M. Jourdain is in love with a marchioness whom he

has never seen. Yet he knows that she is beautiful, since she is a marchioness ; and he is sure that she has beautiful eyes for the same reason. If it sufficed to be a marchioness in order to hâve beautiful eyes, I imagine that ail vvomen would like to be marchionesses. Would you not like (souhaiter) to hâve been born a marchioness, Mary, if marchionesses had more beautiful eyes than other women ? — Who would not (souhaiter), sir, in that case ?

— You are right.

M. Jourdain wants, then, to write the marchioness a little note which he will let fall at her feet. She must (il faut) know that her beautiful eyes are making him die of love, and he would like (souhaiterait) his professor to help him write this letter. But he wants neither prose nor verse for it. He does not know that this déclaration of love must be made either in prose or in verse, and he is much astonished when his master tells him that he has made prose during more than forty years without knowing anything about it. — Can one be so ignorant as to make prose without knowing anything about it? This man must hâve been a fool not to hâve known that he was talking in prose.

— Yes, madame, if he was not a fool, he was not far from it.

Mr. Dixon, the American, did not know French at ail ; he knew neither how to read it, nor to write it, nor to speak it. At the time of leaving his country for the first time and on starting for Paris, he felt great anxiety at the thought that he should be incapable of conversing with the Parisians. " If I were acquainted with their language,"

he said to himself, " I should set out as happy as a king. What vvill become of me in Paris?" While he was in this perplexity, heaven came to his aid and sent him a former student of Harvard, who ofrered to accompany him on his journey. The young man had studied French on the benches of the famous university, that is to say, he had learned to read and write it, but alas ! the universités did not teach how to speak it formerly, and their pupils pronounced it abominably. So our friend the student confounded in his pronunciation femme and faim, feu and fou. If you had not learned to speak, George, would you speak better than he ? Would you go to Paris without anxiety? Would you be a valuable and sure companion for Mr. Dixon ? — No, sir, to know how to talk French one must hâve learned to talk French, as one must hâve learned to dance in order to know how to dance. — If you had gone with Mr. Dixon, would you hâve passed your time during the passage as the former student did ? — I should hâve passed it quite dirferently.

— Would you hâve chosen that time to read M. Guizot's book, V Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe ? — I should not hâve read at ail. — What would you hâve done, then ?

— I should hâve taken a steamer of the French line, if Mr. Dixon would hâve consented to it, and if it had not been necessary for him to go by way of London, and on this steamer I should hâve heard French spoken, to prépare myself to understand the Parisians better, and I should hâve tried to speak myself in order to prépare myself to speak with them and to make myself understood by them.

Everybody had (il fallait que) to bend before Napoléon. He was irritated when any one (on) refused to submit to his will. He never suffered any one to resist him, and did not permit any one to criticise his acts. He said, like Louis XIV., Stat pro ratione voluntas. He was not infallible surely, and could be mistaken ; but who would hâve dared to say to him that he was mistaken, or that he was wrong in anything? Was he not angry one day to the point of being cruel to his wife in the présence of the whole court, because his father-in-law, the emperor of Austria, had written him a letter that displeased him ? Do you know what words he addressed to the empress on this occasion ? Is it not sad that so great a man, who had so much authority over others, had not the power to control himself? Was Marie-Louise grieved to hear her father called ganache in the présence of the courtiers ? Did she understand the insulting word? Would she hâve protested, had she understood it? Would she hâve dared to do so or simply to complain ? What do I say ? Would she hâve dared to show her sorrow to her husband ? — She did not understand. sir. — You see that there are blissful ignorances, as there are unfortunate ohes. In fact, if it was a misfortune for Mr. Dixon that the professors of the former student of Harvard had taught him such a poor pronunciation, it was Marie-Louise's good fortune that her professors at Vienna had not taught her the meaning of the word ganache. Poor vvoman, nevertheless ! How she must hâve suffered afterwards when she knew what that word meant, and how embarrassed she must

hâve been when she saw M. de Cambace'rès again after the compliment she had paid him !

i . A fox and a goat are not made to travel together. The former lias too much vvit for die other, who is very stupid. If he had besides great goodness, if he were honest, and not a deceiver, his wit vvould not be dangerous for his travelling-companion ; but such as he is, such as we know him, I fear that the Goat will be the victim of one of his wiles. In his place would you not mistrust the Fox, madame ; and do you doubt that the Goat himself vvould hâve mistrusted him and would hâve refused to journey in his company if he had been a witness of his conduct to Master Crow ?

When the two companions were thirsty, they descended into a rather deep well. It was easy for them to descend into the well, but to climb out of it would not be so easy, and they might even encounter insurmountable difficulties. Do you not think, George, that it is unwise to go down into a well without knowing how we shall get out of it? Would you hâve gone down there in their place, without knowing how you would corne out, and are you not very much astonished that the Fox should hâve gone down without reflecting, he who lias so much wit ? — I am not at ail surprised that lie did it, and he did not act thoughtlessly, for lie had calculated beforehand how he would climb out of the pit. He knew very well that the Goat would serve him for a ladder upon which to climb out. — Was he not afraid that the Goat might refuse to be thus

used as a machine ? — Oh, no ! He knew his companion too well to doubt that he would allow himself to be deceived.

2. La Fontaine does not use the word ami seriously when he says that the Fox was travelling with his friend the Goat. There are so few friends in the world. True friendship is so rare among men. Among animais, too, I suppose. Protestations of friendship are numerous, and on the lips of everybody on ail occasions, but it is in the heart that the profound sentiment lives that deserves the name of friendship. It is made up of goodness, of tenderness, of generosity, of untiring dévotion, of constant sympathy for the one we love and of an eager désire to serve him and to sacrifice ail for his happiness.

There are some celebrated friendships in mythology and in history, five or six pairs of immortal friends. Are there not also pairs of female friends, madame? Do you think that a woman is incapable of loving another woman with a true friendship ? — In poetry there is Dido and her sister Anne, whom Virgil has immortalized. — Do you think that they really formed a pair of friends? Virgil has sung the love of Dido rather than the friendship of the two sisters. — Is not that because he was better acquainted with love than with friendship ? — I doubt that greatly. His friendship with Horace is celebrated. The two poets had but one soûl. The day when Virgil embarked for Greece, Horace was moved and affrighted at the thought of the danger his friend was about to incur, and raising his eyes toward the dwelling of the immortal gods, he besought Venus, Castor and Pollux, and ^Eolus, the god of the winds, to protect the ship that was to bear him across the océan, and to

bring back to him, safe and sound, this portion of his heart, animae dimidium meae.

