All was useless. Suffocation and inanition carried off the author of
"Colomba." _Hic tua res agitur_. The gray, heavy sky is of the same
color as my thoughts. And yet the irrevocable has its own sweetness and
serenity. The fluctuations of illusion, the uncertainties of desire, the
leaps and bounds of hope, give place to tranquil resignation. One feels
as though one were already beyond the grave. It is this very week, too,
I remember, that my corner of ground in the Oasis is to be bought.
Everything draws toward the end. _Festinat ad eventum_.
March l5, 1881.--The "Journal" is full of details of the horrible affair
at Petersburg. How clear it is that such catastrophes as this, in which
the innocent suffer, are the product of a long accumulation of
iniquities. Historical justice is, generally speaking, tardy--so tardy
that it becomes unjust. The Providential theory is really based on human
solidarity. Louis XVI. pays for Louis XV., Alexander II. for Nicholas.
We expiate the sins of our fathers, and our grandchildren will be
punished for ours. A double injustice! cries the individual. And he is
right if the individualist principle is true. But is it true? That is
the point. It seems as though the individual part of each man's destiny
were but one section of that destiny.
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