I shall be in Paris in two days. Well, all is finished. The waves ofhuman mediocrity rise to the sky and they will engulf the refuge whosedams I open. Ah! courage leaves me, my heart breaks! O Lord, pity theChristian who doubts, the sceptic who would believe, the convict oflife embarking alone in the night, under a sky no longer illumined bythe consoling beacons of ancient faith.
Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature
courage, faiths, mediocrity, paris, sceptic