The last people in the world in whom the personality would consent to be absorbed into pantheism is the French. - Jules Michelet

Each year, it is necessary to respire, to take breath again, to revive ourselves at the great living sources that forever keep their eternal freshness. Where can we find them if not at the cradle of our race, on the sacred summits from where descend the Indus and the Ganges?

India seemed to have a powerful attraction for Michelet. In the "Journal" he kept, the following note is to be found: The little ruins of the Mediterranean world can no longer assuage the craving for ruins which is felt by my ravaged heart. I need the desolations, the cataclysms of the Orient, the annihilation of whole races, the deserts...• The Hall of the Nibelungen is not enough. I need the great plain of the Indian world where the Gurus perish by the hundred thousand ....

Out of India, until 89 there fell a torrent of light—the river of Right and Reason.