QUOTE : Since we all believe that our merits are misunderstood or flouted, how admit that so general an iniquity could be the doing of mere man? It must go back further and belong to some ancient dirty work, to the very act of the Creation. Thus we know whom to blame, whom to disparage: nothing flatters and sustains us so much as being able to put the source of our indignity as far away from us as possible.