{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3999/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3999","id":"gutenberg_3999","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3999","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Paris (France) -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\nAN \"ATTIC\" PHILOSOPHER\n\n(Un Philosophe sous les Toits)\n\nBy EMILE SOUVESTRE\n\n\n\nWith a Preface by JOSEPH BERTRAND, of the French Academy\n\n\n\n\nEMILE SOUVESTRE\n\nNo one succeeds in obtaining a prominent place in literature, or in\nsurrounding himself with a faithful and steady circle of admirers drawn\nfrom the fickle masses of the public, unless he possesses originality,\nconstant variety, and a distinct personality. It is quite possible to\ngain for a moment a few readers by imitating some original feature\nin another; but these soon vanish and the writer remains alone and\nforgotten. Others, again, without belonging to any distinct group\nof authors, having found their standard in themselves, moralists and\neducators at the same time, have obtained undying recognition.\n\nOf the latter class, though little known outside of France, is Emile\nSouvestre, who was born in Morlaix, April 15, 1806, and died at Paris\nJuly 5, 1854. He was the son of a civil engineer, was educated at\nthe college of Pontivy, and intended to follow his father's career by\nentering the Polytechnic School. His father, however, died in 1823, and\nSouvestre matriculated as a law-student at Rennes. But the young student\nsoon devoted himself entirely to literature. His first essay, a tragedy,\n'Le Siege de Missolonghi' (1828), was a pronounced failure. Disheartened\nand disgusted he left Paris and established himself first as a lawyer\nin Morlaix. Then he became proprietor of a newspaper, and was afterward\nappointed a professor in Brest and in Mulhouse. In 1836 he contributed\nto the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' some sketches of life in Brittany, which\nobtained a brilliant success. Souvestre was soon made editor of La\nRevue de Paris, and in consequence early found a publisher for his first\nnovel, 'L'Echelle de Femmes', which, as was the case with his second\nwork, Riche et Pauvre', met with a very favorable reception. His\nreputation was now made, and between this period and his death he gave\nto France about sixty volumes--tales, novels, essays, history, and\ndrama.\n\nA double purpose was always very conspicuous in his books: he aspired to\nthe role of a moralist and educator, and was likewise a most impressive\npainter of the life, character, and morals of the inhabitants of\nBrittany.\n\nThe most significant of his books are perhaps 'Les Derniers Bretons\n(1835-1837, 4 vols.), Pierre Landais (1843, 2 vols.), Le Foyer Breton\n(1844, 2 vols.), Un Philosophe sons les Toits, crowned by the Academy\n(1850), Confessions d'un Ouvrier (1851), Recits et Souvenirs (1853),\nSouvenirs d'un Vieillard (1854); also La Bretagne Pittoresque (1845),\nand, finally, Causeries Historiques et Litteraires (1854, 2 vols.)'.\nHis comedies deserve honorable mention: 'Henri Hamelin, L'Oncle Baptiste\n(1842), La Parisienne, Le Mousse, etc'. In 1848, Souvestre was appointed\nprofessor of the newly created school of administration, mostly devoted\nto popular lectures. He held this post till 1853, lecturing partly in\nParis, partly in Switzerland.\n\nHis death, when comparatively young, left a distinct gap in the literary\nworld. A life like his could not be extinguished without general sorrow.\nAlthough he was unduly modest, and never aspired to the role of a\nbeacon-light in literature, always seeking to remain in obscurity,\nthe works of Emile Souvestre must be placed in the first rank by their\nmorality and by their instructive character. They will always command\nthe entire respect and applause of mankind. And thus it happens that,\nlike many others, he was only fully appreciated after his death.\n\nEven those of his 'confreres' who did not seem to esteem him, when\nalive, suddenly found out that they had experienced a great loss in\nhis demise. They expressed it in emotional panegyrcs; contemporaneous\nliterature discovered that virtue had flown from its bosom, and the\nFrench Academy, which had at its proper time crowned his 'Philosophe\nsons les Toits' as a work contributing supremely to morals, kept his\nmemory green by bestowing on his widow the \"Prix Lambert,\" designed for\nthe \"families of authors who by their integrity, and by the probity\nof their efforts have well deserved this token from the Republique des\nLettres.\"\n\n                    JOSEPH BERTRAND\n                  de 'Academie Francaise.\n\n\n\n\nAN \"ATTIC\" PHILOSOPHER\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 1.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. NEW-YEAR'S GIFTS\n\nJanuary 1st\n\nThe day of the month came into my mind as soon as I awoke. Another year\nis separated from the chain of ages, and drops into the gulf of the\npast! The crowd hasten to welcome her young sister. But while all looks\nare turned toward the future, mine revert to the past. Everyone smiles\nupon the new queen; but, in spite of myself, I think of her whom time\nhas just wrapped in her winding-sheet. The past year!--at least I know\nwhat she was, and what she has given me; while this one comes surrounded\nby all the forebodings of the unknown. What does she hide in the clouds\nthat mantle her? Is it the storm or the sunshine? Just now it rains, and\nI feel my mind as gloomy as the sky. I have a holiday today; but what\ncan one do on a rainy day? I walk up and down my attic out of temper,\nand I determine to light my fire.\n\nUnfortunately the matches are bad, the chimney smokes, the wood goes\nout! I throw down my bellows in disgust, and sink into my old armchair.\n\nIn truth, why should I rejoice to see the birth of a new year? All those\nwho are already in the streets, with holiday looks and smiling faces--do\nthey understand what makes them so gay? Do they even know what is the\nmeaning of this holiday, or whence comes the custom of New-Year's gifts?\n\nHere my mind pauses to prove to itself its superiority over that of the\nvulgar. I make a parenthesis in my ill-temper in favor of my vanity, and\nI bring together all the evidence which my knowledge can produce.\n\n(The old Romans divided the year into ten months only; it was Numa\nPompilius who added January and February. The former took its name\nfrom Janus, to whom it was dedicated. As it opened the new year, they\nsurrounded its beginning with good omens, and thence came the custom of\nvisits between neighbors, of wishing happiness, and of New-Year's gifts.\nThe presents given by the Romans were symbolic. They consisted of dry\nfigs, dates, honeycomb, as emblems of \"the sweetness of the auspices\nunder which the year should begin its course,\" and a small piece of\nmoney called stips, which foreboded riches.)\n\nHere I close the parenthesis, and return to my ill-humor. The\nlittle speech I have just addressed to myself has restored me my\nself-satisfaction, but made me more dissatisfied with others. I could\nnow enjoy my breakfast; but the portress has forgotten my morning's\nmilk, and the pot of preserves is empty! Anyone else would have been\nvexed: as for me, I affect the most supreme indifference. There remains\na hard crust, which I break by main strength, and which I carelessly\nnibble, as a man far above the vanities of the world and of fresh rolls.\n\nHowever, I do not know why my thoughts should grow more gloomy by\nreason of the difficulties of mastication. I once read the story of\nan Englishman who hanged himself because they had brought him his tea\nwithout sugar. There are hours in life when the most trifling cross\ntakes the form of a calamity. Our tempers are like an opera-glass, which\nmakes the object small or great according to the end you look through.\n\nUsually, the prospect that opens out before my window delights me. It is\na mountain-range of roofs, with ridges crossing, interlacing, and piled\non one another, and upon which tall chimneys raise their peaks. It was\nbut yesterday that they had an Alpine aspect to me, and I waited for the\nfirst snowstorm to see glaciers among them; to-day, I only see tiles\nand stone flues. The pigeons, which assisted my rural illusions, seem\nno more than miserable birds which have mistaken the roof for the back\nyard; the smoke, which rises in light clouds, instead of making me\ndream of the panting of Vesuvius, reminds me of kitchen preparations\nand dishwater; and lastly, the telegraph, that I see far off on the old\ntower of Montmartre, has the effect of a vile gallows stretching its\narms over the city.\n\nMy eyes, thus hurt by all they meet, fall upon the great man's house\nwhich faces my attic.