Never, dear good master, have you given such a proof of your
inconceivable candor! Now, seriously, you think that you have
offended me! The first page is almost like excuses! It made me laugh
heartily! Besides, you can always say everything to me, to me!
everything! Your blows will be caresses to me.
Now let us talk again! I continually repeat my insistence on
justice! Do you see how they are denying it everywhere? Has not
modern criticism abandoned art for history? The intrinsic value of a
book is nothing in the school of Sainte-Beuve and Taine. They take
everything into consideration there except talent. Thence, in the
petty journals, the abuse of personality, the biographies, the
diatribes. Conclusion: lack of respect on the part of the public.
In the theatre, the same thing. They don't bother about the play,
but the lesson to be preached. Our friend Dumas dreams the glory of
Lacordaire, or rather of Ravignan! To prevent the tucking up of
petticoats has become with him obsession. We can not have progressed
very far since all morality consists for women, in not committing
adultery, and for men in abstaining from theft! In short, the first
injustice is practised by literature; it has no interest in
esthetics, which is only a higher justice. The romantics will have a
fine account to render with their immoral sentimentality. Do you
recall a bit of Victor Hugo in la Legende des siecles, where a
sultan is saved because he had pity on a pig? it is always the story
of the penitent thief blessed because he has repented! To repent is
good, but not to do evil is better. The school of rehabilitations
has led us to see no difference between a rascal and an honest man.
I became enraged once before witnesses, against Sainte-Beuve, while
begging him to have as much indulgence for Balzac as he had for
Jules Lecomte. He answered me, calling me a dolt! That is where
BREADTH OF VIEW leads you.
They have so lost all sense of proportion, that the war council at
Versailles treats Pipe-en-Bois more harshly than M. Courbet,
Maroteau is condemned to death like Rossel! It is madness! These
gentlemen, however, interest me very little. I think that they
should have condemned to the galleys all the Commune, and have
forced these bloody imbeciles to clear up the ruins of Paris, with a
chain on their necks, like ordinary convicts. But that would have
wounded HUMANITY. They are kind to the mad dogs, and not at all to
the people whom the dogs have bitten.
That will not change so long as universal suffrage is what it is.
Every man (as I think), no matter how low he is, has a right to ONE
voice, his own, but he is not the equal of his neighbor, who may be
worth a hundred times more. In an industrial enterprise (Societe
anonyme), each holder votes according to the value of his
contribution. It ought to be so in the government of a nation. I am
worth fully twenty electors of Croisset. Money, mind, and even race
ought to be reckoned, in short every resource. But up to the present
I only see one! numbers! Ah! dear master, you who have so authority,
you ought to take the lead. Your articles in le Temps, which have
had a great success, are widely read and who knows? You would
perhaps do France a great service?
Aisse keeps me very busy, or rather provokes me. I have not seen
Chilly, I have had to do with Duquesnel. They are depriving me
definitely of the senior Berton and proposing his son. He is very
nice, but he is not at all the type conceived by the author. The
Theatre Francais perhaps would ask nothing better than to take
Aisse! I am very perplexed, and it is going to be necessary for me
to decide. As for waiting till a literary wind arises, as it will
never arise in my lifetime, it is better to risk the thing at once.
These theatrical affairs disturb me greatly, for I was in great
form. For the last month I was even in an exaltation bordering on
madness!
I have met the unavoidable Harrisse, a man who knows everyone, and
who is a judge of everything, theatre, novels, finances, politics,
etc. What a race is that of enlightened men!!! I have seen Plessy,
charming and always beautiful. She asked me to send you a thousand
friendly messages.
For my part, I send you a hundred thousand affectionate greetings.