My cherished Cruchard,

I want to write to you every day; time is lacking absolutely.  At last here is a free moment; we are buried under the snow; it is the sort of weather that I adore:  this whiteness is like general purification, and the amusements of the house seem more intimate and sweeter.  Can anyone hate the winter in the country?  The snow is one of the most beautiful sights of the year!

It appears that I am not clear in my sermons; I have that much in common with the orthodox, but I am not of them; neither in my idea of equality, nor of authority, have I any fixed plan.  You seem to think that I want to convert you to a doctrine.  Not at all, I don’t think of such a thing.  Everyone sets off from a point of view, the free choice of which I respect.  In a few words, I can give a resume of mine:  not to place oneself behind an opaque glass through which one can see only the reflection of one’s own nose.  To see as far as possible the good, the bad, about, around, yonder, everywhere; to perceive the continual gravitation of all tangible and intangible things towards the necessity of the decent, the good, the true, the beautiful.

I don’t say that humanity is on the way to the heights.  I believe it in spite of everything; but I do not argue about it, it is useless because each one judges according to his own personal vision, and the general aspect is for the moment poor and ugly.  Besides, I do not need to be sure of the safety of the planet and its inhabitants in order to believe in the necessity of the good and the beautiful; if the planet departs from that law it will perish; if the inhabitants discard it they will be destroyed.  Other stars, other souls will pass over their bodies, so much the worse!  But, as for me, I want to gravitate up to my last breath, not with the certitude nor the need of finding elsewhere a good place, but because my sole joy is in keeping myself with my family on an upward road.

In other words, I am fleeing the sewer, and I am seeking the dry and the clean, certain that it is the law of my existence.  Being a man amounts to little; we are still near the monkey from which they say we proceed.  Very well! a further reason for separating ourselves still more from it and for being at least at the height of the relative truth that our race has been admitted to comprehend; a very poor truth, very limited, very humble! well, let us possess it as much as we can and not permit anyone to take it from us.  We are, I think, quite agreed; but I practice this simple religion and you do not practice it, since you let yourself become discouraged; your heart has not been penetrated with it, since you curse life and desire death like a Catholic who yearns for compensation, were it only the rest eternal.  You are no surer than another of this compensation.  Life is perhaps eternal, and therefore work is eternal.  If this is so, let us do our day’s work bravely.  If it is otherwise, if the moi perishes entirely,