, stand no
chance with the matter-of-fact competitors who are the men not to let
slip any advantage in the battle of life. I soon found this out when
I began to know something of the planet in which we live, and hence
there arose within me a struggle or rather a dualism which has been
the secret of all my opinions. I did not in any way lose my fondness
for the ideal; it still is and always will be implanted in me as
strongly as ever. The most trifling act of goodness, the least spark
of talent, are in my eyes infinitely superior to all riches and
worldly achievements. But as I had a well-balanced mind I saw that the
ideal and reality have nothing in common; that the world is, at all
events for the time, given over to what is commonplace and paltry;
that the cause which generous souls will embrace is sure to be the
losing one; and that what men of refined intellect hold to be true
in literature and poetry is always wrong in the dull world of
accomplished facts. The events which followed the Revolution of
1848 confirmed all their ideas. It turned out that the most alluring
dreams, when carried into the domain of facts, were mischievous to
the last degree, and that the affairs of the world were never so well
managed as when the idealists had no part or lot in them. From that
time I accustomed myself to follow a very singular course: that is to
shape my practical judgments in direct opposition to my theoretical
judgments, and to regard as possible that which was in contradiction
with my desires. A somewhat lengthy experience had shown me that
the cause I sympathised with always failed and that the one which I
decried was certain to be triumphant. The lamer a political solution
was, the brighter appeared to me its prospect of being accepted In the
world of realities.

In fine, I only care for characters of an absolute idealism: martyrs,
heroes, utopists, friends of the impossible. They are the only persons
in whom I interest myself; they are, if I may be permitted to say so,
my specialty. But I see what those whose imagination runs away with
them fail to see, viz., that these flights of fancy are no longer of
any use and that for a long time to come the heroic follies which were
deified in the past will fall flat. The enthusiasm of 1792 was a great
and noble outburst, but it was one of those things which will not
recur. Jacobinism, as M. Thiers has clearly shown, was the salvation
of France; now it would be her ruin. The ev