|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: according to the laws of God. "Telemaque" is an ideal--imperfect,
doubtless, as all ideals must be in a world in which God's ways and
thoughts are for ever higher than man's; but an ideal nevertheless.
If its construction is less complete than that of "Gil Blas," it is
because its aim is infinitely higher; because the form has to be
subordinated, here and there, to the matter. If its political
economy be imperfect, often chimerical, it is because the mind of
one man must needs have been too weak to bring into shape and order
the chaos, social and economic, which he saw around him. M. de
Lamartine, in his brilliant little life of Fenelon, does not
hesitate to trace to the influence of "Telemaque," the Utopias which
|