\n\nThe influence of New-Year's Day is visible there. The servants have an\nair of eagerness proportioned to the value of their New-Year's gifts,\nreceived or expected. I see the master of the house crossing the court\nwith the morose look of a man who is forced to be generous; and\nthe visitors increase, followed by shop porters who carry flowers,\nbandboxes, or toys. Suddenly the great gates are opened, and a new\ncarriage, drawn by thoroughbred horses, draws up before the doorsteps.\nThey are, without doubt, the New-Year's gift presented to the mistress\nof the house by her husband; for she comes herself to look at the new\nequipage. Very soon she gets into it with a little girl, all streaming\nwith laces, feathers and velvets, and loaded with parcels which she goes\nto distribute as New-Year's gifts. The door is shut, the windows are\ndrawn up, the carriage sets off.\n\nThus all the world are exchanging good wishes and presents to-day. I\nalone have nothing to give or to receive. Poor Solitary! I do not even\nknow one chosen being for whom I might offer a prayer.\n\nThen let my wishes for a happy New Year go and seek out all my unknown\nfriends--lost in the multitude which murmurs like the ocean at my feet!\n\nTo you first, hermits in cities, for whom death and poverty have\ncreated a solitude in the midst of the crowd! unhappy laborers, who are\ncondemned to toil in melancholy, and eat your daily bread in silence\nand desertion, and whom God has withdrawn from the intoxicating pangs of\nlove and friendship!\n\nTo you, fond dreamers, who pass through life with your eyes turned\ntoward some polar star, while you tread with indifference over the rich\nharvests of reality!\n\nTo you, honest fathers, who lengthen out the evening to maintain your\nfamilies! to you, poor widows, weeping and working by a cradle! to you,\nyoung men, resolutely set to open for yourselves a path in life, large\nenough to lead through it the wife of your choice! to you, all brave\nsoldiers of work and of self-sacrifice!\n\nTo you, lastly, whatever your title and your name, who love good, who\npity the suffering; who walk through the world like the symbolical\nVirgin of Byzantium, with both arms open to the human race!\n\nHere I am suddenly interrupted by loud and increasing chirpings. I look\nabout me: my window is surrounded with sparrows picking up the crumbs of\nbread which in my brown study I had just scattered on the roof. At this\nsight a flash of light broke upon my saddened heart. I deceived myself\njust now, when I complained that I had nothing to give: thanks to me,\nthe sparrows of this part of the town will have their New-Year's gifts!\n\nTwelve o'clock.--A knock at my door; a poor girl comes in, and greets\nme by name. At first I do not recollect her; but she looks at me, and\nsmiles. Ah! it is Paulette! But it is almost a year since I have seen\nher, and Paulette is no longer the same: the other day she was a child,\nnow she is almost a young woman.\n\nPaulette is thin, pale, and miserably clad; but she has always the same\nopen and straightforward look--the same mouth, smiling at every word,\nas if to court your sympathy--the same voice, somewhat timid, yet\nexpressing fondness. Paulette is not pretty--she is even thought plain;\nas for me, I think her charming. Perhaps that is not on her account, but\non my own. Paulette appears to me as one of my happiest recollections.\n\nIt was the evening of a public holiday. Our principal buildings were\nilluminated with festoons of fire, a thousand flags waved in the night\nwinds, and the fireworks had just shot forth their spouts of flame into\nthe midst of the Champ de Mars. Suddenly, one of those unaccountable\nalarms which strike a multitude with panic fell upon the dense crowd:\nthey cry out, they rush on headlong; the weaker ones fall, and the\nfrightened crowd tramples them down in its convulsive struggles. I\nescaped from the confusion by a miracle, and was hastening away, when\nthe cries of a perishing child arrested me: I reentered that human\nchaos, and, after unheard-of exertions, I brought Paulette out of it at\nthe peril of my life.\n\nThat was two years ago: since then I had not seen the child again but\nat long intervals, and I had almost forgotten her; but Paulette's memory\nwas that of a grateful heart, and she came at the beginning of the year\nto offer me her wishes for my happiness. She brought me, besides, a\nwallflower in full bloom; she herself had planted and reared it: it was\nsomething that belonged wholly to herself; for it was by her care, her\nperseverance, and her patience, that she had obtained it.\n\nThe wallflower had grown in a common pot; but Paulette, who is a\nbandbox-maker, had put it into a case of varnished paper, ornamented\nwith arabesques. These might have been in better taste, but I did not\nfeel the attention and good-will the less.\n\nThis unexpected present, the little girl's modest blushes, the\ncompliments she stammered out, dispelled, as by a sunbeam, the kind of\nmist which had gathered round my mind; my thoughts suddenly changed\nfrom the leaden tints of evening to the brightest colors of dawn. I made\nPaulette sit down, and questioned her with a light heart.\n\nAt first the little girl replied in monosyllables; but very soon\nthe tables were turned, and it was I who interrupted with short\ninterjections her long and confidential talk. The poor child leads a\nhard life. She was left an orphan long since, with a brother and sister,\nand lives with an old grandmother, who has \"brought them up to poverty,\"\nas she always calls it.\n\nHowever, Paulette now helps her to make bandboxes, her little sister\nPerrine begins to use the needle, and her brother Henry is apprentice\nto a printer. All would go well if it were not for losses and want of\nwork--if it were not for clothes which wear out, for appetites which\ngrow larger, and for the winter, when you cannot get sunshine for\nnothing. Paulette complains that her candles go too quickly, and that\nher wood costs too much. The fireplace in their garret is so large that\na fagot makes no more show in it than a match; it is so near the roof\nthat the wind blows the rain down it, and in winter it hails upon the\nhearth; so they have left off using it. Henceforth they must be content\nwith an earthen chafing-dish, upon which they cook their meals. The\ngrandmother had often spoken of a stove that was for sale at the\nbroker's close by; but he asked seven francs for it, and the times are\ntoo hard for such an expense: the family, therefore, resign themselves\nto cold for economy!\n\nAs Paulette spoke, I felt more and more that I was losing my fretfulness\nand low spirits. The first disclosures of the little bandbox-maker\ncreated within me a wish that soon became a plan. I questioned her about\nher daily occupations, and she informed me that on leaving me she must\ngo, with her brother, her sister, and grandmother, to the different\npeople for whom they work. My plan was immediately settled. I told the\nchild that I would go to see her in the evening, and I sent her away\nwith fresh thanks.\n\nI placed the wallflower in the open window, where a ray of sunshine bid\nit welcome; the birds were singing around, the sky had cleared up, and\nthe day, which began so loweringly, had become bright. I sang as I moved\nabout my room, and, having hastily put on my hat and coat, I went out.\n\nThree o'clock.--All is settled with my neighbor, the chimney-doctor; he\nwill repair my old stove, and answers for its being as good as new.\nAt five o'clock we are to set out, and put it up in Paulette's\ngrandmother's room.\n\nMidnight.--All has gone off well. At the hour agreed upon, I was at the\nold bandbox-maker's; she was still out. My Piedmontese\n\n   [In Paris a chimney-sweeper is named \"Piedmontese\" or \"Savoyard,\"\n   as they usually come from that country.]\n\nfixed the stove, while I arranged a dozen logs in the great fireplace,\ntaken from my winter stock. I shall make up for them by warming myself\nwith walking, or by going to bed earlier.\n\nMy heart beat at every step that was heard on the staircase; I trembled\nlest they should interrupt me in my preparations, and should thus spoil\nmy intended surprise. But no!--see everything ready: the lighted stove\nmurmurs gently, the little lamp burns upon the table, and a bottle of\noil for it is provided on the shelf. The chimney-doctor is gone. Now\nmy fear lest they should come is changed into impatience at their not\ncoming. At last I hear children's voices; here they are: they push open\nthe door and rush in--but they all stop in astonishment.\n\nAt the sight of the lamp, the stove, and the visitor, who stands there\nlike a magician in the midst of these wonders, they draw back almost\nfrightened. Paulette is the first to comprehend it, and the arrival of\nthe grandmother, who is more slowly mounting the stairs, finishes the\nexplanation. Then come tears, ecstasies, thanks!