Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-10-11

PROUDHON as q REFORMER.
SINGULAR LETTER TO A FRENCH ECUYERE.
PARIS, September

PARIS, September |.
/ send you a copy of a curious letter, addressed
e, by Monsieur Proudhon, TO II former ecUyeye of the
Ilippodrome, who had asked Of the celebrated
writer his advice as "tO re-entering the paths OF
virtue" as the mOraiist would say. NJ ProudhOn's
correspondent is my country neighbor at CAatn.
prosay, and has confessed to me that in an hour OF
melancholy aud discuuragcment-after supper
she had written to the author OF the Memoir on
Property. What is 10 become Of us, alas, if ccny
e,eS of the Lippodrome begin to he sad after sup
per.
GABRIEL VIcA1RE, 18th July, 1856.
MADAME l hardly know what to think Of
your original epistle. Is it in a frolic mood that
you tempt the wisdom, so much overrated, of a
poor husband and father, or in one Of those insur.
mountable fits of lassitude which afford a bitter
compensation to the wild joys of your profession ?
From tue hall disconsolatc, half ironical tone oi
your letter, | know not really how to Judge, and
| am too little acquainted with the world in which
you have lived, to know what may have passed
through the brain Of u former ecuyeye Of the Hip,
podrome. In this uncertainty, | shall assume.
madame, to act like yourself; | will answer your
questions, as If they were serious. and will let my
pen play "A little freely, as though you were more
willing to laugh than to be converted.
First, let us state Il few principles:
you Delleve, you, say, no more in the virtue of
men than i'll that of women.
81 am not surprised at this, after the kind Of
life that you have led. But a truce to misanthrorv
as well as to rigoriim; there is virtue, madam. as
there is health. Virtue, in my opinion, is only the
health OF the heart as health is the virtue Of the
body. Out Of a hundred individuals taken at ran
dom, how many subjects do you think will be per-
tectly healthy? Not five, perhaps not three, as is
proved by the very few persons who die f old age.
Insanity of the body is the common state of hu-
man kind in our day, Notwithstanding the 100000
conscripts, sound and able-bodied, levied every
year by our council of revision, and notwitbstand-
ing that multitude of pretty women who fl our
cities and country places.
well, madam. does this rarity of perfect health
make you exclaim against health? Will YOU pre-
tend that disease is our natural and normal state ?
Will you suspect the small number of those who
are well Of being hypocrites? And will you con
clude that we must abandon ourselves to the chan
ces OF heat, cold and wet and to disorders Of tho
table?
"NO, assuredly; something tells }ou that health
is, on the contrary, the law of living-boings; that
it Is health which makes the basis Of our life, and
that when we have lost it, we must come back to
it, or else stupidity allow ourselves to die of inertia
and inanition. So it is with virtue; there is n lit.
tie of it everywhere, it is perfect nowhere. | know
not, madame, from whom you have derived your
ideas of virtue; you must have received them when
Il young girl, in some convent. But, as you still
possess life and health, and even vigOr-indeed.
your letter o~yerlows with it-by the same token.
1 uuIG ShGlI tutI6 Il 'Ituc III JDu' although NOR
tiication, v~ezation at your own weakness, and hui
initiation at your mistakes in life, prevent you
from recognising it.
Let us lay aside Agneses and Magdalens, the
types Of Innocence and Of repentaucc; there is in
you, | SAY, virtue, aud have an excellent reason
for affirming it, in your own testimony and in your
profound desire to have still more virtue, like a
convalescant who aspireS to perfect health. This
first princip. will not strike you as too difficult of
apprehension. Here is another, to which | also
call your attention.
at is a fact that the beasts,-I am not making
any comparison-that the beasts, l say, do not
know eaRui, or disgust, or safety, or despair, or
any of those moral evils which follow from the
loss Of moral health, or if you permit ME actually
to use the word, Of virtue.
The reason is, that the beasts, infinitely less
imprisoned than men. but ~obeying instinct and
its intexible laws, are not, soto speak, exposed to
the loss of that equilibrium, that health of the
soul, without which we of the human race cannot
endure life. In this respect, the existence OF the
animals is protected by their very condition.
"What conclusion does analogy draw from this
observation of natural history? Why this: that
like the beasts, persons fully occupied with serious
affairs or even with trivial ones, flor what common
men call serious is but trivial to great minds)-
these persons, l say, laborers, artisans, Swans.
public officers, etc., do not know what eanui is, or
know it very slightly. They experience it, and
with it disgust, safety, prostration, all the symp.
toms which characterize in man an advanced cor
ruption, only when they happen to leave their oc.
equations. and surrender themselves 10 idleness.
pleasure and debauchery.
Are these persons Of regular occupations, then,
the beasts, and you, madam, the companions of the
theatre, of the Hippodrome, and the idlers who
tced life with you-are you noble and privileged
creatures, the kings and queens Of creation?
~ deiy you to answer me, yes; you feel what my
reply would be.
Thus here is the point established; the people
OF labor, OF study, OF business, the souls that strug-
gle, are little or not at all subject TO c1ayi and 10
the vices that engeuder it; on the contrary. those
who play, who amuse themselves, who idle, triae.
make love or dream; feasting, dancing; singing
and irolicing; the poets, the artists, and the whole
gypsy ulbe OF literary men, even the clergy and
the MONKS all this world with its prctensions to
superiority, is fatally surrendered to debaucherv.
to disgust, to shame worse than death. Yet a lit
tie patience, madam, ! draw to q close. find in
your letter, one curious phrase which draws YOUR
portrait. Born of a respectable family, | could.
like many Others, have married Il good citizen and
borne him children, &c. But, bah! ] have s&un-
ned the tedium Of a life so little varied and
have plunged headlong amid the chances that arise
from day to day.
you have here perpetrated. madam, I'm enor-
nous folly; but as it is not entirely your fault, the
evil Is not absolutely beyond remedy.
"Ail your receptions have originated in n noble
sentiment OF human dignity, a sentiment which
ought to reconcile you with yourself and restore
your courage. You have in the highest degree the
conscience Of liberty and the horror of thut mo.
notony, OF that seryitude which nature imposes on
US, and which Is summed up in the word Labor
Here, Madam, believe me, | don't Jest, / blame
you for having misoonceiyed the law Of labor
which would have retained you in the path Of your
family; but praise you for having understood,
though in a confused manner, that man, willie un.
dergoing the law Of labor must necessarily COM
pat the trivlaliIies OF existence. 1t has been your
misfortune to separate in your thought these two
t~hings-labor and liberty-labor and art-labor
and love. You have said, ! will lay aeide this la
hnrinnR hnrNilnhn md all tlia fririnElr Ill A.