Letters from France and Italy (1847-1852)

I have answered the first two observations more than once; regarding the third, I will say a few words. This objection struck me most because of its anti-Russian character. In the past, we did not know this domestic frugality, this moral hygiene that fears the truth because its time has not yet come, or because it is not advantageous to speak of it. If we remained silent on many questions in our country, it was simply because it was forbidden to speak. Neither this senile abstinence nor this cunning diplomacy suits us. We are more natural, more robust; a hospital diet does not suit us. We are neither lawyers nor members of the bourgeoisie. Why, then, should we cheerfully stretch our necks into the noose original: "martingale" and commit ourselves to the diet prescribed for sickly old men?

Perhaps a slightly liberal, lukewarm opposition will now form among us. It will even be of some use in cleaning up the seigneurial mud and the cavalry straw imported from the stables into our vital affairs. We must also pass through this class in our historical education, but alongside others. Our variety of conception is a great thing; it is the compensation, the restitution for a bitter and impoverished past. Let us not mutilate ourselves, as Origen says, so as not to commit sins.

Moreover, the social question is not at all