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 events of 1870 have by no means cured me of my pessimism.  They taught me the high value of evil, and that the cynical disavowal of all sentiment, generosity and chivalry gives pleasure to the world at large and is invariably successful.  Egotism is the exact opposite of what I had been accustomed to regard as noble and good.  We see that in this world egotism alone commands success.  England has until within the last few years been the first nation in the world because she was the most selfish.  Germany has acquired the hegemony of the world by repudiating without scruple the principles of political morality which she once so eloquently preached.

This is the explanation of the anomaly that having on several occasions been called upon to give practical advice in regard to the affairs of my country, this advice has always been in direct contradiction with my artistic views.  In so doing, I have been actuated by conscientious motives.  I have endeavoured to evade the ordinary cause of my errors; I have taken the counterpart of my instincts and been on guard against my idealism.  I am always afraid that my mode of thought will lead me wrong and blind me to one side of the question.  This is how it is that, much as I love what is good, I am perhaps over indulgent for those who have taken another view of life, and that, while always being full of work, I ask myself very often whether the idlers are not right after all.

So far as regards enthusiasm, I have got as much of it as any one; but I believe that the reality will have none of it, and that with the reign of men of business, manufacturers, the working class (which is the most selfish of all), Jews, English of the old school and Germans of the new school, has been ushered in a materialist age in which it will be as difficult to bring about the triumph of a generous idea as to produce the silvery note of the great bell of Notre Dame with one cast in lead or tin.  It is strange, moreover, that while not pleasing one side I have not deceived the other.  The bourgeois have not been the least grateful to me for my concessions; they have read me better than I can read-myself, and they have seen that I was but a poor sort of Conservative, and that without the most remote intention of acting in bad faith, I should have played them false twenty times over out of affection for the ideal, my ancient mistress.  They felt that the hard things which I said to her were only superficial, and that I should be unable to resist the first smile which she might bestow upon me.