misanthropy and repentance

august 3d, nine o’clock p.m.

there are days when everything appears gloomy to us; the world, like the sky, is covered by a dark fog. nothing seems in its place; we see only misery, improvidence, and cruelty; the world seems without god, and given up to all the evils of chance.

yesterday i was in this unhappy humor. after a long walk in the faubourgs, i returned home, sad and dispirited.

everything i had seen seemed to accuse the civilization of which we are so proud! i had wandered into a little by-street, with which i was not acquainted, and i found myself suddenly in the middle of those dreadful abodes where the poor are born, to languish and die. i looked at those decaying walls, which time has covered with a foul leprosy; those windows, from which dirty rags hang out to dry; those fetid gutters, which coil along the fronts of the houses like venomous reptiles! i felt oppressed with grief, and hastened on.

a little farther on i was stopped by the hearse of a hospital; a dead man, nailed down in his deal coffin, was going to his last abode, without funeral pomp or ceremony, and without followers. there was not here even that last friend of the outcast — the dog, which a painter has introduced as the sole attendant at the pauper’s burial! he whom they were preparing to commit to the earth was going to the tomb, as he had lived, alone; doubtless no one would be aware of his end. in this battle of society, what signifies a soldier the less?

but what, then, is this human society, if one of its members can thus disappear like a leaf carried away by the wind?

the hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance of which old men, women, and children were quarrelling for the remains of the coarse bread which the soldiers had given them in charity! thus, beings like ourselves daily wait in destitution on our compassion till we give them leave to live! whole troops of outcasts, in addition to the trials imposed on all god’s children, have to endure the pangs of cold, hunger, and humiliation. unhappy human commonwealth! where man is in a worse condition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its subterranean city!

ah! what then avails our reason? what is the use of so many high faculties, if we are neither the wiser nor the happier for them? which of us would not exchange his life of labor and trouble with that of the birds of the air, to whom the whole world is a life of joy?

how well i understand the complaint of mao, in the popular tales of the ‘foyer breton’ who, when dying of hunger and thirst, says, as he looks at the bullfinches rifling the fruit-trees:

“alas! those birds are happier than christians; they have no need of inns, or butchers, or bakers, or gardeners. god’s heaven belongs to them, and earth spreads a continual feast before them! the tiny flies are their game, ripe grass their cornfields, and hips and haws their store of fruit. they have the right of taking everywhere, without paying or asking leave: thus comes it that the little birds are happy, and sing all the livelong day!”

but the life of man in a natural state is like that of the birds; he equally enjoys nature. “the earth spreads a continual feast before him.” what, then, has he gained by that selfish and imperfect association which forms a nation? would it not be better for every one to turn again to the fertile bosom of nature, and live there upon her bounty in peace and liberty?

august 20th, four o’clock a.m. — the dawn casts a red glow on my bed-curtains; the breeze brings in the fragrance of the gardens below. here i am again leaning on my elbows by the windows, inhaling the freshness and gladness of this first wakening of the day.

my eye always passes over the roofs filled with flowers, warbling, and sunlight, with the same pleasure; but to-day it stops at the end of a buttress which separates our house from the next.

the storms have stripped the top of its plaster covering, and dust carried by the wind has collected in the crevices, and, being fixed there by the rain, has formed a sort of aerial terrace, where some green grass has sprung up. among it rises a stalk of wheat, which to-day is surmounted by a sickly ear that droops its yellow head.

this poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest of which will fall to the neighboring sparrows, has carried my thoughts to the rich crops which are now falling beneath the sickle; it has recalled to me the beautiful walks i took as a child through my native province, when the threshing-floors at the farmhouses resounded from every part with the sound of a flail, and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, came in by all the roads. i still remember the songs of the maidens, the cheerfulness of the old men, the open-hearted merriment of the laborers. there was, at that time, something in their looks both of pride and feeling. the latter came from thankfulness to god, the former from the sight of the harvest, the reward of their labor. they felt indistinctly the grandeur and the holiness of their part in the general work of the world; they looked with pride upon their mountains of corn-sheaves, and they seemed to say, next to god, it is we who feed the world!

what a wonderful order there is in all human labor!