Perrette was going to the market of the neighboring city

to sell a jug of milk, ail her wealth that day. It is very

little. I pity her, or rather I should pity her if she were

as prosaic as M. Jourdain, if she were only a dealer in

milk as the bourgeois gentilhomme was only a dealer in

cloth, if she had not more wealth in her head than on her

head, if castles in Spain had not corne to gladden her

spirits, if the poor milkmaid had not left the world of sad

realities to ascend into the country of dreams and of

poetry. But Perrette had wings and was a poet that day,

was she not, madame ! She dreamed ; she created in her

imagination ; she did what poets do, out of nothing she

made something; in an instant, with one stroke of the

wing she passed from poverty to wealth, from milkmaid

she became a grand mistress of a farm. Do you not

marvel at what her inspired head could make out of a jug

of milk? How prolific is that jug of milk ! It gives

birth at the same time, under Perrette's magie wand, to

one hundred eggs, to hens which sit on those eggs, to

the chickens that corne from them and that are running

around her house, to a pig which is no longer a suckling

(cochon de lait), to a cow with her calf, better than that,

to a whole herd of cattle. Look, George, there is the calf

jumping in the midst of the happy milkmaid's herd. —

Yes, sir, but there is no longer calf nor herd, for Perrette

has upset her milk and lost ail her fortune. What a pity

that she jumped up like her calf, and that she has fallen

back thus from the sky to the sad world of our realities, as you say. — Never mind, my dear. Perrette has the faines' wand and knovvs the way to dreamland. She will go back there again.

i . If you were asked, sir, which of the two conditions you would choose, if the choice were offered you, that of the cobbler or that of the financier, that is poverty or riches, you would think that the man who asked you that question had lost his head, or at least that he was making fun of you. Would you take the trouble to answer him? — I doubt whether I should give myself that trouble. Is there in fact a man in the world who would hesitate to choose the condition of the financier, and who would not choose for himself riches rather than misery ? Whoever would choose otherwise would be as foolish as the man who would prefer sickness to health, weakness to strength, deafness or blindness (cécité) to good sight and good ears, ignorance to knowledge and science, a troubled conscience to peace of mind, in a word evil to good. — You are right. Nevertheless are men always happy when they are rich? Is it not possible for a financier to be unhappy? Does it not happen, too, that the man in good health is not happy, in spite of his health, and is the wise man necessarily happier than the ignorant one? — Oh, no ! There are so many human miseries, and it needs but one to trouble a man's happiness and prevent him from enjoying the advantages hat otherwise he possesses. — Yes, and, on the other nand, there are so many joys in the human heart that can lispense with riches, with science, with health even, — the

greatest joys perhaps and the sweetest, the inmost feelings of the soûl, friendship, love, ail the affections that constitute the charm of life ! The poor man, vvho knows thèse pleasures, is a hundred times happier, in spite of his poverty, than the rich who has only his gold and the good things it buys.

2. Is it not strange that our financier is unhappy? Has he reason to complain that Providence has not done enough for him ? What more could it hâve done to favor him ? Has he not ail the pleasures that vvealth can give? Is there a single one of the pleasures that are sold in the market that he cannot buy? — He can buy them ail. — What does he lack then? — Sleep, vvhich no wealth can buy, contentment of heart and peace of mind. The love of gold, the thirst for increasing his riches still more and continually, his endless calculations, his spéculations, the events of Wall Street, fill his life and trouble it. And to crown his misfortunes, he has a poor cobbler for a neighbor, whose gaiety and songs prevent him from slumbering in the morning after the cruel sleeplessness of his nights. Do you envy this financiers lot, George ? Would you not rather be the cobbler of the fable ?

i. The Melon asks how it is that the drawing-room is opened to the Rose and closed to him. Does he not know that he is good for nothing but to be eaten, and that he can be taken nowhere else but to the kitchen, while waiting to be served up on a dish in the diningroom ? — He knows it perhaps, but he is jealous of his neighbor, who is received into the society of men and fêted

wherever she appears. Is it surprising that the rose is loved, madame, and that it is fêted? — On the contrary, it would be astonishing if it were not loved. Is there a man or a woman living who does not rejoice at sight of this queen of beauty which seems to hâve been created to charm us, to smile upon us, and to perfume the earth on which we live ?

2. Madame de Staël is perhaps the greatest among the women who hâve wielded the pen. If she is less of an artist than Madame de Sévigné and George Sand, she outrivals the former in the élévation of her soûl, and still more in her lofty intelligence, and in thèse two respects she is not inferior to the latter. But where she was assuredly queen, and without an equal in any time and in any country, was in conversation. Hère she was a magician. This woman was the genius of conversation. Ail her contemporaries hâve proclaimed her sovereignty in the art of conversing, even the great Germans, Goethe and Schiller. " It is with her as with the great Athenian orator," says Sainte-Beuve, — u When one admires her witty or burning pages, one can always say, * What would it hâve been if you had heard her herself ? ' " — Yet M. de Talleyrand preferred Mme de Récamier to Mme de Staël. — Yes, madame, because Mme de Récamier had grâce, beauty, and in addition, like a perfume of her soûl, a rare goodness, a divine goodness, they said, what Shakspeare calls the milk of human kindness, a. sweetness full of tenderness and compassion. — And Mme de Staël was irritated by the préférence given to her friend? — Assuredly. Js there a woman in the world who does not understand the mortification that the words of M. de Talleyrand caused her?

Ralph Waldo Emerson had a high esteem for Mon taigne. He has given him a place in his Représentâtes Men as the king of scepticism. AU great men are more or less sceptics. There are so few questions that men hâve solved in a definite manner. It is only simple minds and ignorant people that doubt nothing. They know everything that happens in heaven and earth. Emerson loved Montaigne, then, from the time when he left collège. He liad found in his father's library an odd volume of the Essais of the great sceptic, and had read it with extraordinary pleasure. He immediately procured the rest of the work. He recalls, he says, the delight and the astonishment that this reading gave him : " It seemed to me as if t had myself written the book, in some former life, so sin- ^erely it responded to my thought." And farther on he ^dds : " I learned with pleasure that one of the newly dis- ^overed autographs of William Shakspeare was a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne. It is the only book Vhich we certainly know to hâve been in the poet's library." — Do you think, sir, that the Essais caused Shakspeare as much astonishment as Emerson, and that he read them with the same pleasure and the same profit? — I should not be surprised if it were so. Montaigne is one of the greatest men that ever lived, a maie mind, a prolific mind, one of those minds that awake the genius of those who are called to be their equals in the world of immortal créations. — Shakspeare has no equal, sir. — Who knows? our Montaigne would say. Who has the right to make such an assertion? Among the immortals are Homer, ^Eschy-

lus, Plato, Pascal, Molière, Dante. Shakspeare would sit in their company as among his equals, and would be happy to converse with them upon the great problems of life, and I am sure that he would offer a seat to Montaigne if he presented himself there.

i. Which of thèse two things do you find the more beautiful and the more interesting, madame, — a handsome face, a face where ail the features are beautiful, where ail is regular, a face beautiful as Apollo's, but which says nothing to you, which does not speak, which does not reveal a single thought or sentiment ; or that other face, much less beautiful, almost ugly and very irregular, but whicli allows ail the émotions of the soûl to be read, full of movement and of life, a face that has a thousand things to say to you, like that of the Venus de Milo? — The latter is a hundred times more beautiful than the former, and the only one that is interesting. The former is like a soulless body. — Is it not strange that nature can give a beautiful face to the man who has no soûl?