\n\nBut the wonders are not yet ended. The little sister opens the oven, and\ndiscovers some chestnuts just roasted; the grandmother puts her hand on\nthe bottles of cider arranged on the dresser; and I draw forth from the\nbasket that I have hidden a cold tongue, a pot of butter, and some fresh\nrolls.\n\nNow their wonder turns into admiration; the little family have never\nseen such a feast! They lay the cloth, they sit down, they eat; it is\na complete banquet for all, and each contributes his share to it. I had\nbrought only the supper: and the bandbox-maker and her children supplied\nthe enjoyment.\n\nWhat bursts of laughter at nothing! What a hubbub of questions which\nwaited for no reply, of replies which answered no question! The old\nwoman herself shared in the wild merriment of the little ones! I\nhave always been struck at the ease with which the poor forget their\nwretchedness. Being used to live only for the present, they make a gain\nof every pleasure as soon as it offers itself. But the surfeited rich\nare more difficult to satisfy: they require time and everything to suit\nbefore they will consent to be happy.\n\nThe evening has passed like a moment. The old woman told me the history\nof her life, sometimes smiling, sometimes drying her eyes. Perrine sang\nan old ballad with her fresh young voice. Henry told us what he knows of\nthe great writers of the day, to whom he has to carry their proofs. At\nlast we were obliged to separate, not without fresh thanks on the part\nof the happy family.\n\nI have come home slowly, ruminating with a full heart, and pure\nenjoyment, on the simple events of my evening. It has given me much\ncomfort and much instruction. Now, no New-Year's Day will come amiss\nto me; I know that no one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give and\nnothing to receive.\n\nAs I came in, I met my rich neighbor's new equipage. She, too, had\njust returned from her evening's party; and, as she sprang from the\ncarriage-step with feverish impatience, I heard her murmur \"At last!\"\n\nI, when I left Paulette's family, said \"So soon!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. THE CARNIVAL\n\nFebruary 20th\n\nWhat a noise out of doors! What is the meaning of these shouts and\ncries? Ah! I recollect: this is the last day of the Carnival, and the\nmaskers are passing.\n\nChristianity has not been able to abolish the noisy bacchanalian\nfestivals of the pagan times, but it has changed the names. That which\nit has given to these \"days of liberty\" announces the ending of the\nfeasts, and the month of fasting which should follow; carn-ival means,\nliterally, \"farewell to flesh!\" It is a forty days' farewell to the\n\"blessed pullets and fat hams,\" so celebrated by Pantagruel's minstrel.\nMan prepares for privation by satiety, and finishes his sin thoroughly\nbefore he begins to repent.\n\nWhy, in all ages and among every people, do we meet with some one of\nthese mad festivals? Must we believe that it requires such an effort\nfor men to be reasonable, that the weaker ones have need of rest at\nintervals? The monks of La Trappe, who are condemned to silence by their\nrule, are allowed to speak once in a month, and on this day they all\ntalk at once from the rising to the setting of the sun.\n\nPerhaps it is the same in the world. As we are obliged all the year to\nbe decent, orderly, and reasonable, we make up for such a long restraint\nduring the Carnival. It is a door opened to the incongruous fancies and\nwishes that have hitherto been crowded back into a corner of our brain.\nFor a moment the slaves become the masters, as in the days of the\nSaturnalia, and all is given up to the \"fools of the family.\"\n\nThe shouts in the square redouble; the troops of masks increase--on\nfoot, in carriages, and on horseback. It is now who can attract the most\nattention by making a figure for a few hours, or by exciting curiosity\nor envy; to-morrow they will all return, dull and exhausted, to the\nemployments and troubles of yesterday.\n\nAlas! thought I with vexation, each of us is like these masqueraders;\nour whole life is often but an unsightly Carnival! And yet man has need\nof holidays, to relax his mind, rest his body, and open his heart. Can\nhe not have them, then, with these coarse pleasures? Economists have\nbeen long inquiring what is the best disposal of the industry of the\nhuman race. Ah! if I could only discover the best disposal of its\nleisure! It is easy enough to find it work; but who will find it\nrelaxation? Work supplies the daily bread; but it is cheerfulness that\ngives it a relish. O philosophers! go in quest of pleasure! find us\namusements without brutality, enjoyments without selfishness; in a word,\ninvent a Carnival that will please everybody, and bring shame to no one.\n\nThree o'clock.--I have just shut my window, and stirred up my fire. As\nthis is a holiday for everybody, I will make it one for myself, too. So\nI light the little lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of\nthe coffee that my portress's son brought from the Levant, and I look in\nmy bookcase for one of my favorite authors.\n\nFirst, here is the amusing parson of Meudon; but his characters are\ntoo fond of talking slang:--Voltaire; but he disheartens men by always\nbantering them:--Moliere; but he hinders one's laughter by making one\nthink:--Lesage; let us stop at him. Being profound rather than grave, he\npreaches virtue while ridiculing vice; if bitterness is sometimes to be\nfound in his writings, it is always in the garb of mirth: he sees the\nmiseries of the world without despising it, and knows its cowardly\ntricks without hating it.\n\nLet us call up all the heroes of his book.... Gil Blas, Fabrice,\nSangrado, the Archbishop of Granada, the Duke of Lerma, Aurora, Scipio!\nYe gay or graceful figures, rise before my eyes, people my solitude;\nbring hither for my amusement the world-carnival, of which you are the\nbrilliant maskers!\n\nUnfortunately, at the very moment I made this invocation, I recollected\nI had a letter to write which could not be put off. One of my attic\nneighbors came yesterday to ask me to do it. He is a cheerful old man,\nand has a passion for pictures and prints. He comes home almost every\nday with a drawing or painting--probably of little value; for I know he\nlives penuriously, and even the letter that I am to write for him shows\nhis poverty. His only son, who was married in England, is just dead,\nand his widow--left without any means, and with an old mother and a\nchild--had written to beg for a home. M. Antoine asked me first to\ntranslate the letter, and then to write a refusal. I had promised that\nhe should have this answer to-day: before everything, let us fulfil our\npromises.\n\nThe sheet of \"Bath\" paper is before me, I have dipped my pen into the\nink, and I rub my forehead to invite forth a sally of ideas, when I\nperceive that I have not my dictionary. Now, a Parisian who would speak\nEnglish without a dictionary is like a child without leading-strings;\nthe ground trembles under him, and he stumbles at the first step. I run\nthen to the bookbinder's, where I left my Johnson, who lives close by in\nthe square.\n\nThe door is half open; I hear low groans; I enter without knocking, and\nI see the bookbinder by the bedside of his fellow-lodger. This latter\nhas a violent fever and delirium. Pierre looks at him perplexed and out\nof humor. I learn from him that his comrade was not able to get up in\nthe morning, and that since then he has become worse every hour.\n\nI ask whether they have sent for a doctor.\n\n\"Oh, yes, indeed!\" replied Pierre, roughly; \"one must have money\nin one's pocket for that, and this fellow has only debts instead of\nsavings.\"\n\n\"But you,\" said I, rather astonished; \"are you not his friend?\"\n\n\"Friend!\" interrupted the bookbinder. \"Yes, as much as the shaft-horse\nis friend to the leader--on condition that each will take his share of\nthe draught, and eat his feed by himself.\"\n\n\"You do not intend, however, to leave him without any help?\"\n\n\"Bah! he may keep in his bed till to-morrow, as I'm going to the ball.\"\n\n\"You mean to leave him alone?\"\n\n\"Well! must I miss a party of pleasure at Courtville--[A Parisian summer\nresort.]--because this fellow is lightheaded?\" asked Pierre, sharply. \"I\nhave promised to meet some friends at old Desnoyer's. Those who are sick\nmay take their broth; my physic is white wine.\"\n\nSo saying, he untied a bundle, out of which he took the fancy costume of\na waterman, and proceeded to dress himself in it.\n\nIn vain I tried to awaken some fellow-feeling for the unfortunate man\nwho lay groaning there close by him; being entirely taken up with the\nthoughts of his expected pleasure, Pierre would hardly so much as hear\nme. At last his coarse selfishness provoked me. I began reproaching\ninstead of remonstrating with him, and I declared him responsible for\nthe consequences which such a desertion must bring upon the sick man.