while the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares for every one his daily bread, the town artizan, far away, weaves the stuff in which he is to be clothed; the miner seeks underground the iron for his plow; the soldier defends him against the invader; the judge takes care that the law protects his fields; the tax-comptroller adjusts his private interests with those of the public; the merchant occupies himself in exchanging his products with those of distant countries; the men of science and of art add every day a few horses to this ideal team, which draws along the material world, as steam impels the gigantic trains of our iron roads! thus all unite together, all help one another; the toil of each one benefits himself and all the world; the work has been apportioned among the different members of the whole of society by a tacit agreement. if, in this apportionment, errors are committed, if certain individuals have not been employed according to their capacities, those defects of detail diminish in the sublime conception of the whole. the poorest man included in this association has his place, his work, his reason for being there; each is something in the whole.

there is nothing like this for man in the state of nature. as he depends only upon himself, it is necessary that he be sufficient for everything. all creation is his property; but he finds in it as many hindrances as helps. he must surmount these obstacles with the single strength that god has given him; he cannot reckon on any other aid than chance and opportunity. no one reaps, manufactures, fights, or thinks for him; he is nothing to any one. he is a unit multiplied by the cipher of his own single powers; while the civilized man is a unit multiplied by the whole of society.

but, notwithstanding this, the other day, disgusted by the sight of some vices in detail, i cursed the latter, and almost envied the life of the savage.

one of the infirmities of our nature is always to mistake feeling for evidence, and to judge of the season by a cloud or a ray of sunshine.

was the misery, the sight of which made me regret a savage life, really the effect of civilization? must we accuse society of having created these evils, or acknowledge, on the contrary, that it has alleviated them? could the women and children, who were receiving the coarse bread from the soldier, hope in the desert for more help or pity? that dead man, whose forsaken state i deplored, had he not found, by the cares of a hospital, a coffin and the humble grave where he was about to rest? alone, and far from men, he would have died like the wild beast in his den, and would now be serving as food for vultures! these benefits of human society are shared, then, by the most destitute. whoever eats the bread that another has reaped and kneaded, is under an obligation to his brother, and cannot say he owes him nothing in return. the poorest of us has received from society much more than his own single strength would have permitted him to wrest from nature.

but cannot society give us more? who doubts it? errors have been committed in this distribution of tasks and workers. time will diminish the number of them; with new lights a better division will arise; the elements of society go on toward perfection, like everything else. the difficulty is to know how to adapt ourselves to the slow step of time, whose progress can never be forced on without danger.

august 14th, six o’clock a.m. — my garret window rises upon the roof like a massive watch-tower. the corners are covered by large sheets of lead, which run into the tiles; the successive action of cold and heat has made them rise, and so a crevice has been formed in an angle on the right side. there a sparrow has built her nest.

i have followed the progress of this aerial habitation from the first day. i have seen the bird successively bring the straw, moss, and wool designed for the construction of her abode; and i have admired the persevering skill she expended in this difficult work. at first, my new neighbor spent her days in fluttering over the poplar in the garden, and in chirping along the gutters; a fine lady’s life seemed the only one to suit her. then all of a sudden, the necessity of preparing a shelter for her brood transformed our idler into a worker; she no longer gave herself either rest or relaxation. i saw her always either flying, fetching, or carrying; neither rain nor sun stopped her. a striking example of the power of necessity! we are indebted to it not only for most of our talents, but for many of our virtues!

is it not necessity that has given the people of less favored climates that constant activity which has placed them so quickly at the head of nations? as they are deprived of most of the gifts of nature, they have supplied them by their industry; necessity has sharpened their understanding, endurance awakened their foresight. while elsewhere man, warmed by an ever brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the earth, was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst of gifts he did not attempt to explore, here he was forced by necessity to wrest his food from the ground, to build habitations to defend himself from the intemperance of the weather, and to warm his body by clothing himself with the wool of animals. work makes him both more intelligent and more robust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the ladder of creation, while those more favored by nature remain on the step nearest to the brutes.

i made these reflections while looking at the bird, whose instinct seemed to have become more acute since she had been occupied in work. at last the nest was finished; she set up her household there, and i followed her through all the phases of her new existence.

