t homicidal bread!'

"'What can you expect, my poor sister,' answered Agricola. 'When men are
to be incorporated, that they may get killed in war, all pains are taken
with them. But when they are to be organized, so as to live in peace,
no one cares about it, except M. Hardy, my master. People say, 'Pooh!
hunger, misery, and suffering of the laboring classes--what is that to
us? that is not politics.' 'They are wrong,' added Agricola; 'IT IS MORE
THAN POLITICS.'

"As Victorine had not left anything to pay for the church service, there
was only the presentation of the body under the porch; for there is not
even a plain mass for the poor. Besides, as they could not give eighteen
francs to the curate, no priest accompanied the pauper's coffin to the
common grave. If funerals, thus abridged and cut short, are sufficient
in a religious point of view, why invent other and longer forms? Is it
from cupidity?--If, on the other hand, they are not sufficient, why
make the poor man the only victim of this insufficiency? But why trouble
ourselves about the pomp, the incense, the chants, of which they are
either too sparing or too liberal? Of what use? and for what purpose?
They are vain, terrestrial things, for which the soul recks nothing,
when, radiant, it ascends towards its Creator. Yesterday, Agricola made
me read an article in a newspaper, in which violent blame and bitter
irony are by turns employed, to attack what they call the baneful
tendencies of some of the lower orders, to improve themselves, to write,
to read the poets, and sometimes to make verses. Material enjoyments
are forbidden us by poverty. Is it humane to reproach us for seeking the
enjoyments of the mind? What harm can it do any one if every evening,
after a day's toil, remote from all pleasure, I amuse myself, unknown to
all, in making a few verses, or in writing in this journal the good or
bad impressions I have received? Is Agricola the worse workman, because,
on returning home to his mother, he employs Sunday in composing some of
those popular songs, which glorify the fruitful labors of the artisan,
and say to all, Hope and brotherhood! Does he not make a more worthy use
of his time than if he spent it in a tavern? Ah! those who blame us for
these innocent and noble diversions, which relieve our painful toils and
sufferings, deceive themselves when they think, that, in proportion as
the intellect is raised and refined, it is more difficult to bear with
pr