Is not this sufficient for you, O peasants?
We see, then, that society regards labor for bread as the hardest work in the world. Am I not right, then, in proclaiming that these men love neither God nor their neighbor, but only themselves?
It is painful to see a millionaire, who has received several medals for pure trifles, marching about with his hands in his pockets, and seeming to say, "Look at me!"
And what is his merit compared to ours? It is but as ashes dispersed by the wind.
What shall we do? "God is in heaven, and the Czar afar off!" If I may, I will write all my griefs in a memorial, and present it myself to the Czar, and having gained or lost everything, it would only remain for us to live or die. I have taken the right path. I will continue to follow it till I die; for I have no interest in deceiving myself. I have one foot on the earth, and the other in the grave, and I am already more than sixty years old.
74. When they read my writings to a laborer who does not know a from b, he will well understand them. My words will sink deeply into his heart. How he will thank me for discovering the law of salvation! How he will apply himself the more zealously to his work!
But he who would escape labor is like the dog who gnaws the stone that has been cast at him. He will criticise these reflections, and