when she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were hatched, she fed them with the most attentive care. the corner of my window had become a stage of moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to take lessons from. the little ones soon became large, and this morning i have seen them take their first flight. one of them, weaker than the others, was not able to clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter. i caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again on the tile in front of his house, but the mother has not noticed him. once freed from the cares of a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the trees and along the roofs. in vain i have kept away from my window, to take from her every excuse for fear; in vain the feeble little bird has called to her with plaintive cries; his bad mother has passed by, singing and fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. once only the father came near; he looked at his offspring with contempt, and then disappeared, never to return!

i crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but he did not know how to peck it with his bill. i tried to catch him, but he escaped into the forsaken nest. what will become of him there, if his mother does not come back!

august 15th, six o’clock. — this morning, on opening my window, i found the little bird dying upon the tiles; his wounds showed me that he had been driven from the nest by his unworthy mother. i tried in vain to warm him again with my breath; i felt the last pulsations of life; his eyes were already closed, and his wings hung down! i placed him on the roof in a ray of sunshine, and i closed my window. the struggle of life against death has always something gloomy in it: it is a warning to us.

happily i hear some one in the passage; without doubt it is my old neighbor; his conversation will distract my thoughts.

it was my portress. excellent woman! she wished me to read a letter from her son the sailor, and begged me to answer it for her.

i kept it, to copy it in my journal. here it is:

“dear mother: this is to tell you that i have been very well ever since the last time, except that last week i was nearly drowned with the boat, which would have been a great loss, as there is not a better craft anywhere.

“a gust of wind capsized us; and just as i came up above water, i saw the captain sinking. i went after him, as was my duty, and, after diving three times, i brought him to the surface, which pleased him much; for when we were hoisted on board, and he had recovered his senses, he threw his arms round my neck, as he would have done to an officer.

“i do not hide from you, dear mother, that this has delighted me. but it isn’t all; it seems that fishing up the captain has reminded them that i had a good character, and they have just told me that i am promoted to be a sailor of the first class! directly i knew it, i cried out, ‘my mother shall have coffee twice a day!’ and really, dear mother, there is nothing now to hinder you, as i shall now have a larger allowance to send you.

“i include by begging you to take care of yourself if you wish to do me good; for nothing makes me feel so well as to think that you want for nothing.

“your son, from the bottom of my heart,

“jacques.”

this is the answer that the portress dictated to me:

“my good jacquot: it makes me very happy to see that your heart is still as true as ever, and that you will never shame those who have brought you up. i need not tell you to take care of your life, because you know it is the same as my own, and that without you, dear child, i should wish for nothing but the grave; but we are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty.

“do not fear for my health, good jacques; i was never better! i do not grow old at all, for fear of making you unhappy. i want nothing, and i live like a lady. i even had some money over this year, and as my drawers shut very badly, i put it into the savings’ bank, where i have opened an account in your name. so, when you come back, you will find yourself with an income. i have also furnished your chest with new linen, and i have knitted you three new sea-jackets.

“all your friends are well. your cousin is just dead, leaving his widow in difficulties. i gave her your thirty francs’ remittance and said that you had sent it her; and the poor woman remembers you day and night in her prayers. so, you see, i have put that money in another sort of savings’ bank; but there it is our hearts that get the interest.

“good-bye, dear jacquot. write to me often, and always remember the good god, and your old mother,

“phrosine millot.”

good son, and worthy mother! how such examples bring us back to a love for the human race! in a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the fate of the savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he; but impartial observation soon does justice to such paradoxes. we find, on examination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, the good so far abounds that we are not in the habit of noticing it, while the evil strikes us precisely on account of its being the exception. if nothing is perfect, nothing is so bad as to be without its compensation or its remedy. what spiritual riches are there in the midst of the evils of society! how much does the moral world redeem the material!

that which will ever distinguish man from the rest of creation, is his power of deliberate affection and of enduring self-sacrifice. the mother who took care of her brood in the corner of my window devoted to them the necessary time for accomplishing the laws which insure the preservation of her kind; but she obeyed an instinct, and not a rational choice. when she had accomplished the mission appointed her by providence, she cast off the duty as we get rid of a burden, and she returned again to her selfish liberty. the other mother, on the contrary, will go on with her task as long as god shall leave her here below: the life of her son will still remain, so to speak, joined to her own; and when she disappears from the earth, she will leave there that part of herself.

thus, the affections make for our species an existence separate from all the rest of creation. thanks to them, we enjoy a sort of terrestrial immortality; and if other beings succeed one another, man alone perpetuates himself.