I have often asked myself, "Why am I a Republican?--Why am I the
partizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good
and strong Government?--Why have I a real love of the People--a love
always serious, and sometimes even tender?--What has the People done
for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between
the high Aristocracy and what was then called _the inferior classes_,
in the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens in
various callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I never
groaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with its
sweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I
hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun,
freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care
for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?--turn away
my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in
that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can
shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without
asking whether, below me,--in street, garret, or cottage, there is a
rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic
People; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of
citizens?"
And whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answered
myself:--"I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did
not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at
ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me,
the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say,
'So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe to
the conquered!'" I cannot, indeed, say this without shame and
cruelty,--for, I repeat it, _I believe in God_.