Our affectionate regards.
LXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Sunday, 5 July, 1868
I have sawed wood hard for six weeks. The patriots won't forgive me
for this book, nor the reactionaries either! What do I care! I write
things as I feel them, that is to say, as I think they are. Is it
foolish of me? But it seems to me that our unhappiness comes
exclusively from people of our class. I find an enormous amount of
Christianity in Socialism. There are two notes which are now on my
table.
"This system (his) is not a system of disorder, for it has its
source in the Gospels, and from this divine source, hatred, warfare,
the clashing of every interest, CAN NOT PROCEED! for the doctrine
formulated from the Gospel, is a doctrine of peace, union and love."
(L. Blanc).
"I shall even dare to advance the statement that together with the
respect for the Sabbath, the last spark of poetic fire has been
extinguished in the soul of our rhymesters. It has been said that
without religion, there is no poetry!" (Proudhon).
A propos of that, I beg of you, dear master, to read at the end of
his book on the observance of the Sabbath, a love-story entitled, I
think, Marie et Maxime. One must know that to have an idea of the
style of les Penseurs. It should be placed on a level with Le Voyage
en Bretagne by the great Veuillot, in Ca et La. That does not
prevent us from having friends who are great admirers of these two
gentlemen.
When I am old, I shall write criticism; that will console me, for I
often choke with suppressed opinions. No one understands better than
I do, the indignation of the great Boileau against bad taste: "The
senseless things which I hear at the Academy hasten my end." There
was a man!
Every time now that I hear the chain of the steam-boats, I think of
you, and the noise irritates me less, when I say to myself that it
pleases you. What moonlight there is tonight on the river!
LXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 31 July, 1868
I am writing to you at Croisset in any case, because I doubt if you
are in Paris during this Toledo-like heat; unless the shade of
Fontainebleau has kept you. What a lovely forest, isn't it? but it
is especially so in winter, without leaves, with its fresh moss,
which has chic. Did you see the sand of Arbonne? There is a little
Sahara there which ought to be lovely now.
We are very happy here. Every day a bath in a stream that is always
cold and shady; in the daytime four hours of work, in the evening,
recreation, and the life of Punch and Judy. A TRAVELLING THEATRICAL
COMPANY came to us; it was part of a company from the Odeon, among
whom were several old friends to whom we gave supper at La Chatre,
two successive nights with all their friends, after the play;--
songs, laughter, with champagne frappe, till three o'clock in the
morning to the great scandal of the bourgeois, who would have
committed any crime to have been there. There was a very comic
Norman, a real Norman, who sang real peasant songs to us, in the
real language. Do you know that they have quite a Gallic wit and
mischief? They contain a mine of master-pieces of genre. That made
me love Normandy still more. You may know that comedian. His name is
Freville. It is he who is charged in the repertory with the parts of
the dull valets, and with being kicked from behind. He is
detestable, impossible, but out of the theatre, he is as charming as
can be. Such is fate!
We have had some delightful guests at our house, and we have had a
joyous time without prejudice to the Lettres d'un Voyageur in the
Revue, or to botanical excursions in some very surprising wild
places. The little girls are the loveliest thing about it all.
Gabrielle is a big lamb, sleeping and laughing all day; Aurore, more
spiritual, with eyes of velvet and fire, talking at thirty months as
others do at five years, and adorable in everything. They are
keeping her back so that she shall not get ahead too fast.
You worry me when you tell me that your book will blame the patriots
for everything that goes wrong. Is that really so? and then the
victims! it is quite enough to be undone by one's own fault without
having one's own foolishness thrown in one's teeth. Have pity! There
are so many fine spirits among them just the same! Christianity has
been a fad and I confess that in every age it is a lure when one
sees only the tender side of it; it wins the heart. One has to
consider the evil it does in order to get rid of it. But I am not
surprised that a generous heart like Louis Blanc dreamed of seeing
it purified and restored to his ideal. I also had that illusion; but
as soon as one takes a step in this past, one sees that it can not
be revived, and I am sure that now Louis Blanc smiles at his dream.
One should think of that also.
One must remind oneself that all those who had intelligence have
progressed tremendously during the last twenty years and that it
would not be generous to reproach them with what they probably
reproach themselves.
As for Proudhon, I never thought him sincere. He is a rhetorician of
GENIUS, as they say. But I don't understand him. He is a specimen of
perpetual antithesis, without solution. He affects one like one of
the old Sophists whom Socrates made fun of.
I am trusting you for GENEROUS sentiments. One can say a word more
or less without wounding, one can use the lash without hurting, if
the hand is gentle in its strength. You are so kind that you cannot
be cruel.
Shall I go to Croisset this autumn? I begin to fear not, and to fear
that Cadio is not being rehearsed. But I shall try to escape from
Paris even if only for one day.
My children send you their regards. Ah! Heavens! there was a fine
quarrel about Salammbo; some one whom you do not know, went so far
as not to like it, Maurice called him BOURGEOIS, and to settle the
affair, little Lina, who is high tempered, declared that her husband
was wrong to use such a word, for he ought to have said IMBECILE.
There you are. I am well as a Turk. I love you and I embrace you.
Your old Troubadour,