FROM SIRIUS'S POINT OF VIEW
On the Planet

Mr. Constant Bourquin does me the great honor of sending me the volume he has just published on Mr. Benda, which bears the title: "The Point of View of Sirius." Mr. Constant Bourquin accompanies this gift with a three-line dedication in which I discern some irony. "It is to ask you," he says, "if we inhabit the same planet." Hmm! This seems to mean that Mr. Constant Bourquin, philosopher and scholar, and the humble journalist that I am, are not quite on the same level. And it is quite possible.
Mr. Bourquin proclaims, throughout his volume, his admiration for Mr. Benda. He also speaks extensively of Mr. Charles Maurras. It is very interesting. It is not very flamboyant. Mr. Benda's detached and very haughty philosophy does not displease me. I modestly try, without much success, to make my own his "spectacular" (it's a word that comes from spectacle; you have to take it as it is given to you) conception of the world. That's understood. You have to place yourself somewhere, quite at ease, and consider the vain agitations of this microcosm that carries us along the roads of the unknown. Only, there is the way. You can thrill to a spectacle. You can be moved. You can be disgusted. No one is obliged, I think, to give themselves over to this contemplation with, as Bacon says, the dry eye of understanding. Or, then, you have to cushion your heart, strip yourself of all emotion, keep only your eyes to see, evading all effect, escaping all reaction, in the complete annihilation of sensitivity. The game is not very easy. We are made of nerves and torn by passions. The impassiveness of the "spectator" (that's another word) must be proportional to his insensitivity.
Watching? But we don't all have the same eyes. There are myopic people. There are presbyopic people. And indeed, Mr. Benda seems to me to be afflicted with a certain colorblindness. The author of Belphegor was a Dreyfusard, which wasn't very "Siriusian." He was then a wild patriot (as a spectator, of course). How can this inhabitant of a distant planet be seriously interested in the fruitless struggles of inconsequential myrmidons? I know very well that Mr. Bourquin is trying to explain this attitude. It's as complicated as Barrès's individualism rooted in nationalism.
One can watch a show with the intention of enjoying the actors' performances. One can, from one's seat, feel shaken. We can applaud and we can whistle. The problem is not going down on stage to mingle with the troupe.
I do believe, however, that Mr. Benda is right. We must try to understand, and understanding is the opposite of believing. But, even from the Sirius position, we sometimes misunderstand or end up believing that it happened.
I am sending this article to Mr. Constant Bourquin and asking him if he would be willing to give me a tiny seat, a simple folding chair, on his spectacle-making planet.

Victor MERIC.