L E T T E R S

208two years at least my moral state would have been called the most deplorablepossible if it did not lead me to where I am now. I could not be busy calmlyand energetically with any special little work at all because I felt no sense ofduty, no eager interest with which other people were working. And toaccomplish my duty however vague it was I didn't know it and I couldn't work.If I wanted to read some book I was reading twenty books at once. I passed inturn to studies on objects which in the eyes of others were incongruous and inthe end I did nothing.I wanted above all to know a law which I named "nature" for me, forhumanity. I was seeking God and my mission was not to reveal Him but todisorganize all my past and to believe in the revelation. I was coming close toa horrible moral nothingness when your word saved me. I believed all themore quickly in your word because I was already at the bottom of the abyssand you showed it to me. Your word created in me a new life, and the oldhabits did not reappear at once, as if to make me know that my faith is still notalive enough, complete enough, unique enough, strong and religious.On the other hand my position with regard to unbelievers where I am,the need to return to a country (where the knowledge that I profess a newreligion which is going to regenerate humanity in all facets of its existence)would deprive me of the means of acting and would lead directly to a jail cell.This position requires that at least before setting up a church in Poland I hideas much as possible what I am writing. As a result even in foreign countriesnot only before Poles but before all that is not St. Simonism I cannot alwaysact and speak like a st.Simonist. (In my next letter I am going to writesomething more on that to ask for your advice and orders.) And from thiscircumstance which doubles and multiplies a man such as he shows himself,would generate perhaps an even stronger one than I. How disadvantageous itwould be for one who was separated from his fathers before his completevirility. Thirdly, before leaving Paris I spoke to you a little about my pecuniaryembarrassments. D'Eichstal asked me the results of my past disorganized life.