2. Read Goethe, and take note of his judgments on literature in gênerai, and on the literature of France in particular, but beware of consulting the works of Schlegel, or at least do not trust him when he speaks of the French writers. Goethe's views are elevated ; he likes ail that is fine, grand, and strong, and his admiration knows neither country nor boundary. To those who, like himself, work to take a place among the great masters, he says, " Read Molière, read Shakspeare, and above ail the Greeks, al-

ways the Greeks." He had a rare and touching admiration for the great French comic author, and lost no opportunity of praising him. " Molière is so great," he says, " that each time one reads him anew he expériences a nevv astonishment. Every year I read some of his pièces, just as I contemplate engravings after the old Italian masters, for little beings like us are not capable of retaining the grandeur of such works. From time to time we must return to them to refresh our impression."

And do you think that a poet like Goethe could help despising Schlegel, who had dared to insuit the genius of Molière ? Listen to his words : " For a man like Schlegel, a solid nature like Molière's is a thorn in the flesh, he feels that he has not a drop of his blood, and he cannot bear him. In his manner of treating the French théâtre I find ail that constitutes a poor critic. The small person of Schlegel was incapable of understanding elevated natures, and of appreciating them at their just value."

I. M. Cousin does not resemble Schlegel in anything. There is no hatred in his soûl. The only thing with which he can be reproached, if that be a reproach, is for having admired too much the French authors of the seventeenth century. If he puts Corneille above Sophocles and Euripides, if he even prefers him to ^schylus and to Shakspeare, he does not fail to recognise ail the merit of those glorious rivais of him whom ail the world calls the great Corneille. I do not think that M. Cousin can be contradicted when he writes : " It seems as though Cor-

neille wished to follow the precepts of Plato ; he addresses himself solely to the noblest passion, to the one that is most closely allied (voisine) to virtue, admiration. He always remains in the loftiest régions. He is the interpréter of heroes, the poet of warriors and statesmen." Goethe speaks like M. Cousin : u From Corneille issues a power capable of making heroes." You know that Napoléon was of this opinion too.

2. We must admire ail great writers, those glorious représentatives of our humanity ; but the time will never corne when we can form a scale of their greatness that will be accepted by ail judges.

M. Cousin preferred Corneille to Racine greatly, but it is the latter whom the incomparable actress, Mlle Rachel, put above ail others. One day, when she had just been conversing with Alfred de Musset about Corneille : " Now talk to me of Racine," said she, " him I adore. Ail he says is so fine, so true, so noble !" And then she went to fetch the tragedy of Phèdre to read it with the poet. *'She returned soon," says Alfred de Musset, "holding in her hand the volume of Racine. You might hâve thought her a célébrant bearing the sacred utensils to the altar." Are we not touched by this love of Rachel for one of the masters of the théâtre? To admire great men, what is finer and more salutary? We elevate ourselves in contemplating and loving them, and it may be added that of two persons, the one of whom praises a great master and the other criticises him, it is very rare that the former is not right.

1 . Man has good e yes to see the sins and the faults of his neighbor (prochain). To judge himself he is blind. He discerns a mote in his brother's eye, while there is in his own a beam that he would like to hide. We are at the same time lynxes and moles. God has created us besaciers (beggars bearing a double sack) says La Fontaine : —

" The sovereign artificer Created us besaciers ail in the same manner, As well those of time past, as of the time of to-day. He made for our faults the pocket behind And that in front for the faults of others."

Do you believe, madame, that it is God who has fixed thus the use of the-two pockets of our sack? — No, sir, I am sure, on the contrary, that God made the pocket in front for our own faults, and that he wants us to put them there, in order that this constant sight of them may keep us in humility and modesty. It is in the pocket behind that we are to put the faults of others, in order that we may hâve only good feelings and good thoughts for our brothers. — You are right. If we did so, we should be indulgent in our judgments of others and severe for ourselves. Each one would work for his moral improvement, and social relations would no longer be troubled by our accusations, our calumnies, and our quarrels. Alas ! we do differently. We are such poor (si peu) Christians !

2. Is there a more affecting tragedy than that of King Lear? What a touching spectacle is that of the king with his fool in the third act of this drama ! In the midst of the two horrible tempests, that of nature and that of the heart

of Lear, still more frightful than the other for the poor king ; for the rain, the wind, the thunder are not his daughters, he has never called them his children, they do not owe him obédience, he has never done anything for them and he cannot accuse them of ingratitude ; in the midst of thèse two tempests, I say, we are comforted by the présence of the fool, of that sublime being, who has the courage to play the buffoon at such a time to distract his master from his sufferings, and who dévotes himself to the point of forgetting himself and of appearing not to feel the horrors of this night of which Kent said : u Things that love night love not such nights as thèse.' ' This fool is so beautiful in his affection that he causes a ray of light to enter at last into the head of Lear, and a tender sentiment into this heart fîlled with rage and malédiction :

" M y wits begin to turn, Corne on, my boy ; how dost my boy ? art cold ? I am cold myself. — Where is this straw, my fellow ? — Poor fool. ... I hâve one part in my heart That is sorry yet for thee."

Behold the unfortunate king mounting himself toward the moral height whither his fool seems to summon him : there is a spot in his heart where he does not hâte, where he loves, where he pitiés the sufferings of his companion.

A nightmare is a frightful thing, and I am not astonished that our young man was afraid to go to sleep at the thought of the sufferings that awaited him in his slumber. — Do ail nightmares resemble each other? — Far from it, my dear,

but there is not one of them that I wish you to hâve. It is not alvvays a deformed man, or an old woman, that one sees in a nightmare ; it is sometimes a monstrous horse, an enormous monkey, or a great big dog, sometimes also a cat with a strange face, or an indescribable phantom. — It is horrible, sir. — Yes, George, the monster, whatever may be its form, leaps upon your body and presses down upon you with ail his weight. You want to cry out ; you groan ; you feel that you are stifling. You make attempts to flee, but it seems as though the monster has enchained his victim. When you awake at last, you find yourself exhausted, shattered in every member, bathed in sweat, and still frightened. — VVhat are the causes of nightmare ? — How do I know, madame ? There is assuredly more than one, poor digestion, brain weariness, an evening conversation about ghosts or spiritualism, agréât émotion, a fright that one has had during the day. Nervous or timid men are more subject to it than others. — That explains, sir, our young man's adventure. He lost his timidity the first time he dared to strike his apparition. This act of courage cured him. — I do not doubt that it was so.

