth. There,

Monsignor Bienvenue was simply a man who took note of

the exterior of mysterious questions without

scrutinizing them and without troubling his own mind with

them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave

respect for darkness. Thank

you for joining bite at a time books today. while we read 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.

Dont forget to sign up for our

newsletter@byteoutatimebooks.com, dot. And

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

or our website, byteaditimebooks.com,

for the rest of the links for our show. Wed love

to hear from you on social media as well.

Hm.

Take a look and let's

see what we can find.

Take it chapter by chapter,

one at a time.

The mountains we can

climb.

Take your word, go, word, line by

line, one bite at a time.