Read "The Confessions of a Little Man during Great Days" by Leonid Andreyev online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
18th August.
In my excitement of the last few days I have accused myself of many unjust things. Excitement is a poor guide when a man wants to take a sober view of things. I must have been too upset by these unexpected revelations that flowed from the mouths of our Duma Ciceros as freely as abundance from the horn of plenty. If I had been blind, what were our Ciceros doing? Their eyes, at any rate, ought to have been more penetrating. I don't deny that I am powerless, but unfortunately it is not my fault that I am so. I am what I am. Had I been born a Samson or a Joffre, I should have been a Samson or a Joffre. No man is fool enough, knowing me to be no mathematician, to set me a problem of integral calculus to solve; in the same way, how can I be expected to solve the problem of the Great War and Russian corruption? I didn't begin the war! I'm not responsible for the filthy mess we have got into, and I don't see why it should be put upon my shoulders! It's both absurd and unjust. To tell a man to clear away a mountain, and not give him so much as a spade to do it with! I should like to see those gentlemen tackling the job!