Besancon, and where we spent
so many pleasant hours in the discussion of philosophy! Do you remember
it? But that is now far away. Will that happy time ever return? Shall
we one day meet again? Here my life is restless, uncertain, precarious,
and, what is worse, indolent, illiterate, and vagrant. I do no work, I
live in idleness, I ramble about; I do not read, I no longer study; my
books are forsaken; now and then I glance over a few metaphysical works,
and after a days walk through dirty, filthy, crowded streets. I lie
down with empty head and tired body, to repeat the performance on the
following day. What is the object of these walks, you will ask. I make
visits, my friend; I hold interviews with stupid people. Then a fit of
curiosity seizes me, the least inquisitive of beings: there are museums,
libraries, assemblies, churches, palaces, gardens, and theatres to
visit. I am fond of pictures, fond of music, fond of sculpture; all
these are beautiful and good, but they cannot appease hunger, nor take
the place of my pleasant readings of Bailly, Hume, and Tennemann, which
I used to enjoy by my fireside when I was able to read.

"But enough of complaints. Do not allow this letter to affect you too
much, and do not think that I give way to dejection or despondency; no,
I am a fatalist, and I believe in my star. I do not know yet what my
calling is, nor for what branch of polite literature I am best fitted;
I do not even know whether I am, or ever shall be, fitted for any: but
what matters it? I suffer, I labor, I dream, I enjoy, I think; and, in a
word, when my last hour strikes, I shall have lived.

"Proudhon, I love you, I esteem you; and, believe me, these are not mere
phrases. What interest could I have in flattering and praising a poor
printer? Are you rich, that you may pay for courtiers? Have you a
sumptuous table, a dashing wife, and gold to scatter, in order to
attract them to your suite? Have you the glory, honors, credit, which
would render your acquaintance pleasing to their vanity and pride? No;
you are poor, obscure, abandoned; but, poor, obscure, and abandoned,
you have a friend, and a friend who knows all the obligations which that
word imposes upon honorable people, when they venture to assume it. That
friend is myself: put me to the test.

"GUSTAVE FALLOT."

It appears from this letter that if, at this period, Proudhon had
already exhibited to the eyes of a clairvoyant friend his genius for
resear