\n\nAt this the bookbinder, who was just going, stopped with an oath,\nand stamped his foot. \"Am I to spend my Carnival in heating water for\nfootbaths, pray?\"\n\n\"You must not leave your comrade to die without help!\" I replied.\n\n\"Let him go to the hospital, then!\"\n\n\"How can he by himself?\"\n\nPierre seemed to make up his mind.\n\n\"Well, I'm going to take him,\" resumed he; \"besides, I shall get rid of\nhim sooner. Come, get up, comrade!\" He shook his comrade, who had not\ntaken off his clothes. I observed that he was too weak to walk, but the\nbookbinder would not listen: he made him get up, and half dragged,\nhalf supported him to the lodge of the porter, who ran for a hackney\ncarriage. I saw the sick man get into it, almost fainting, with the\nimpatient waterman; and they both set off, one perhaps to die, the other\nto dine at Courtville Gardens!\n\nSix o'clock.--I have been to knock at my neighbor's door, who opened it\nhimself; and I have given him his letter, finished at last, and directed\nto his son's widow. M. Antoine thanked me gratefully, and made me sit\ndown.\n\nIt was the first time I had been into the attic of the old amateur.\nCurtains stained with damp and hanging down in rags, a cold stove, a bed\nof straw, two broken chairs, composed all the furniture. At the end of\nthe room were a great number of prints in a heap, and paintings without\nframes turned against the wall.\n\nAt the moment I came in, the old man was making his dinner on some hard\ncrusts of bread, which he was soaking in a glass of 'eau sucree'. He\nperceived that my eyes fell upon his hermit fare, and he looked a little\nashamed.\n\n\"There is nothing to tempt you in my supper, neighbor,\" said he, with a\nsmile.\n\nI replied that at least I thought it a very philosophical one for the\nCarnival.\n\nM. Antoine shook his head, and went on again with his supper.\n\n\"Every one keeps his holidays in his own way,\" resumed he, beginning\nagain to dip a crust into his glass. \"There are several sorts of\nepicures, and not all feasts are meant to regale the palate; there are\nsome also for the ears and the eyes.\"\n\nI looked involuntarily round me, as if to seek for the invisible banquet\nwhich could make up to him for such a supper.\n\nWithout doubt he understood me; for he got up slowly, and, with the\nmagisterial air of a man confident in what he is about to do, he\nrummaged behind several picture frames, drew forth a painting, over\nwhich he passed his hand, and silently placed it under the light of the\nlamp.\n\nIt represented a fine-looking old man, seated at table with his wife,\nhis daughter, and his children, and singing to the accompaniment of\nmusicians who appeared in the background. At first sight I recognized\nthe subject, which I had often admired at the Louvre, and I declared it\nto be a splendid copy of Jordaens.\n\n\"A copy!\" cried M. Antoine; \"say an original, neighbor, and an original\nretouched by Rubens! Look closer at the head of the old man, the\ndress of the young woman, and the accessories. One can count\nthe pencil-strokes of the Hercules of painters. It is not only a\nmasterpiece, sir; it is a treasure--a relic! The picture at the Louvre\nmay be a pearl, this is a diamond!\"\n\nAnd resting it against the stove, so as to place it in the best light,\nhe fell again to soaking his crusts, without taking his eyes off the\nwonderful picture. One would have said that the sight of it gave the\ncrusts an unexpected relish, for he chewed them slowly, and emptied\nhis glass by little sips. His shrivelled features became smooth, his\nnostrils expanded; it was indeed, as he said himself, \"a feast for the\neyes.\"\n\n\"You see that I also have my treat,\" he resumed, nodding his head with\nan air of triumph. \"Others may run after dinners and balls; as for me,\nthis is the pleasure I give myself for my Carnival.\"\n\n\"But if this painting is really so precious,\" replied I, \"it ought to be\nworth a high price.\"\n\n\"Eh! eh!\" said M. Antoine, with an air of proud indifference. \"In good\ntimes, a good judge might value it at somewhere about twenty thousand\nfrancs.\"\n\nI started back.\n\n\"And you have bought it?\" cried I.\n\n\"For nothing,\" replied he, lowering his voice. \"These brokers are asses;\nmine mistook this for a student's copy; he let me have it for fifty\nlouis, ready money! This morning I took them to him, and now he wishes\nto be off the bargain.\"\n\n\"This morning!\" repeated I, involuntarily casting my eyes on the letter\ncontaining the refusal that M. Antoine had made me write to his son's\nwidow, which was still on the little table.\n\nHe took no notice of my exclamation, and went on contemplating the work\nof Jordaens in an ecstasy.\n\n\"What a knowledge of chiaroscuro!\" he murmured, biting his last crust in\ndelight. \"What relief! what fire! Where can one find such transparency\nof color! such magical lights! such force! such nature!\"\n\nAs I was listening to him in silence, he mistook my astonishment for\nadmiration, and clapped me on the shoulder.\n\n\"You are dazzled,\" said he merrily; \"you did not expect such a treasure!\nWhat do you say to the bargain I have made?\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" replied I, gravely; \"but I think you might have done\nbetter.\"\n\nM. Antoine raised his head.\n\n\"How!\" cried he; \"do you take me for a man likely to be deceived about\nthe merit or value of a painting?\"\n\n\"I neither doubt your taste nor your skill; but I cannot help thinking\nthat, for the price of this picture of a family party, you might have\nhad--\"\n\n\"What then?\"\n\n\"The family itself, sir.\"\n\nThe old amateur cast a look at me, not of anger, but of contempt. In\nhis eyes I had evidently just proved myself a barbarian, incapable of\nunderstanding the arts, and unworthy of enjoying them. He got up without\nanswering me, hastily took up the Jordaens, and replaced it in its\nhiding-place behind the prints.\n\nIt was a sort of dismissal; I took leave of him, and went away.\n\nSeven o'clock.--When I come in again, I find my water boiling over\nmy lamp, and I busy myself in grinding my Mocha, and setting out my\ncoffee-things.\n\nThe getting coffee ready is the most delicate and most attractive of\ndomestic operations to one who lives alone: it is the grand work of a\nbachelor's housekeeping.\n\nCoffee is, so to say, just the mid-point between bodily and spiritual\nnourishment. It acts agreeably, and at the same time, upon the senses\nand the thoughts. Its very fragrance gives a sort of delightful\nactivity to the wits; it is a genius that lends wings to our fancy, and\ntransports it to the land of the Arabian Nights.\n\nWhen I am buried in my old easy-chair, my feet on the fender before a\nblazing fire, my ear soothed by the singing of the coffee-pot, which\nseems to gossip with my fire-irons, the sense of smell gently excited by\nthe aroma of the Arabian bean, and my eyes shaded by my cap pulled down\nover them, it often seems as if each cloud of the fragrant steam took a\ndistinct form. As in the mirages of the desert, in each as it rises, I\nsee some image of which my mind had been longing for the reality.\n\nAt first the vapor increases, and its color deepens. I see a cottage\non a hillside: behind is a garden shut in by a whitethorn hedge, and\nthrough the garden runs a brook, on the banks of which I hear the bees\nhumming.\n\nThen the view opens still more. See those fields planted with\napple-trees, in which I can distinguish a plough and horses waiting for\ntheir master! Farther on, in a part of the wood which rings with the\nsound of the axe, I perceive the woodsman's hut, roofed with turf and\nbranches; and, in the midst of all these rural pictures, I seem to see a\nfigure of myself gliding about. It is my ghost walking in my dream!\n\nThe bubbling of the water, ready to boil over, compels me to break off\nmy meditations, in order to fill up the coffee-pot. I then remember\nthat I have no cream; I take my tin can off the hook and go down to the\nmilkwoman's.\n\nMother Denis is a hale countrywoman from Savoy, which she left when\nquite young; and, contrary to the custom of the Savoyards, she has\nnot gone back to it again. She has neither husband nor child,\nnotwithstanding the title they give her; but her kindness, which never\nsleeps, makes her worthy of the name of mother.\n\nA brave creature! Left by herself in the battle of life, she makes good\nher humble place in it by working, singing, helping others, and leaving\nthe rest to God.\n\nAt the door of the milk-shop I hear loud bursts of laughter. In one of\nthe corners of the shop three children are sitting on the ground. They\nwear the sooty dress of Savoyard boys, and in their hands they hold\nlarge slices of bread and cheese. The youngest is besmeared up to the\neyes with his, and that is the reason of their mirth.