In the riparian Navarrese, as in the Catalans and the Genovese, one already notes the African; in the Gaul of central France, as well as in the Austrian, there is a suggestion of the Chinese.
Clutching the Pyrenees and grafted upon the Alps, I am conscious of being an Arch-European.
DIONYSIAN OR APOLLONIAN?
Formerly, when I believed that I was both humble and a wanderer, I was convinced that I was a Dionysian. I was impelled toward turbulence, the dynamic, the theatric. Naturally, I was an anarchist. Am I today? I believe I still am. In those days I used to enthuse about the future, and I hated the past.
Little by little, this turbulence has calmed down—perhaps it was never very great. Little by little I have come to realize that if following Dionysus induces the will to bound and leap, devotion to Apollo has a tendency to throw the mind back until it rests upon the harmony of eternal form. There is great attraction in both gods.
EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUM
I am also a swine of the herd of Epicurus; I, too, wax eloquent over this ancient philosopher, who conversed with his pupils in his garden. The very epithet of Horace, upon detaching himself from the Epicureans, "Epicuri de grege porcum," is full of charm.
All noble minds have hymned Epicurus. "Hail Epicurus, thou honour of
Greece!" Lucretius exclaims in the third book of his poem.
"I have sought to avenge Epicurus, that truly holy philosopher, that
divine genius," Lucian tells us in his Alexander, or the False
Prophet. Lange, in his History of Materialism, sets down
Epicurus as a disciple and imitator of Democritus.
I am not a man of sufficient classical culture to be able to form an authoritative opinion of the merits of Epicurus as a philosopher. All my knowledge of him, as well as of the other ancient philosophers, is derived from the book of Diogenes Laertius.