1. Our young mouse was very simple and very naive the day when he made his entrance into the world. He was as boys and girls are at such a moment. At fifteen or sixteen one has as yet seen hnman nature only in his own heart ; and, as this heart is good, frank, loyal, generous, and loving, he abandons himself to ail his brothers, he believes in the goodness of ail, and does not suspect that there is

hypocrisy in any soûl or a mask on any face. La Fontaine's young mouse believed, then, in the appearance of the cat and in that of the young rooster. It is not surprising that he believed in the appearance of both, that he felt himself attracted by the former, and that the latter caused him to flee in fright. In fact the cat has the air of a little saint, of a doucet, incapable of doing harm to any one. He is an accomplished hypocrite. At least he is considered so. When a man has a fine and good exterior that conceals an evil, villanous, and wicked soûl, we say of him : he is a cat, a véritable cat. The rooster, on the contrary, represents the men who are better than they seem. If they hâve a fault, it is printed on their faces. They conceal nothing, do not wear a mask, and do not think for an instant of arraying themselves (se parer) in a virtue that they do not possess*

2. You laugh, madame, to hear the young mouse speak of the hole where he was born and where he has lived up to this day, as we would speak of our city, of Boston for example, or of the State of Massachusetts. Do you think the little créature ridiculous for esteeming his hole so highly, for calling it a state, and for telling us that he has crossed its mountains. — Truly he is silly. — If he is silly not to see that his hole is nothing in comparison with our earth, we are as silly as he, when we speak of our earth as if it were something in comparison with the universe. Our earth is only a point when one compares it with the vast course that the sun describes, and this vast course is itself but a point in the great whole of nature. The imagination cannot approach in its boldest créations the reality of the things of nature. " This vast nature," says Pascal, " is an infinité sphère whose centre is everywhere

and circumference nowhere." Do you see that our earth and the hole of the mouse are two things iniinitely small, tvvo points only in the centre of the sphère, and that men are as ridiculous as mice when they place too high a value on their habitation ?

1. Is it certain that Wendell Phillips was wrong in sympathizing with the socialists ? George Sand, Louis Blanc, Béranger, Victor Hugo, Lamennais, and a whole légion of generous soûls had expressed before he did their admiration for thèse bold reformers. Read Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and you will understand that there are men who condemn our society and proclaim the urgent necessity for correcting its injustices. I do not désire that you should enter the army of socialists, ladies, and I arn far from saying that I would like to enter it myself, before knovving better where its chiefs want to lead us, and by what paths, and what new society they will be able to substitute for the old society. But I désire that we ask ourselves the questions that thèse men ask themselves concerning the condition of the poor in our society (le pauvre au smg.), that we do not close our eyes to their miseries, and that we demand seriously of ourselves if there be no means of ameliorating their lot. And do not say that it is their own affair to ameliorate their lot, and that it is sufficient for them to will it and to work for it in order to succeed. You know well that in our society there are men who are boni in misery and who die in it, whatever efforts they make to get out of it, however good, however coura* geous, however active and industrious they may be.

2. America has produced few men more highly endowed than Wendell Phillips, that silver-tongued (langue d'or) orator, who bore along his listeners by the force of his convictions and charmed them by the Attic beauty of his language and his gestures ; and there are scarcely two or three others of whom she has the right to be so proud. What good fortune for a young nation to count among her children, in the midst of the reigning corruption, this glorious example of a stoic virtue, that no séduction, no flattery, no base considération ever turned from the path that his thought and his conscience pointed out to him as that of truth, of justice, and of honor ! To a pessimist full of satirical humor, who said to me one day that there was not a man in the world who could not be bought in one way or another, I named in vain many public men, ineorrupt and respected. " And Mr. Wendell Phillips? " I said to him at last. " Ah ! " cried he, " that is the only man on earth who could not be bought." There are others surely, but the great orator well merited the compliment that this man paid him.

i. Ambitions men hâve their heads turned and become insane, whether they be named Alexander, Louis XIV., Napoléon, or Bismarck, on the day when they reach the point of believing themselves the masters of the world and equal to Jupiter Olympus, whose frown made Olympus tremble. — This Jupiter was colossal, sir? — Yes, more colossal even and more beautiful, more idéal, than the statue of her who issued, fully armed, from his all-powerful

forehead, the Minerva of the Parthenon. The father of the gods was seated on a throne, the back of which vvas surmounted by the statues of the Grâces and the Hours. The step was supported by golden lions, and the artist had engraved there the combat of Theseus and the Athenians with the Amazons. On the base vvas to be seen the sun in his chariot, Jupiter and Juno, Mercury and Vesta, Neptune and Amphitrite, Apollo and Diana, the moon mounted (à cheval), and urging on her steed. Jupiter seated on this throne had on his head an olive crown ; in his right hand he held a Victory in gold and ivory, and in his left hand a sceptre, surmounted by an eagle. The torso was bare and in ivory, the mantle covered the lower part of the body. This colossus was flfty-two feet higfa ; if the god had risen, he would hâve raised the roof of the temple that enclosed him.

2. How many divinities the artist has put in this monument ! — Yes, the Greeks believed in ail the immortals. Everything was divine in that happy time of high aspiration, of pagan piety and of firm beliefs : the four thousand gods of the Greeks had not an atheist, says Alfred de Musset. Phidias most assuredly believed in the Jupiter he represented, as Homer had believed in ail Olympus. Without this faith they would not hâve created their immortal works, any more than Dante would hâve produced his divine epic without his faith in heaven, in purgatory, and in hell. Where is the man to-day, where is the poet, who has still enough faith in anything to immortalize as Homer, Dante, Phidias hâve done, an act of religious belief? And where is the public that the man of genius could move and compel to kneel with him to pray and to adore ?

3. Do you doubt that Phidias was religious, and that he believed in Jupiter? — I comprehend that he could not hâve made him so grand and so beautiful without believing in his divinity. — In fact, when he had ended his work, he prayed the god to let him know by a sign if he vvere satisfied with his image. Jupiter heard him, and immediately caused the thunderbolt to roll, which struck (vint frapper) the pavement of the temple before his eyes. It is said that the work of Phidias moved the hearts of his compatriots profoundly, and rekindled in their soûls the religious sentiment. Great statues lift our thoughts toward heaven, ladies, they purify and elevate our sentiments. When you go to Paris, go to see the Venus de Milo ; remain a long while at the feet of the goddess, try to read lier face, to penetrate into her divine soûl, and to understand the lesson she teaches to men. You will no longer be astonished then that for the Greeks the contemplation of the Jupiter Olympus was the most éloquent of sermons.

1. In this chapter entitled Dieu, you do not say where God is. — Do you think I know, madame ? — God is said to be everywhere, and principally in heaven. — That is it ; he is in heaven, above us very far and very high, or rather in the centre of his whole création, in the central focus of ail the heavenly bodies that form the universe. — In the centre of the world. — Oh ! the world, our world is but a small corner of the universe. — Nevertheless our sun carries with it in space an immense train ol planets, satellites, and cornets. That world is not small. — That is true, its

grandeur terrifies our imagination ; but for an infinité God an infinité dwelling is needed, a universe is needed.

2. When you look at the sky on a clear and calm night, you see it full of stars, my dear George, and you hâve never succeeded in counting them. — No. — Even if you managed to count them, you would still be very far from knowing the number of the stars. — I know there are some stars that are seen only with the télescope. — Do you know what a star is ? — It is a luminous heavenly body. — Luminous in itself, an actual sun, which, like our ovvn, is the torch of a world of its own, with its planets, its satellites, and its cornets. There is then an infinité number of stellar worlds, which are similar to our solar world.

3. And do not the distances of the stars from the earth overwhelm our imagination ? We can hardly name the figure of their distances, and our mind is lost in that thought. You know that the earth is thirty-eight million leagues distant from the sun. A railway train that travels fifty kilometers per hour would hâve to travel 338 years, from the présent year 189 1 to 2229, before arriving at the sun. — What a distance, sir, the greatest distance God has made. — Listen, my dear. One of the stars nearest the earth, which belongs to the constellation of Cygnus, is 551,000 times as far from us as the earth is from the sun. If the light of this star travels as fast as that of our sun, seventy-seven thousand leagues a second, it would take nine and a half years for it to reach us ; and think that there are stars so distant that their light requires ten thousand, twenty thousand years to reach the earth. Imagine, ladies, a sun, centre of ail the suns, which governs ail the worlds created by God, and say if this stupendous focus of ail light and of ail heat does not seem to be the fitting abode for the author of ail things.

" i. Are you surprised, George, that the cricket complains of his lot and envies the butterfly's ? — Not the least in the world. I should be surprised if it were otherwise. — The lot of the two insects is différent ; but has not each its advantages? — Yes, the butterfly has his wings and his beauty ; the cricket has his music. — He has besides his life in common with his brothers, at least conversations with them, the communication of his joys and his sorrows, and has he not friendships in the grass, loves, quarrels too, and reconciliations? Do you think that the crickets know the lily-of-the-valley? — I doubt it very much. Besides, what would they do with the lily-of-the-valley, if they did know it? — They might offer it to their friends after a reconciliation. If you ever hâve a quarrel with Mademoiselle^ sister, give her a lily-of-the-valley when you make your peace with her. The little flower has the return of happiness for its emblem ; it will say to her for you : The close of our quarrel restores to me the happiness that I had lost.

2. It is not so much the butterfly's beauty that the cricket envies, it is his wings. We too would like to fly in the air. " Wings, wings, " says Michelet, " wings to fly over mountain and valley. It is the cry of ail nature. Wings ! we want wings, soaring and movement ! Flight ! easy life, sublime life. With what eyes (œil) must the îeast bird regard, scorn the strongest of quadrupeds, a tiger, a lion ! " Do you think, my friend, that the bird would like to be man if he could choose ? No ; he would say, " King of space and of light, why should I abdicate, when

man, in his loftiest ambition, in his suprême désire for happiness and liberty, dreams of transforming himself into a bird and of taking wings." — Some day we shall hâve the balloon. — Perhaps, but the birds will still ridicule our balloon.

1. The frog's sister ought to hâve wamed her of the danger she vvas running in striving to equal the ox in size. Did she not understand that it is impossible for a frog to make herself as large as an ox ? Did she doubt that her sister would end by bursting if she persisted in inflating herself? Did she not love her sister. and did she wish her to die ? — She loved her sister, as sister Anne, Anna so? or, loved the queen of Carthage. But the frog was foolish and blind as the woman had been.

2. You know that sister Anne did worse than the frog ; she not only did not warn Dido of her folly, but she pushed her to her fall. The queen had svvorn to remain faithful to her first husband, as Andromache remained faithful to Hector. " If I violate this oath," she had said, §t I wish that the earth may open under my feet and swallow me, or that the all-powerful Jupiter may strike me vvith his thunderbolt and hurl me into the realm of the shades." Her sister Anne had only to encourage her in the effort that she made to resist this fatal love, which was to lead her to kill herself in despair. — She did just the opposite. — Yes, she did not want her to renounce the happiness of having a husband and children. fci Do you think," she said to her, w that the ashes of your former husband would be offended at your new love ? Are you not surrounded by

enemies, and do you not see that the immortal gods, that Juno has sent you this hero, that you may take him for your husband, and that your states may nnd in him a defender ? " — And Dido rejoiced, sir, that her sister spoke as her heart spoke, and that she tied still closer the bandage which she had over her eyes? — Yes, madame, the decrees of fate had to be accomplished.

Tôpffer says that the fou i-ire is one of the sweetest things he knows. His professor, M. Ratin, did not forgive the fou rire. " This man saw," says he, " in the fou rire, the most singular things, the spirit of the âge, precocious irnmorality, the sure sign of a déplorable future. I attribute this to a wart that he had on his nose. This wart was the size of a chick-pea, and surmounted by a little tuft of hairs, very délicate, very hygrométrie too ; for I had observed that, according to the condition of the atmosphère, they were more stiff or more curly. It often happened during the lesson, that I considered this wart in the most innocent manner imaginable, as a curious object, without any idea of mockery. On thèse occasions I was roundly scolded for my distraction. At other times, more rarely, a fly would (voulait) obstinately light upon it, in spite of the impatient anger of my master, who hurried the explanation then, so that I should not perceive this singular struggle. But that very thing warned me that something was the matter, so that an irrésistible curiosity caused me to raise my eyes to his face. Immediately the fou rire began to take possession of me. and if the fly

insisted ever so little, it became irrésistible. It was then that M. Ratin, without appearing to know the least in the world the cause of such a scandai, thundered against the fou rire and pointed out to me its déplorable conséquences."

Do y ou know le quart d'heure de Rabelais ? — Yes, it is a mauvais quart d'heure, the moment when one lias to pay his reckoning, a large reckoning especially. Hère is the anecdote that gave birth to this expression.

Rabelais, who was at Rome with the ambassador of Francis I., was recalled to Paris. Arrived at Lyons, he flnds himself without money to continue his journey. What is to be done? He alights at the best hôtel in the city and disguises himself ; then he informs the physicians of Lyons that a great doctor, arrived at the hôtel, has some communications to make to them. They hasten to him. Rabelais begins a discourse upon medicine, but soon he stops, and, closing the doors, he says, " Hère is a poison that I hâve been to Italy to find, to deliver France from the king and his children." Iinmediately ail rise and withdraw. A moment later, the hôtel is surrounded, and the poisoner is seized. His reckoning is paid to the landlord, he is placed in a good litter, and carried to Paris under good escort. On the way he was well fed and treated magnificently. — Such a great criminal should not die on the way, sir. — That is it. He arrived in Paris, then, fresh and hearty (dispos) ; he was conducted before Francis I. Rabelais explained that he had conceived this plan to hâve his reckoning paid and to travel without money. The

king thanked the magistrates of Lyons for their zeal in serving him, and kept Rabelais to supper, who drank freely to the health of his majesty and of the good city of Lyons.