\n\nMother Denis points them out to me.\n\n\"Look at the little lambs, how they enjoy themselves!\" said she, putting\nher hand on the head of the little glutton.\n\n\"He has had no breakfast,\" puts in one of the others by way of excuse.\n\n\"Poor little thing,\" said the milkwoman; \"he is left alone in the\nstreets of Paris, where he can find no other father than the All-good\nGod!\"\n\n\"And that is why you make yourself a mother to them?\" I replied, gently.\n\n\"What I do is little enough,\" said Mother Denis, measuring out my milk;\n\"but every day I get some of them together out of the street, that for\nonce they may have enough to eat. Dear children! their mothers will make\nup for it in heaven. Not to mention that they recall my native mountains\nto me: when they sing and dance, I seem to see our old father again.\"\n\nHere her eyes filled with tears.\n\n\"So you are repaid by your recollections for the good you do them?\"\nresumed I.\n\n\"Yes! yes!\" said she, \"and by their happiness, too! The laughter of\nthese little ones, sir, is like a bird's song; it makes you gay, and\ngives you heart to live.\"\n\nAs she spoke she cut some fresh slices of bread and cheese, and added\nsome apples and a handful of nuts to them.\n\n\"Come, my little dears,\" she cried, \"put these into your pockets against\nto-morrow.\"\n\nThen, turning to me:\n\n\"To-day I am ruining myself,\" added she; \"but we must all have our\nCarnival.\"\n\nI came away without saying a word: I was too much affected.\n\nAt last I have discovered what true pleasure is. After beholding\nthe egotism of sensuality and of intellect, I have found the happy\nself-sacrifice of goodness. Pierre, M. Antoine, and Mother Denis had all\nkept their Carnival; but for the first two, it was only a feast for the\nsenses or the mind; while for the third, it was a feast for the heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. WHAT WE MAY LEARN BY LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW\n\nMarch 3d\n\nA poet has said that life is the dream of a shadow: he would better have\ncompared it to a night of fever! What alternate fits of restlessness and\nsleep! what discomfort! what sudden starts! what ever-returning thirst!\nwhat a chaos of mournful and confused fancies! We can neither sleep\nnor wake; we seek in vain for repose, and we stop short on the brink of\naction. Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation, and the\nlast third in repenting.\n\nWhen I say human existence, I mean my own! We are so made that each of\nus regards himself as the mirror of the community: what passes in our\nminds infallibly seems to us a history of the universe. Every man is\nlike the drunkard who reports an earthquake, because he feels himself\nstaggering.\n\nAnd why am I uncertain and restless--I, a poor day-laborer in the\nworld--who fill an obscure station in a corner of it, and whose work\nit avails itself of, without heeding the workman? I will tell you, my\nunseen friend, for whom these lines are written; my unknown brother, on\nwhom the solitary call in sorrow; my imaginary confidant, to whom\nall monologues are addressed and who is but the shadow of our own\nconscience.\n\nA great event has happened in my life! A crossroad has suddenly opened\nin the middle of the monotonous way along which I was travelling\nquietly, and without thinking of it. Two roads present themselves, and\nI must choose between them. One is only the continuation of that I have\nfollowed till now; the other is wider, and exhibits wondrous prospects.\nOn the first there is nothing to fear, but also little to hope; on the\nother are great dangers and great fortune. Briefly, the question is,\nwhether I shall give up the humble office in which I thought to die,\nfor one of those bold speculations in which chance alone is banker! Ever\nsince yesterday I have consulted with myself; I have compared the two\nand I remain undecided.\n\nWhere shall I find light--who will advise me?\n\nSunday, 4th.--See the sun coming out from the thick fogs of winter!\nSpring announces its approach; a soft breeze skims over the roofs, and\nmy wallflower begins to blow again.\n\nWe are near that sweet season of fresh green, of which the poets of the\nsixteenth century sang with so much feeling:\n\n          Now the gladsome month of May\n          All things newly doth array;\n          Fairest lady, let me too\n          In thy love my life renew.\n\nThe chirping of the sparrows calls me: they claim the crumbs I scatter\nto them every morning. I open my window, and the prospect of roofs opens\nout before me in all its splendor.\n\nHe who has lived only on a first floor has no idea of the picturesque\nvariety of such a view. He has never contemplated these tile-colored\nheights which intersect each other; he has not followed with his eyes\nthese gutter-valleys, where the fresh verdure of the attic gardens\nwaves, the deep shadows which evening spreads over the slated slopes,\nand the sparkling of windows which the setting sun has kindled to\na blaze of fire. He has not studied the flora of these Alps of\ncivilization, carpeted by lichens and mosses; he is not acquainted with\nthe myriad inhabitants that people them, from the microscopic insect to\nthe domestic cat--that reynard of the roofs who is always on the prowl,\nor in ambush; he has not witnessed the thousand aspects of a clear or\na cloudy sky; nor the thousand effects of light, that make these upper\nregions a theatre with ever-changing scenes! How many times have my\ndays of leisure passed away in contemplating this wonderful sight; in\ndiscovering its darker or brighter episodes; in seeking, in short, in\nthis unknown world for the impressions of travel that wealthy tourists\nlook for lower!\n\nNine o'clock.--But why, then, have not my winged neighbors picked up the\ncrumbs I have scattered for them before my window? I see them fly away,\ncome back, perch upon the ledges of the windows, and chirp at the sight\nof the feast they are usually so ready to devour! It is not my presence\nthat frightens them; I have accustomed them to eat out of my hand. Then,\nwhy this fearful suspense? In vain I look around: the roof is clear,\nthe windows near are closed. I crumble the bread that remains from my\nbreakfast to attract them by an ampler feast. Their chirpings increase,\nthey bend down their heads, the boldest approach upon the wing, but\nwithout daring to alight.\n\nCome, come, my sparrows are the victims of one of the foolish panics\nwhich make the funds fall at the Bourse! It is plain that birds are not\nmore reasonable than men!\n\nWith this reflection I was about to shut my window, when suddenly\nI perceived, in a spot of sunshine on my right, the shadow of two\npricked-up ears; then a paw advanced, then the head of a tabby-cat\nshowed itself at the corner of the gutter. The cunning fellow was lying\nthere in wait, hoping the crumbs would bring him some game.\n\nAnd I had accused my guests of cowardice! I was so sure that no danger\ncould menace them! I thought I had looked well everywhere! I had only\nforgotten the corner behind me!\n\nIn life, as on the roofs, how many misfortunes come from having\nforgotten a single corner!\n\nTen o'clock.--I cannot leave my window; the rain and the cold have kept\nit shut so long that I must reconnoitre all the environs to be able\nto take possession of them again. My eyes search in succession all the\npoints of the jumbled and confused prospect, passing on or stopping\naccording to what they light upon.\n\nAh! see the windows upon which they formerly loved to rest; they are\nthose of two unknown neighbors, whose different habits they have long\nremarked.\n\nOne is a poor work-woman, who rises before sunrise, and whose profile is\nshadowed upon her little muslin window-curtain far into the evening; the\nother is a young songstress, whose vocal flourishes sometimes reach my\nattic by snatches. When their windows are open, that of the work-woman\ndiscovers a humble but decent abode; the other, an elegantly furnished\nroom. But to-day a crowd of tradespeople throng the latter: they take\ndown the silk hangings and carry off the furniture, and I now remember\nthat the young singer passed under my window this morning with her veil\ndown, and walking with the hasty step of one who suffers some inward\ntrouble. Ah! I guess it all. Her means are exhausted in elegant fancies,\nor have been taken away by some unexpected misfortune, and now she has\nfallen from luxury to indigence. While the work-woman manages not only\nto keep her little room, but also to furnish it with decent comfort by\nher steady toil, that of the singer is become the property of brokers.