Émile Chartier dit ALAIN (1868-1951). Autograph... Lot 51

Émile Chartier dit ALAIN (1868-1951). Autograph manuscript, De l'Amour et de la Foi, [August 27, 1920]; 3 pages in-8. "The type or model of all society is Maternity, for here egoism and altruism merge". Love itself is the sentiment that comes closest. "Motherhood escapes all rule, because it is spontaneous and without any choice [...] but the other love wants a cult in the proper sense of the word", because it results from a choice, "fruit of will"; it takes will and "Fidelity to play the violin well, or to do anything well, and certainly also to think well." The pleasure of thinking cannot be conceived under constraint, "just as under oath one cannot know the pleasure of loving. [Faith needs no proof. In every action, we must will and believe. Charity is a love that is entirely willed, carried by Hope, but it is Faith that carries both. And Faith is of will, in which it is opposed to belief, which is only of nature". The fact remains that "Motherhood best represents all the possible perfection of our feelings and even of our thoughts. And there is a deep kinship between religious feelings and family feelings"... etc. A strip of paper glued to the end of the letter conceals a few lines of dispatch from this "second chapter".