That is why people say, when they hâve a large reckoning to pay : " Hère is Rabelais' quart d'heure" and sometimes they add : " I shall not extricate myself from it as well as he did," and they resign themselves to opening their purse or pocket-book.

Are you not pleased, madame, that the fox is deceived by the stork, and that he lias nothing to eat at her table ? — It is a wicked pleasure, sir, a sentiment scarcely Christian, to rejoice at others' misfortunes, but I confess to you that I am not sorry that the fox is paid back this time in his own coin. — He will deceive no more in future. — Oh yes ! Je ne doute pas qu 7/ prenne sa revanche avant qu 'il ne soit peu. — Thèse are two great mistakes in French, madame. Are you still ignorant of the grammatical construction that douter and avant que demand ? — I cannot get those two rules into my head. — Listen, then, and try to speak better in future. The masters of the language, those who constitute authority, Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, Mme de Sévigné, Racine, Boileau, Voltaire, J. J. Rousseau, never failed to construct avant que with the subjunctive, and always without ne. — I must say, then, avaîtt qu'il soit peu. — Assuredly. And craindre and douter, how do you construct thèse ? — One takes ne when the other does not take it. Still, I am at sea.

— Wellj hère is once more this whole rule, vvhich those who write to-day seem to be ignorant of, even the most highly esteemed.

Note first that there are in discourse two forms of affirmation and two forms of négation. The affirmation is, for example, I believe, do you not believe ; for, when I say do you not believe that the soûl is immortal, it is as if I said, I believe that, and I should be astonished if you did not believe it as I do. Hère is the négation : I do not believe, do you believe ; for the simple interrogation signifies that I do not believe and that you must not believe. This point established, our rule will be easy to retain : Affirmatively, craindre and its synonyms are followed by ne ; negatively they do not take ne. For douter the reverse is true. Say, then, with ne : Je crains, ne craignezvous pas ? ye 11e doute pas, doutez-vous qu'il ne pleuve demain ; and without ne, je ne crains pas, craignez-vous ? Je doute, ne doutez-vous pas qu'il pleuve demain 1

Traduisez ces phrases : I am afraid that we shall be defeated. I am not afraid that we shall be defeated. Are you afraid that we shall be defeated ? Are you not afraid that we shall be defeated ?

Traduisez aussi ces quatres phrases, en remplaçant le verbe craindre par le verbe douter.

i. The expression of a sentiment governs the subjunctive ; the expression of a thought does not govern it. When the subjunctive folio ws a verb of thought, this subjunctive has its explanation in the turn of the sentence, for example : Pensez-vous que nous voyagions jamais en ballon ? Je ne crois pas que F âme des bêtes soit immortelle. Thèse verbs do not govern the subjunctive, for we would say affirmatively : Je pense que nous voyagerons en ballon ; f affirme y je dis, je crois que Pâme des bêtes ?i 'est pas immortelle.

With a sentiment the subjunctive is alvvays needed. Employ this mood, then, to translate the following sentences : It is astonishing that La Fontaine had not a library. The fabulist did not wish that Louis XIV. should invite him to his court. Mme d'Hervard was grieved because La Fontaine had neglected to dîne in order to attend the funeral of an ant. " My dear poet," she said to him, " I am willing that you should adore animais, but I should also like you not to forget your friends for animais ; and permit me to ask you in future not to kneel any more before ants at the time when we are expecting you at table."

2. When the duchess of Bouillon passed the morning going to Versailles, she saw La Fontaine dreaming under a tree, and in the evening she found him under the same tree, Ftill dreaming. Did he dream there, then, the whole of that day, without changing place or position? — He must (faudrait) hâve been a fool to dream so long. — Or poet, madame, and that is what he was, more than any other Frenchman, excepting perhaps Molière. Poets dream a

great deal, that is to say they close their eyes on ail the things that we look at and that occupy us, to look elsewhere, and to penetrate into another world, into an idéal world, where they find delights that other mortals do not suspect. I should not be surprised if La Fontaine had seen his oak, the oak of his favorite fable, Le Chê?ie et le Roseau, the day that Mme de Bouillon caught him dreaming on the road to Versailles. — Was it under an oak that lie passed the day, or was there an oak in that place ? — Oh ! it was not with an oak that existed anywhere that the poet was engrossed, for the oak of the great fable was never seen in this world : it is larger than the most beautiful oak created by God ; it is prodigious with its head which is neighbor to the sky, its feet which touch the empire of the dead, its brow similar to the Caucasus, and its back that no tempest could ever bend. In the real world of the proud, trees or men, there is no one who défies as proudly as he does the powers of nature. The créations of the poets lift themselves above the things of nature ! Could we not dare to say that this nature is almost a fiasco ? — God would hâve made a fiasco ! — What I say cannot offend God, madame. The author of things has given liberty, a free life to ail his création, to trees as well as to men, and if men are less grand in reality than they are in the mind of God, in his conception, because they are given up to themselves in this life, victims more or less of their passions, of their weaknesses, and of the accidents they meet on their way, trees too, the oak for example, even the most beautiful of oaks, cannot be the oak of God, for he too, he has enconntered on this earth circumstances which hâve prevented his full development, an insect which has devoured one of his roots, a wind

which has shaken him too much in his tender infancy, too little air or too burning sun, in one word an accident which has not permitted him to be the oak of God. Now it is the oak of God that La Fontaine savv under the tree of Versailles and that he contemplated in his poet's dream, from morning until evening, to give us an image of it. It is only an image, ladies, but this image is grander than the actual représentation of the most beautiful oak in the world would be.

One might perhaps find a gênerai rule which would explain ail the cases of the subjunctive. — I wish (je souhaiterais) sir, that sorae one could give us such a rule, but I doubt much if it would be possible to find it. — I offer you one, however, which will aid you in a great number of cases, even if it does not solve ail the dimculties. Hère it is : When the principal verb or the turn of the sentence is (sont) such that no positive fact is established, the second verb is put into the subjunctive. Thus, verbs of sentiment govern the subjunctive, because they state no fact : Je crains qu'il ne pleuve does not state the fact that it will rain. Il est triste qu'il pleuve does not establish this fact that it rains : it is true that it rains, but it is something else that my sentence states ; it expresses a sentiment, my sadness on account of the rain that is falling. So too : Croyez-vous qu'il pleuve demain ? does not establish this fact that it will rain to-morrow. And this other phrase, Je ?ie pense pas qu'il pleuve demain, affirms no fact, for I do not say positively that it will rain or that it will not rain. Hère is another application of this

gênerai rule : Je cherche une explication qui satisfasse mon esprit. I do not state this fact that there is an explanation that satisfies me : there is none perhaps ; I seek only, and for that I employ the subjunctive satisfasse.