\nThe one sparkled for a moment on the wave of prosperity; the other sails\nslowly but safely along the coast of a humble and laborious industry.\n\nAlas! is there not here a lesson for us all? Is it really in hazardous\nexperiments, at the end of which we shall meet with wealth or ruin, that\nthe wise man should employ his years of strength and freedom? Ought he\nto consider life as a regular employment which brings its daily wages,\nor as a game in which the future is determined by a few throws? Why seek\nthe risk of extreme chances? For what end hasten to riches by dangerous\nroads? Is it really certain that happiness is the prize of brilliant\nsuccesses, rather than of a wisely accepted poverty? Ah! if men but\nknew in what a small dwelling joy can live, and how little it costs to\nfurnish it!\n\nTwelve o'clock.--I have been walking up and down my attic for a long\ntime, with my arms folded and my eyes on the ground! My doubts increase,\nlike shadows encroaching more and more on some bright space; my fears\nmultiply; and the uncertainty becomes every moment more painful to me!\nIt is necessary for me to decide to-day, and before the evening! I hold\nthe dice of my future fate in my hands, and I dare not throw them.\n\nThree o'clock.--The sky has become cloudy, and a cold wind begins to\nblow from the west; all the windows which were opened to the sunshine of\na beautiful day are shut again. Only on the opposite side of the street,\nthe lodger on the last story has not yet left his balcony.\n\nOne knows him to be a soldier by his regular walk, his gray moustaches,\nand the ribbon that decorates his buttonhole. Indeed, one might have\nguessed as much from the care he takes of the little garden which is the\nornament of his balcony in mid-air; for there are two things especially\nloved by all old soldiers--flowers and children. They have been so long,\nobliged to look upon the earth as a field of battle, and so long cut off\nfrom the peaceful pleasures of a quiet lot, that they seem to begin life\nat an age when others end it. The tastes of their early years, which\nwere arrested by the stern duties of war, suddenly break out again with\ntheir white hairs, and are like the savings of youth which they spend\nagain in old age. Besides, they have been condemned to be destroyers for\nso long that perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, and\nseeing life spring up again: the beauty of weakness has a grace and\nan attraction the more for those who have been the agents of unbending\nforce; and the watching over the frail germs of life has all the charms\nof novelty for these old workmen of death.\n\nTherefore the cold wind has not driven my neighbor from his balcony.\nHe is digging up the earth in his green boxes, and carefully sowing the\nseeds of the scarlet nasturtium, convolvulus, and sweet-pea. Henceforth\nhe will come every day to watch for their first sprouting, to protect\nthe young shoots from weeds or insects, to arrange the strings for the\ntendrils to climb on, and carefully to regulate their supply of water\nand heat!\n\nHow much labor to bring in the desired harvest! For that, how many times\nshall I see him brave cold or heat, wind or sun, as he does to-day! But\nthen, in the hot summer days, when the blinding dust whirls in clouds\nthrough our streets, when the eye, dazzled by the glare of white stucco,\nknows not where to rest, and the glowing roofs reflect their heat\nupon us to burning, the old soldier will sit in his arbor and perceive\nnothing but green leaves and flowers around him, and the breeze will\ncome cool and fresh to him through these perfumed shades. His assiduous\ncare will be rewarded at last.\n\nWe must sow the seeds, and tend the growth, if we would enjoy the\nflower.\n\nFour o'clock.--The clouds that have been gathering in the horizon for\na long time are become darker; it thunders loudly, and the rain pours\ndown! Those who are caught in it fly in every direction, some laughing\nand some crying.\n\nI always find particular amusement in these helter-skelters, caused by\na sudden storm. It seems as if each one, when thus taken by surprise,\nloses the factitious character that the world or habit has given him,\nand appears in his true colors.\n\nSee, for example, that big man with deliberate step, who suddenly\nforgets his indifference, made to order, and runs like a schoolboy!\nHe is a thrifty city gentleman, who, with all his fashionable airs, is\nafraid to spoil his hat.\n\nThat pretty woman yonder, on the contrary, whose looks are so modest,\nand whose dress is so elaborate, slackens her pace with the increasing\nstorm. She seems to find pleasure in braving it, and does not think\nof her velvet cloak spotted by the hail! She is evidently a lioness in\nsheep's clothing.\n\nHere, a young man, who was passing, stops to catch some of the\nhailstones in his hand, and examines them. By his quick and\nbusiness-like walk just now, you would have taken him for a tax-gatherer\non his rounds, when he is a young philosopher, studying the effects of\nelectricity. And those schoolboys who leave their ranks to run after the\nsudden gusts of a March whirlwind; those girls, just now so demure, but\nwho now fly with bursts of laughter; those national guards, who quit the\nmartial attitude of their days of duty to take refuge under a porch! The\nstorm has caused all these transformations.\n\nSee, it increases! The hardiest are obliged to seek shelter. I see\nevery one rushing toward the shop in front of my window, which a bill\nannounces is to let. It is for the fourth time within a few months. A\nyear ago all the skill of the joiner and the art of the painter were\nemployed in beautifying it, but their works are already destroyed by the\nleaving of so many tenants; the cornices of the front are disfigured by\nmud; the arabesques on the doorway are spoiled by bills posted upon them\nto announce the sale of the effects. The splendid shop has lost some of\nits embellishments with each change of the tenant. See it now empty, and\nleft open to the passersby. How much does its fate resemble that of so\nmany who, like it, only change their occupation to hasten the faster to\nruin!\n\nI am struck by this last reflection: since the morning everything seems\nto speak to me, and with the same warning tone. Everything says: \"Take\ncare! be content with your happy, though humble lot; happiness can be\nretained only by constancy; do not forsake your old patrons for the\nprotection of those who are unknown!\"\n\nAre they the outward objects which speak thus, or does the warning\ncome from within? Is it not I myself who give this language to all that\nsurrounds me? The world is but an instrument, to which we give sound at\nwill. But what does it signify if it teaches us wisdom? The low voice\nthat speaks in our breasts is always a friendly voice, for it tells\nus what we are, that is to say, what is our capability. Bad conduct\nresults, for the most part, from mistaking our calling. There are so\nmany fools and knaves, because there are so few men who know themselves.\nThe question is not to discover what will suit us, but for what we are\nsuited!\n\nWhat should I do among these many experienced financial speculators? I\nam only a poor sparrow, born among the housetops, and should always\nfear the enemy crouching in the dark corner; I am a prudent workman,\nand should think of the business of my neighbors who so suddenly\ndisappeared; I am a timid observer, and should call to mind the flowers\nso slowly raised by the old soldier, or the shop brought to ruin by\nconstant change of masters. Away from me, ye banquets, over which hangs\nthe sword of Damocles! I am a country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow\ntree, and I ask nothing besides--except security.\n\nAnd why this insatiable craving for riches? Does a man drink more when\nhe drinks from a large glass? Whence comes that universal dread of\nmediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace and liberty? Ah! there is the\nevil which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public and\nprivate education to anticipate! If that were got rid of, what treasons\nwould be spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and\ncrime would be forever broken! We award the palm to charity, and to\nself-sacrifice; but, above all, let us award it to moderation, for it\nis the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it\nstands instead of them.\n\nSix o'clock.--I have written a letter of thanks to the promoters of\nthe new speculation, and have declined their offer! This decision has\nrestored my peace of mind. I stopped singing, like the cobbler, as long\nas I entertained the hope of riches: it is gone, and happiness is come\nback!