"And what, you want me to stop loving? You want me to say that I
have been mistaken all my life, that humanity is contemptible,
hateful, that it always has been and always will be so? ... What,
then, do you want me to do, so as to isolate myself from my kind,
from my compatriots, from the great family in whose bosom my own
family is only one ear of corn in the terrestrial field? ... But it
is impossible, and your steady reason puts up with the most
unreasonable of Utopias. In what Eden, in what fantastic Eldorado
will you hide your family, your little group of friends, your
intimate happiness, so that the lacerations of the social state and
the disasters of the country shall not reach them? ... In vain you
are prudent and withdraw, your refuge will be invaded in its turn,
and in perishing with human civilization you will be no greater a
philosopher for not having loved, than those who threw themselves
into the flood to save some debris of humanity. ... The people, you
say! The people is yourself and myself. It would be useless to deny
it. There are not two races. ... No, no, people do not isolate
themselves, the ties of blood are not broken, people do not curse or
scorn their kind. Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is composed
of love, and not to love is to cease to live."

This is, if you please, an effusion of sentiment, a chant of faith.
In a world more and more given to judging trees by their fruits, we
should err if we dismissed this sentiment, this faith, too lightly.
Flaubert may have been a better disputant; he had a talent for
writing. George Sand may have chosen her side with a truer instinct;
she had a genius for living. This faith of hers sustained well the
shocks of many long years, and this sentiment made life sweet.

STUART P. SHERMAN