Menard, a contemporary of Willam James, does not define history as an investigation of reality, but as it's origin. Equally vivid is the contrast in styles. Not so that of his precursor, who handles easily the ordinary Spanish of his time. There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless. In literature this ultimate decay is even more notorious.
Glory is an incomprehension, and perhaps the worst.
He dedicated his conscience and his nightly studies to the repetition of a pre-existing book in a foreign tongue. He did not permit them to be examined, and he took great care that they would not survive him. It is in vain that I have tried to reconstruct them. I remember his square ruled notebooks, the black streaks where he had crossed out words, his peculiar typographical symbols and his insect-like handwriting. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement the doctor universalis thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism.