What a good and charming letter was yours, adored master! There is
no one but you! upon my word of honor! I am ending by believing it.
A wind of stupidity and folly is now blowing over the world. Those
who stand up firm and straight against it are rare.
This is what I meant when I wrote that the times of politics were
over. In the 18th century the chief business was diplomacy. "The
secrecy of the cabinets" really existed. The peoples still were
sufficiently amenable to be separated and to be combined. That order
of things seems to me to have said its last word in 1815. Since
then, one has hardly done anything except dispute about the external
form that it is fitting to give the fantastic and odious being
called the State.
Experience proves (it seems to me) that no form contains the best in
itself; orleanism, republic, empire do not mean anything anymore,
since the most contradictory ideas can enter into each one of these
pigeon holes. All the flags have been so soiled with blood and with
filth that it is time not to have any at all. Down with words! No
more symbols nor fetiches! The great moral of this reign will be to
prove that universal suffrage is as senseless as the divine right
although a little less odions!
The question is then out of place. One is concerned no longer with
dreaming of the best form of government, since all are equal, but
with making science prevail. That is the most important. The rest
will follow inevitably. Purely intellectual men have rendered more
service to the human race than all the Saint Vincent de Pauls in the
world! And politics will be an everlasting folly so long as it is
not subordinate to science. The government of a country ought to be
a section of the Institute, and the last section of all.
Before concerning yourself with relief funds, and even with
agriculture, send to all the villages in France, Robert Houdins to
work miracles! The greatest crime of Isidore is the wretched
condition in which he leaves our beautiful country. Dixi. I admire
Maurice's occupations and his healthy life. But I am not capable of
imitating him. Nature, far from fortifying me, drains my strength.
When I lie on the grass I feel as if I am already under the earth
and that the roots of green things are beginning to grow in my
belly. Your troubadour is naturally an unhealthy man. I do not like
the country except when travelling, because then the independence of
my individuality causes me to rise above the knowledge of my
nothingness.
CXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6 August, 1869
Well, dear good friend, here it is August, and you have promised to
come. We don't forget it, we count on it, we dream of it, and we
talk of it every day. You were to take a trip to the seashore first
if I am not mistaken. You must need to shake up your gloom. That
does not dispel it, but it does force it to live with us and not be
too oppressive. I have thought a great deal about you lately, I
would have hastened to see you if I had not thought I should find
you surrounded by older and better friends than I am. I wrote you at
the same time that you wrote me, our letters crossed.
Come to see us, my dear old friend, I shall not go to Paris this
month, I do not want to miss you. My children will be happy to spoil
you and to try to distract you. We all love you, and I love you
PASSIONATELY, as you know.
CXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 14 August, 1869
Your change of plans distresses us, dear friend, but we do not dare
to complain in the face of your anxieties and sorrows. We ought to
wish you to do what would distract you the most, and take the least
out of you. I am in hopes of finding you in Paris, as you are
staying there some time and I always have business there. But it is
so hard to see friends in Paris and one is so overwhelmed by so many
tedious duties! Well, it is a real sorrow to me not to have to
expect you any more at our house, where each one of us would have
tried to love you better than the others and where you would have
been at home; sad when you wanted to be, busy if you liked. I resign
myself on condition that you will be better off somewhere else and
that you will make it good to us when you can.
Have you at least arranged your affairs with Levy? Is he paying you
for two volumes? I would like you to have something on which to live
independently and as master of your time. Here there is repose for
the mind in the midst of the exuberant activities of Maurice, and of
his brave little wife who sets herself to love all he loves and to
help him eagerly in all he undertakes. As for me, I have the
appearance of incarnate idleness in the midst of this hard work. I
botanize and I bathe in a little icy torrent. I teach my servant to
read, I correct proof and I am well. That is my life and nothing
bores me in this world where I think that AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED
all is for the best. But I am afraid of becoming more of a bore than
I used to be. People don't like such as I am very much. We are too
inoffensive. However, love me still a little, for I feel by the
disappointment of not seeing you, that it would have gone hard with
me if you had meant to break your word.
And I embrace you tenderly, dear old friend.