"I think that you are mistaken, father; but even if it were true that the rich would give their attention to the education of the poor, the love of incessant work, without other compensation than the certainty of a pittance for one's old age, is so contrary to nature that you can never kindle it in children. A few exceptional natures, consumed by energy or ambition, will sacrifice their youth; but whoever is simple-hearted, loving, inclined to reverie, to innocent and legitimate pleasures, and under the influence of that craving for affection and tranquillity which is the lawful privilege of the human race, will fly from this jail of incessant toil in which you seek to confine him, and will prefer the chances of poverty to the security of slavery. Ah! father, your rugged constitution, your untiring energy, your stoical sobriety and your inveterate habit of working make you an exceptional man, and you imagine a society formed after your image, you do not see that there is no suitable place there for any but exceptional men. Permit me to tell you that that is a Utopian conception far more appalling than mine."
"Well, Emile, I wish that you believed in it," said Monsieur Cardonnet warmly; "it is a source of strength, and an invaluable stimulant in this society of dreamers, idlers and apathetic creatures in which I am devoured with impatience. Be like me, and if we should find in France, at this moment, a hundred men like us, I promise you that there would be no more exceptions a hundred years hence. Activity is contagious, magnetic, miracle-working! it was through activity that Napoléon held sway over Europe: he would have owned all Europe if he had been a manufacturer instead of a fighting man. Oh! since you are an enthusiast, be enthusiastic for my ideas! shake off your languor and share my fever! If we do not attract the whole race, we shall make great breaches through which our descendants will see it moving about in a sacred frenzy."
"No, father, never!" cried Emile, dismayed by Monsieur Cardonnet's terrible energy; "for that is not the road for mankind to follow. There is in it no trace of love or pity or gentleness. Man was not born to know naught but suffering and to extend his conquests over matter only. The conquests of the intellect in the domain of ideas, the pleasures and refinements of the heart, which, according to your plan, should be carefully regulated accessories in the workingman's life, will always be the noblest and sweetest aspiration of every normally constituted man. Do you not see that you cut off one whole side of the benevolent intentions of God? that you do not give the slave of toil time to breathe and to know himself? that education directed solely to moneymaking will make mere brutish machines and not complete men? You say that you conceive an ideal to be realized in the course of centuries, that a time may come when every one will be rewarded according to his capacity. Well, I say that your formula is false because it is incomplete, and unless we add to it: 'To everyone according to his needs,' it is unjust, it is simply asserting the right of him who is strongest in intellect or will, it is aristocracy and privilege under other forms. O father, instead of fighting with the strong against the weak, let us fight with the weak against the strong. Let us try! but in that case let us not think of making our fortunes, let us renounce the idea of hoarding for our own benefit. Give your consent, for I, for whom you are working to-day, give my consent. Let us try to identify our ideals in this way, and let us renounce personal profit while devoting ourselves to work. Since we cannot by ourselves alone create a society in which all the members have an equal interest, let us be the workmen of the future, devoted to the weak and incapable of the present."
EMILE IN CONFERENCE WITH HIS FATHER.
When he realized from the young man's bitter tone and desperate expression that it really was as serious as he had feared, he determined to go around the obstacle and to manœuvre in such a way as to recover his influence.
"If Napoléon's genius had been trained to this doctrine, perhaps it would have converted the world; but let us find a hundred men like us, let this fever to acquire wealth become a divine zeal, let the longing to practise charity consume us, let us give all our workmen a share in all our profits, let our great fortune be not your property and my heritage, but the property of all those who have assisted us, according to their abilities and their strength, in amassing it; let the workman who brings his stone be put in a way to know as much of the material joys of life as you who bring your genius; let him too be able to live in a fine house, to breathe pure air, to eat healthy food, to rest after fatigue, and to educate his children; let us find our reward, not in the useless luxury with which you and I can surround ourselves, but in the joy of having made others happy—I can understand that ambition and be carried away by it. And then, father, dear father, your work will be blessed.
"This indolence and apathy which irritate you, and which are simply the result of a struggle in which a few triumph to the detriment of the vast majority who lose their courage and succumb, will themselves disappear in the natural course of things. Then you will find so much zeal and love about you that you will no longer be obliged to wear yourself out alone in order to stimulate all the others. How could it be otherwise to-day, and of what do you complain? Under the law of selfishness each one gives of his strength and his energy in proportion to the share of the profits he receives. A marvellous result, truly, that you, who receive all the profit, should be the only zealous, assiduous worker, while the paid worker, who receives in your employ a trifle more alms than he would receive elsewhere, brings you only a little more of his zeal. You pay higher wages—that is a fine thing, certainly, and you are more to be commended than the majority of your rivals, who would prefer to lower them; but you have it in your power to increase the zeal of your employés tenfold, a hundred-fold, to kindle as by a miracle the flame of devotion, the intelligence of the heart in those benumbed and paralyzed creatures, and you do not choose to do it!—Why not, father? It is not that you care for the enjoyments of luxury; for you enjoy nothing unless it be the intoxication of your plans and your triumphs. Very well; do away with your individual profit; you have only to do it, and I will abandon my claim to it with the greatest joy! Let us be simply the trustees and managers of the common profits. This fortune that you dream of, of which you dare not tell me the amount, will so surpass your anticipations and your hopes, that you will soon have the means to give your workmen moral, intellectual and physical pleasures which will make new men of them, complete men, true men! and such men I have never seen anywhere. All equilibrium is destroyed; I see only knaves and brutes, tyrants and slaves, powerful and greedy eagles and stupid and cowardly sparrows destined to be their prey. We live according to the blind law of the savage nature; the code of savage instinct which governs the brute is still the soul of our pretended civilization; and we dare to say that the manufacturing industry will save the world without departing from that path! No, no, father, all these declamations of political economy are false and misleading! If you compel me to be rich and powerful, as you have said so many times, and if, by reason of the vulgar influence of money, the adorers of money send me to represent their interests in the counsels of the nation, I shall say what I have in my mind; I shall speak, and I suppose that I shall speak only once: for they will put me to silence or force me to leave the hall; but people will remember what I say, and they who chose me will have reason to repent their choice!"
This discussion was prolonged far into the night, and it will be readily understood that Emile did not convert his father. Monsieur Cardonnet was not evil-minded, nor impious, nor voluntarily blameworthy toward God or man. Indeed, certain practical virtues were very strongly accentuated in him, and he had great talent in one special field. But his iron will was the result of the entire absence of idealism in his character.