I'm alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can without hurting others.

" "But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit without moving, undertaking nothing....

" "Life as it is leaves one no peace.

I should be thankful to do nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it.

They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications for it--the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the position.