MAXIMS OF THE ASS* 
105 
new. We must not confound indolence of mind — the nearsio'hted- 
O 
ness of intellect- — with fidelity to the religion of one’s ancestors. 
The two things do not resemble each other at all. I willingly ad- 
mire the ass and the peasant his image, in what they both have 
that is admirable — in their sobriety, their constancy in labor, their 
resignation in poverty, but I cannot make virtues of their vices. 
When I know that it is from the want of elevation in their ideas that 
the ass and the peasant so patiently support the yoke of tyranny, I 
cannot make a merit of their patience. When their provincial utter- 
ance grates on my tympanum, I shall not expand in praises on the 
virile energy of their tones — Erasmus, who cannot disguise his 
sympathies for the ass, and who nevertheless confesses that this 
cross-bearing animal has little talent for music — Erasmus adduces 
this extenuating circumstance in favor of his protege, that if the 
ass contributes little to harmony during his life, he generously 
serves it after his death, furnishing the very best skins for the 
manufacture of large drums, the best tibias for the fabrication of 
clarionets (tibiae). The poor laborers, alas ! have no worse ene- 
mies than those honest people who are only good after their death, 
like the swine and the miser, the banker and the narrow conserva- 
tive, and many other hereditary institutions, which the laws make 
it dangerous to name. It is precisely these ideas of exclusive 
posthumous utility which urge to violent methods and to san- 
guinary executions. Since they can be so useful and beneficent 
after their death, say the logicians of the scaffold, let us give them, 
an opportunity of being useful. 
For one a little versed in the language of beasts — who knows 
how to appreciate the shades of each style — it is easy to recognize 
that three quarters of the proverbs of Sancho Panza have been 
whispered to him by Grizzle. I know of no identification of beast 
and man more complete than that which exists between the squire 
of Don Quixote and his steed. The same coarse good sense ; the 
same selfishness ; the same dryness of heart ; the same necessity 
to gloze with principles of justice and generous ideas ; the same 
contempt of the right ; the same respect for the fact. I could 
draw up in the course of a week a complete treatise of morals and 
politics for the use of the limited conservative, by compiling the best 
