The New York herald., 1922-02-12
Fame and Sincerity

to- show you the preface), and
Heaven knows what else. A lot of
things that are not at all diverting.
81 did not receive the second article
that was announced. Your old trou-
bador (sic) has an aching head. My
longest nights these three months
have not exceeded five hours. have
been grubbing in a frantic manner.
Furthermore, think 1 have brought
my book to a pretty degree of insan-
ity. The idea OF the foolish things
that it will make the bourgeois ut
ter sustains me. or rather I don't
need to be sustained, as such sit
uation pleases me naturally. \
"The good bourgeois is becoming
more and more stupid! He does not
even so to vote! The brute beasts
surpass him in their instinct for self
preservation. Poor France! Poor
US.
What do you think 1 am reading
now to distract myself? Bichat and
Cabanis, who amuse me enormously.
They knew how to write books then.
All! how far our doctors of to-day
are from those men!
I'VE suffer from one thing only:
Absurdity. But It is formidable and
universal. When they talk of the
brutishness of the plebe they are
saying an unjust, incomplete thing.
Conclusion: the enlightened classes
must be enlightened. Begin by the
head. which is the sickest; the rest
will follow.
You are not like me, You are
full Of compassion. There are days
when I choke with wrath. 1 would
like to drown my contemporaries in
latrines, or at least deluge their
cockscombs with torrents of abuse,
cataracts of invectives. Why? L
wonder myself.
What sort of archaeology is Maui
rice busy with? Embrace your little
girls warmly for me.
''12 December, 1872.
DEAR COOP MASTER: Don't take
seriously the exaggerations about
my ire. Don't believe that / am
counting 'on posterity to avenge me
for the Indifference of my contem-
poraries.' l meant to say only this:
If one does not address the crowd it is
right that the crowd should not pay
one. 1t is political economy. But
maintain that n work of art (worthy
of that name and conscientiously
done) is beyond appraisal, has no
commercial value, cannot be paid for.
Conclusion: If the artist has no in
come he must starve They think
that the writer because he no longer
receives a pension from the great, is
very much freer and nobler All his
social nobility now consists in being
the equal of grocer. What prog
ress AS for me, you say to me.
Let us be logical; but that's just the
difficulty.
81 am not sure at all of writing
good things, nor that the book of
which / am dreaming now can be
we'll done, which does not prevent
me from undertaking it. think that
the idea of it is original; nothing
Il
into it the gan that is choking me,
that is to say, to emit some truths,
hope by this means to purge myself
and to be fenceforward more Olym-
plan. quality that / lack entirely.
All! how j should like to admire my
self!
Mourning once more: l headed
the procession at the burial of Father
Pouchet last Monday. That gentle
fellows life was very beautiful and
| mourned him.
II enter to-day upon my fifty-sec-
ond year, and 1 insist on embracing
you to-day: i DO it affectionately,
since you love me so Well"
These letters are fascinating, and
reveal once more what we all knew
since that little episode in Eden--that-
man is 4 weak intellectual animal
and woman is nothing but sex, which
makes her the superman.
BENJAAIIN DE, CASSERES.