Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON (1809-1865). L.A.S., July 1, 1850, to - Lot 603

Pierre-Joseph PROUDHON (1809-1865). L.A.S., July 1, 1850, to a lady; 6 pages in-8 filled with small, tight handwriting. Long letter of advice to a young woman, a former horsewoman at the Hippodrome, who is bored and wants to change her life. Proudhon reassures her and goes on at length, drawing a parallel between health and virtue: "It is a little everywhere, it is entire almost nowhere [...] there is virtue in you, I tell you". He goes on to demonstrate that beasts don't know boredom, because they have no soul; nor do so-called serious people, as long as they stay busy. His correspondent's choice to throw herself "headlong into the hazards of a hand-to-mouth existence" is a "foolishness" that has led her to reject the servitude of work: "Your misfortune has been to separate in thought these two things: Work and Liberty, Work and Art, Work and Love. [...] And you became a free woman, an artist, a lover, a whimsical and passionate being, pushing whimsy and passion to the point of exhaustion". But this left him with "nothing but defilement, emptiness and degradation". To remedy this state, he advised her (she was 28!) to renounce love, to learn to possess herself, "to be freed, ennobled in body and soul". To Chastity (for two years at least), she adds sobriety and a healthy, hard-working life: "You lack nothing, and you can still distinguish yourself in serious life, as much and more than you ever did on the stage". Let her do away with reading novels and verses and turn to "history, travel, geography, science; go as far as philosophy if you like. In a word, while remaining what nature made you, artist, work, occupy yourself, undertake". He tries to interest her in housework: "It takes a lot of talent, you should know, for a woman to turn her apartment into a painting and a landscape. And yet that's where they should tend: are pots, pans and furniture more disgusting to touch than paints and brushes? [...] since you have taken me for your doctor, begin the treatment, follow it with resolution [...] and when your recovery is advanced, I will tell you what to do. I will show you the higher purpose of life, a purpose to which your happiness will be to have contributed with all your strength"...