\n\nO beloved and gentle Poverty! pardon me for having for a moment wished\nto fly from thee, as I would from Want. Stay here forever with thy\ncharming sisters, Pity, Patience, Sobriety, and Solitude; be ye my\nqueens and my instructors; teach me the stern duties of life; remove far\nfrom my abode the weakness of heart and giddiness of head which follow\nprosperity. Holy Poverty! teach me to endure without complaining,\nto impart without grudging, to seek the end of life higher than in\npleasure, farther off than in power. Thou givest the body strength, thou\nmakest the mind more firm; and, thanks to thee, this life, to which the\nrich attach themselves as to a rock, becomes a bark of which death may\ncut the cable without awakening all our fears. Continue to sustain me, O\nthou whom Christ hath called Blessed!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER\n\nApril 9th\n\nThe fine evenings are come back; the trees begin to put forth their\nshoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets\nof the flower-girls--all the world have begun their walks again on the\nquays and boulevards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to\nbreathe the evening air.\n\nIt is the hour when Paris is seen in all its beauty. During the day\nthe plaster fronts of the houses weary the eye by their monotonous\nwhiteness; heavily laden carts make the streets shake under their huge\nwheels; the eager crowd, taken up by the one fear of losing a moment\nfrom business, cross and jostle one another; the aspect of the city\naltogether has something harsh, restless, and flurried about it. But, as\nsoon as the stars appear, everything is changed; the glare of the white\nhouses is quenched in the gathering shades; you hear no more any rolling\nbut that of the carriages on their way to some party of pleasure; you\nsee only the lounger or the light-hearted passing by; work has given\nplace to leisure. Now each one may breathe after the fierce race through\nthe business of the day, and whatever strength remains to him he gives\nto pleasure! See the ballrooms lighted up, the theatres open, the\neating-shops along the walks set out with dainties, and the twinkling\nlanterns of the newspaper criers. Decidedly Paris has laid aside the\npen, the ruler, and the apron; after the day spent in work, it must have\nthe evening for enjoyment; like the masters of Thebes, it has put off\nall serious matter till tomorrow.\n\nI love to take part in this happy hour; not to mix in the general\ngayety, but to contemplate it. If the enjoyments of others embitter\njealous minds, they strengthen the humble spirit; they are the beams of\nsunshine, which open the two beautiful flowers called trust and hope.\n\nAlthough alone in the midst of the smiling multitude, I do not feel\nmyself isolated from it, for its gayety is reflected upon me: it is my\nown kind, my own family, who are enjoying life, and I take a brother's\nshare in their happiness. We are all fellow-soldiers in this earthly\nbattle, and what does it matter on whom the honors of the victory fall?\nIf Fortune passes by without seeing us, and pours her favors on others,\nlet us console ourselves, like the friend of Parmenio, by saying,\n\"Those, too, are Alexanders.\"\n\nWhile making these reflections, I was going on as chance took me. I\ncrossed from one pavement to another, I retraced my steps, I stopped\nbefore the shops or to read the handbills. How many things there are\nto learn in the streets of Paris! What a museum it is! Unknown fruits,\nforeign arms, furniture of old times or other lands, animals of all\nclimates, statues of great men, costumes of distant nations! It is the\nworld seen in samples!\n\nLet us then look at this people, whose knowledge is gained from the\nshop-windows and the tradesman's display of goods. Nothing has been\ntaught them, but they have a rude notion of everything. They have\nseen pineapples at Chevet's, a palm-tree in the Jardin des Plantes,\nsugar-canes selling on the Pont-Neuf. The Redskins, exhibited in the\nValentine Hall, have taught them to mimic the dance of the bison, and to\nsmoke the calumet of peace; they have seen Carter's lions fed; they\nknow the principal national costumes contained in Babin's collection;\nGoupil's display of prints has placed the tiger-hunts of Africa and the\nsittings of the English Parliament before their eyes; they have become\nacquainted with Queen Victoria, the Emperor of Austria, and Kossuth, at\nthe office-door of the Illustrated News. We can certainly instruct them,\nbut not astonish them; for nothing is completely new to them. You may\ntake the Paris ragamuffin through the five quarters of the world, and\nat every wonder with which you think to surprise him, he will settle the\nmatter with that favorite and conclusive answer of his class--\"I know.\"\n\nBut this variety of exhibitions, which makes Paris the fair of the\nworld, does not offer merely a means of instruction to him who walks\nthrough it; it is a continual spur for rousing the imagination, a first\nstep of the ladder always set up before us in a vision. When we see\nthem, how many voyages do we take in imagination, what adventures do we\ndream of, what pictures do we sketch! I never look at that shop near\nthe Chinese baths, with its tapestry hangings of Florida jessamine,\nand filled with magnolias, without seeing the forest glades of the New\nWorld, described by the author of Atala, opening themselves out before\nme.\n\nThen, when this study of things and this discourse of reason begin to\ntire you, look around you! What contrasts of figures and faces you\nsee in the crowd! What a vast field for the exercise of meditation! A\nhalf-seen glance, or a few words caught as the speaker passes by, open\na thousand vistas to your imagination. You wish to comprehend what these\nimperfect disclosures mean, and, as the antiquary endeavors to decipher\nthe mutilated inscription on some old monument, you build up a history\non a gesture or on a word! These are the stirring sports of the mind,\nwhich finds in fiction a relief from the wearisome dullness of the\nactual.\n\nAlas! as I was just now passing by the carriage-entrance of a great\nhouse, I noticed a sad subject for one of these histories. A man was\nsitting in the darkest corner, with his head bare, and holding out his\nhat for the charity of those who passed. His threadbare coat had that\nlook of neatness which marks that destitution has been met by a long\nstruggle. He had carefully buttoned it up to hide the want of a shirt.\nHis face was half hid under his gray hair, and his eyes were closed, as\nif he wished to escape the sight of his own humiliation, and he remained\nmute and motionless. Those who passed him took no notice of the beggar,\nwho sat in silence and darkness! They had been so lucky as to escape\ncomplaints and importunities, and were glad to turn away their eyes too.\n\nSuddenly the great gate turned on its hinges; and a very low carriage,\nlighted with silver lamps and drawn by two black horses, came slowly\nout, and took the road toward the Faubourg St. Germain. I could just\ndistinguish, within, the sparkling diamonds and the flowers of a\nball-dress; the glare of the lamps passed like a bloody streak over\nthe pale face of the beggar, and showed his look as his eyes opened and\nfollowed the rich man's equipage until it disappeared in the night.\n\nI dropped a small piece of money into the hat he was holding out, and\npassed on quickly.\n\nI had just fallen unexpectedly upon the two saddest secrets of the\ndisease which troubles the age we live in: the envious hatred of him\nwho suffers want, and the selfish forgetfulness of him who lives in\naffluence.\n\nAll the enjoyment of my walk was gone; I left off looking about me, and\nretired into my own heart. The animated and moving sight in the streets\ngave place to inward meditation upon all the painful problems which\nhave been written for the last four thousand years at the bottom of each\nhuman struggle, but which are propounded more clearly than ever in our\ndays.\n\nI pondered on the uselessness of so many contests, in which defeat and\nvictory only displace each other by turns, and on the mistaken zealots\nwho have repeated from generation to generation the bloody history of\nCain and Abel; and, saddened with these mournful reflections, I walked\non as chance took me, until the silence all around insensibly drew me\nout from my own thoughts.\n\nI had reached one of the remote streets, in which those who would live\nin comfort and without ostentation, and who love serious reflection,\ndelight to find a home. There were no shops along the dimly lighted\nstreet; one heard no sounds but of distant carriages, and of the steps\nof some of the inhabitants returning quietly home.\n\nI instantly recognized the street, though I had been there only once\nbefore.\n\nThat was two years ago. I was walking at the time by the side of the\nSeine, to which the lights on the quays and bridges gave the aspect of\na lake surrounded by a garland of stars; and I had reached the Louvre,\nwhen I was stopped by a crowd collected near the parapet they had\ngathered round a child of about six, who was crying, and I asked the\ncause of his tears.