Make the same reasoning in translating the following examples, and you will recognize that our rule is of great assistance to you. — M. Taine says that La Fontaine is, after Molière, the greatest poet of the XVIIth century. Do you think that is true ? — I doubt whether he is as grand as Corneille. — I look in vain in France and elsewhere for a fabulist who is the equal of La Fontaine. — I know a French poet in this century who is greater than La Fontaine. — Is there a man to-day who lives as much as La Fontaine did in the world of poetry and of dreams ?

How is it that the French academician did not see that the students of Oxford were playing a comedy, when they spoke to him in ail thèse foreign languages ? For I shall never believe that they could hâve kept their countenance in his présence. — Would you hâve laughed, George, if you had been one of them, and if for example you had had to address the French savant in the Chinese language? — If I had been one of thèse students, and had had to speuk to him in another language than that of the country, I should hâve made great efforts not to laugh assuredly, in order not to displease my masters, but I doubt very much if I should hâve succeeded in keeping my countenance. — And in the place of the servant of the university, would you too hâve been angry with the savant ? — If I had been

like this servant, blind in one eye, and stupid, and if I had believed as he did, that this man wanted to say to me by his gestures that I had only one eye, or that we had only three eyes between us, I am sure that the blood would hâve rushed to my head, and that I too should hâve shown him my fist. — Supposing of course that you had been an Englishman. — Yes.— <And if you had been a Frenchman? ■ — I would hâve provoked the insulter to a duel.

If it is not certain that " Les Animaux malades de la Peste " is La Fontaine's masterpiece, it is not possible to deny that it is the most dramatic of his fables. In opening his drama, the poet présents a poetical picture of incomparable grandeur. Heaven must hâve been in a rage with the animais to hâve inflicted upon them a malady so frightful that one hésitâtes to name it, and which is capable of enriching Acheron in one day. The animais are so overcome by the pest that the wolves even and the foxes think no longer of eating, nor the turtle-doves of making love. When the lion opens the assembly of the unhappy pest-afflicted créatures, and déclares to them that a victim must be immolated to the anger of heaven, terror pénétrâtes into the soûls of ail, and each one is frightened as he looks into his conscience. Where is the victim ? Will it be the lion, who confesses at once, — he, the greatest of the criminals ? No ! the fox has already risen and has the monarch absolved. The émotion increases in the assembly at the moment when the greatest sinners after the king fall on their knees in their turn and confess their crimes, those at least that are known, for they guard against opening their

entire soûls, persuaded as they are that ail their auditors are ready to cry out : Hère is the victim that heaven demands. Finally the great moment arrives, the suprême émotion, when after the criminals a poor unfortunate rises, too, to confess, he whom heaven lias already surely pardoned for his venial offence, the peccadillo he committed so long ago that he scarcely remembers it. He confesses then this little sin, the grass that he ate in the meadow of the monks, — not on the ground of a poor father of a family, — and it was hunger, the occasion, the freshness of the grass, and the devil, that pushed him on to commit this theft.

It is the ass who confesses thus, ladies, and he is going to be condemned to die because he is of the people, your brother and mine, the brother of ail who constitute to-day the grandeur and the strength of society, and because his judges are the king and his nobles. Because this ass was condemned by Louis XIV. and his courtiers, the French Révolution was accomplished a century later, and because of this also kings hâve ceased or are about to cease to govern men.

He is funny, this milord, in his obstinacy in mistrusting the guide who is to accompany him across the Col d' Anterne. Indeed, he refuses to believe that it is prudent, he is convinced even that it is dangerous and fool-hardy, to start when the sky is covered with clouds, and he déclares that he will not set out before the last of thèse clouds has disappeared from the firmament. — And the young miss does not doubt for an instant that lier father

is right, and that the guide is a knave. — Tôpffer must hâve laughed well at thèse strange people, especially when the guide spoke of taking Peter, who had lost two pigs in crossing (dans le passage) the neck, and when the Englishman imagined that he wished to présent the two pigs to him. "I do not wish," he cried, "to hâve you bring the pigs hère." And later, in the Col d'Anterne itself, what a scène worthy of a comedy, in connection with the guide's pipe, when milord cried to this man that he forbade him to smoke, because his daughter, mon file, said he, did not like the perfume, and when the other replied to him naively that he did not smoke perfume, but good tobacco. Do you not admire the guide's patience, George ? — I admire it, and I am astonished especially that he put back his pipe into his pocket.

When the wolf arrived at the river where the lamb was quenching his thirst, he stopped there and began to drink. Do you think that he was thirsty, my dear, or that he drank without being thirsty? — It is not impossible that he was thirsty, but he was surely hungry. I think that he pretended to drink to hâve an opportunity to seek a quarrel with the lamb, whom he wished to devour. — If he wished to devour him. wras it not easier to go straight to him, without entering into any explanation with this paltry créature? Are you not surprised that the wolf delayed thus his pleasure in satisfying his appetite? — Could it be crédible that this cruel beast could hâve any sentiment of honesty or of justice, and that he would renounce his

breakfast in case the lamb had offered him no offence ? — I do not understand this manner of acting of the wolfs, of a person vvho values only strength, and has no idea of the right that governs civilized society. — You speak like Cicero, who said : " Between civilized life and savage life, the différence is that of right and might." That is true, but where is the living being, man or beast, be he the most savage, the most cruel, the most violent of beings, who has not a voice that speaks in his conscience, a voice that he forces himself to reduce to silence by summoning before his mind, and by introducing into his discourse, reasons, or rather pretexts, that conceal from himself and from others the injustice of his conduct? Read history, and you will see that in our world the great states that destroy or despoil the little ones act and speak like the wolf <^f our fable.

We cannot measure sublime things, either the vastness of the océan, or its depth, or the fury of its tempests, or the distance and the grandeur of the stars, or the power of résistance of the centenary oak, at war with the north winds, or the duration of the eagle's flight who cleaves the air, and who, it seems to us, will never stop flying. It is because we are incapable of reaching them or of measuring them that thèse things are sublime. — Is it not true, sir, that the sublime causes us a painful émotion at the same time that it gives us a certain pleasure, a very great pleasure, even? — Perhaps, madame, at first. At its appearance we are stupefîed and, as it were, overwhelmed. This grandeur seems to proclaim our littleness and our

feebleness. And then we are troubled because our eyes do not succeed in reading in the sublime, or in discover ing there any order or any government. But after this first moment of disquietude, there remains soon in our soûls only a sentiment of boundless admiration for the unknown and concealed power which holds in its hands thèse prodigious things, and maintains them in obédience and perfect order, an order évident to our reason, al though it escapes our eyes. — The sublime moves us more than the beautiful. — A thousand times more ! We connût touch it as we touch the beautiful, caress it, move ail about it (tourner tout autour), and smile at ail its graceful détails. The sublime holds us at a distance, fills us with the highest admiration, brings us to our knees to venerate and adore.

Socrates had not been less sublime before the tribunal that judged him, than he was in the face of death. Read his famous speech in the dialogue of Plato, entitled u Apology of Socrates." Proud of the mission the god has given him, he scorns to défend himself. " Never has so great a good corne to your city," he said to his judges, " as the continuai service I render you by the command of the god. Ail my occupation is to work to persuade you that it is not necessary to be troubled so much for the body, for riches, for honors and pleasures, as for the soûl and for virtue." Besides, death cannot but be a blessing for him, a greater blessing than life. Let us listen to him : " Of two things, it must be either that death is the privation of ail feeling, or the passage of the soûl from this

place to another. If it be the loss of ail feeling, a peaceful sleep, which is troubled by no dreams, vvhat a marvellous gain, is it not, to die ? For ail time is then no longer anything but a long night, a perfect repose. But if death be the passage from this place to another, what greater good can one imagine, my judges? For if in quitting the false judges who are hère, one flnds in Hades true judges, Minos, Rhadamanthus, ^Eacus, Triptolemus, and ail the other demigods who were just during their life, is this change not happy ? In what transports of joy shall I be when I meet in that other life Orpheus, Theseus, Homer, Ajax son of Telamon, and ail the heroes of antiquity. What pleasure I shall hâve in comparing my adventures with theirs ! . . . But it is time for us to retire, each on his own side, I to die, and you to live. Which of us has the more enviable part, you or I ? That is what is known to no one save God."

There is not a man who does not know how to appreciate riches, because they provide a material well-being for his life, and because ail men, even the least great — what do I say? thèse latter especially, attach a price to this material well-being. For the same reason, we ail know the worth of health, of bodily strength, and of the free use of ail our members. — And beauty, sir ? — What beauty? There is beauty and beauty ; the beauty of Paris son of Priam, and that of Vincent de Paul, or of Joan of Arc. Some appreciate better the former, others prefer the latter. This is nothing else than virtue. It is Socrates smiling at death, or rather at that other world in which

he has the grandeur to believe firmly enough not to regret this life ; it is Prometheus nailed to a rock by order of Jupiter, and refusing to be free at the price of his submission to the power of the despot. Assuredly there are men who do not appreciate the moral beauty of the heroes of virtue. — Yes, those who put above ail else riches and the well-being they procure. — Those very ones. I ask myself if they would consent to enter into the paradise of Socrates, supposing they were invited there, We should be surprised that they should désire to enter there, when we know that they do not comprehend any pleasure of the soûl, any elevated joy, anything that is superior to the sensations and the appetites of the body.

The certainty in which he is that he will one day die, and his ignorance of the moment when death will strike him, is a thought so frightful to man that he passes his life in distracting himself by ail possible means, by work and by ail sorts of amusements. The oriental fable of the dragon, reproduced by Count Tolstoï in one of his books, présents a striking image of our situation in front of this monster, whom we strive not to see, the terrible dragon of death.

w A traveller, pursued in the désert by a ferocious beast, seeks refuge in an empty well. As he begins to descend, he sees at the bottom of this well a dragon, his mouth open to devour him. The unhappy man, who does not dare to deascend, for fear of becoming the prey of the wild beast, nor to descend for fear of being devoured by

the dragon, seizes the branches of a wild bush growing in a crevice of the well, and clings to it for support (s'y tient attaché ). But soon his hands become weak, and he understands that his destruction is inévitable. Now, as he clings constantly to the branches with ail his remaining force, he perceives two mice, one black, the other white. who are making together, in opposite directions, the tour of the bush at its foot, and gnawing it. The traveller meanwhile has discovered on the leaves of the bush some drops of honey : he stretches out his tongue to them and sucks them with delight." — Is it possible that this man could fmd delight in eating honey in his situation ? — It is incredible one would say, and, nevertheless, what he did we ail do. Like him we amuse ourselves in eating honey, that is to say, we run after distractions to blind ourselves to our situation, in order not to see the mice that are gnawing the tree of our life, and this dragon which is to devour us. — Would you like, sir, to hâve us pass our life in looking at the dragon ? — No, madame, we must turn away our eyes from it, look into the whole future, even into that which will follow us, and plant for our descendants, as did the noble old man of our fable.

I conclude thèse exercises by reproducing a souvenir that I hâve preserved of a bird, of the prince of birds, the nightingale.

We had two nightingales in cages ; one had been taken from the nest when very small, and was brought up in the prison where he was to pass his life. Th?

other had lived in the thicket, in liberty ; he had sung, he had known ail the émotions, pleasures and sufferings, that make men and birds great. He turned professor. Every day, once in the morning, a second time toward evening, he sang, not for himself nor for us, but for his pupil, and at those times, he placed himself upon his perch in such a way as to send his voice into the neighboring chamber, where the young bird was. Ordinarily he began his teaching by letting his whole song be heard, which he produced with an extraordinary burst, as if he would say : — Listen, my son, listen to the great song, our song, ours, the song of the inspired poets. Listen, open thy ears to understand what I am singing, the great light which rejoices us, the harmonious sounds of the twilight, the mysterious shades of night, full at the same time of terrors and of dreams, the spring, my thicket, my love, my nest and jcny children, and beyond the thicket and my loves, a mighty vision, a music grander than ours, a celestial harmony, which I hear in the dreams of my sleep, and which I listen to in my silent moments by day. Where is it? whence cornes it? Why can I not succeed in reproducing it in my couplets as it reaches my ears ? Oh ! if thou heardst it as I hear it, my son, and if thou also, thou, couldst be drawn toward the mighty vision, thou wouldst know the songs and the émotions of the nightingales' world. — Is not his vision the infinité, is it not the same God as He whom we adore? — Meanwhile, the other listens, motionless and very attentive, and he continues to listen when the song is ended. A moment after, the master seems to ask him by one or two cries, if he is ready to take his lesson. He answers yes. — I am seated myself during the lesson in the pupil's chamber, and I hear

CAUSERIES AVEC MES ÉLÈVES. 5g

the first notes of the first couplet that the professor pronounces without giving out ail his voice. — The young nightingale listens continually, but says nothing. — The notes are repeated, once, twice, three times, the last time a little louder and more harmoniously. — Nothing. — The whole couplet resounds. — Nothing. — Again the first notes. — Nothing. — The poor little thing does not dare. I wish to encourage him, and give him a vvorm (ver de farine) in my fingers. He takes it and eats it without quitting his perch. without distracting himself almost. Finally, after a new appeal of the master, he produces the first notes, a half a couplet, very feebly, very awkwardly, without accent, as a machine would do. — The other is not discouraged, does not lose patience a single time, says again and repeats during a half hour the same words, always more beautiful, more touching, more harmonious. — They are so good, so patient, thèse ministers of God, who hâve for their mission to enlighten and to elevate his children.