\n\n\"It seems that he was sent to walk in the Tuileries,\" said a mason, who\nwas returning from his work with his trowel in his hand; \"the servant\nwho took care of him met with some friends there, and told the child to\nwait for him while he went to get a drink; but I suppose the drink made\nhim more thirsty, for he has not come back, and the child cannot find\nhis way home.\"\n\n\"Why do they not ask him his name, and where he lives?\"\n\n\"They have been doing it for the last hour; but all he can say is, that\nhe is called Charles, and that his father is Monsieur Duval--there are\ntwelve hundred Duvals in Paris.\"\n\n\"Then he does not know in what part of the town he lives?\"\n\n\"I should not think, indeed! Don't you see that he is a gentleman's\nchild? He has never gone out except in a carriage or with a servant; he\ndoes not know what to do by himself.\"\n\nHere the mason was interrupted by some of the voices rising above the\nothers.\n\n\"We cannot leave him in the street,\" said some.\n\n\"The child-stealers would carry him off,\" continued others.\n\n\"We must take him to the overseer.\"\n\n\"Or to the police-office.\"\n\n\"That's the thing. Come, little one!\"\n\nBut the child, frightened by these suggestions of danger, and at the\nnames of police and overseer, cried louder, and drew back toward the\nparapet. In vain they tried to persuade him; his fears made him resist\nthe more, and the most eager began to get weary, when the voice of a\nlittle boy was heard through the confusion.\n\n\"I know him well--I do,\" said he, looking at the lost child; \"he belongs\nin our part of the town.\"\n\n\"What part is it?\"\n\n\"Yonder, on the other side of the Boulevards--Rue des Magasins.\"\n\n\"And you have seen him before?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes! he belongs to the great house at the end of the street, where\nthere is an iron gate with gilt points.\"\n\nThe child quickly raised his head, and stopped crying. The little boy\nanswered all the questions that were put to him, and gave such details\nas left no room for doubt. The other child understood him, for he went\nup to him as if to put himself under his protection.\n\n\"Then you can take him to his parents?\" asked the mason, who had\nlistened with real interest to the little boy's account.\n\n\"I don't care if I do,\" replied he; \"it's the way I'm going.\"\n\n\"Then you will take charge of him?\"\n\n\"He has only to come with me.\"\n\nAnd, taking up the basket he had put down on the pavement, he set off\ntoward the postern-gate of the Louvre.\n\nThe lost child followed him.\n\n\"I hope he will take him right,\" said I, when I saw them go away.\n\n\"Never fear,\" replied the mason; \"the little one in the blouse is\nthe same age as the other; but, as the saying is, he knows black from\nwhite;' poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress!\"\n\nThe crowd dispersed. For my part, I went toward the Louvre; the thought\ncame into my head to follow the two children, so as to guard against any\nmistake.\n\nI was not long in overtaking them; they were walking side by side,\ntalking, and already quite familiar with each other. The contrast in\ntheir dress then struck me. Little Duval wore one of those fanciful\nchildren's dresses which are expensive as well as in good taste; his\ncoat was skilfully fitted to his figure, his trousers came down\nin plaits from his waist to his boots of polished leather with\nmother-of-pearl buttons, and his ringlets were half hid by a velvet cap.\nThe appearance of his guide, on the contrary, was that of the class who\ndwell on the extreme borders of poverty, but who there maintain their\nground with no surrender. His old blouse, patched with pieces of\ndifferent shades, indicated the perseverance of an industrious mother\nstruggling against the wear and tear of time; his trousers were become\ntoo short, and showed his stockings darned over and over again; and it\nwas evident that his shoes were not made for him.\n\nThe countenances of the two children were not less different than their\ndress. That of the first was delicate and refined; his clear blue\neye, his fair skin, and his smiling mouth gave him a charming look of\ninnocence and happiness. The features of the other, on the contrary, had\nsomething rough in them; his eye was quick and lively, his complexion\ndark, his smile less merry than shrewd; all showed a mind sharpened by\ntoo early experience; he walked boldly through the middle of the streets\nthronged by carriages, and followed their countless turnings without\nhesitation.\n\nI found, on asking him, that every day he carried dinner to his father,\nwho was then working on the left bank of the Seine; and this responsible\nduty had made him careful and prudent. He had learned those hard but\nforcible lessons of necessity which nothing can equal or supply the\nplace of. Unfortunately, the wants of his poor family had kept him from\nschool, and he seemed to feel the loss; for he often stopped before\nthe printshops, and asked his companion to read him the names of the\nengravings. In this way we reached the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, which\nthe little wanderer seemed to know again. Notwithstanding his fatigue,\nhe hurried on; he was agitated by mixed feelings; at the sight of his\nhouse he uttered a cry, and ran toward the iron gate with the gilt\npoints; a lady who was standing at the entrance received him in her\narms, and from the exclamations of joy, and the sound of kisses, I soon\nperceived she was his mother.\n\nNot seeing either the servant or child return, she had sent in search of\nthem in every direction, and was waiting for them in intense anxiety.\n\nI explained to her in a few words what had happened. She thanked me\nwarmly, and looked round for the little boy who had recognized and\nbrought back her son; but while we were talking, he had disappeared.\n\nIt was for the first time since then that I had come into this part of\nParis. Did the mother continue grateful? Had the children met again, and\nhad the happy chance of their first meeting lowered between them that\nbarrier which may mark the different ranks of men, but should not divide\nthem?\n\nWhile putting these questions to myself, I slackened my pace, and fixed\nmy eyes on the great gate, which I just perceived. Suddenly I saw it\nopen, and two children appeared at the entrance. Although much grown, I\nrecognized them at first sight; they were the child who was found near\nthe parapet of the Louvre, and his young guide. But the dress of the\nlatter was greatly changed: his blouse of gray cloth was neat, and even\nspruce, and was fastened round the waist by a polished leather belt; he\nwore strong shoes, but made for his feet, and had on a new cloth cap.\nJust at the moment I saw him, he held in his two hands an enormous bunch\nof lilacs, to which his companion was trying to add narcissuses and\nprimroses; the two children laughed, and parted with a friendly good-by.\nM. Duval's son did not go in till he had seen the other turn the corner\nof the street.\n\nThen I accosted the latter, and reminded him of our former meeting; he\nlooked at me for a moment, and then seemed to recollect me.\n\n\"Forgive me if I do not make you a bow,\" said he, merrily, \"but I want\nboth my hands for the nosegay Monsieur Charles has given me.\"\n\n\"You are, then, become great friends?\" said I.\n\n\"Oh! I should think so,\" said the child; \"and now my father is rich\ntoo!\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Monsieur Duval lent him some money; he has taken a shop, where he works\non his own account; and, as for me, I go to school.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied I, remarking for the first time the cross that decorated\nhis little coat; \"and I see that you are head-boy!\"\n\n\"Monsieur Charles helps me to learn, and so I am come to be the first in\nthe class.\"\n\n\"Are you now going to your lessons?\"\n\n\"Yes, and he has given me some lilacs; for he has a garden where we play\ntogether, and where my mother can always have flowers.\"\n\n\"Then it is the same as if it were partly your own.\"\n\n\"So it is! Ah! they are good neighbors indeed. But here I am; good-by,\nsir.\"\n\nHe nodded to me with a smile, and disappeared.\n\nI went on with my walk, still pensive, but with a feeling of relief.\nIf I had elsewhere witnessed the painful contrast between affluence\nand want, here I had found the true union of riches and poverty. Hearty\ngood-will had smoothed down the more rugged inequalities on both sides,\nand had opened a road of true neighborhood and fellowship between the\nhumble workshop and the stately mansion. Instead of hearkening to the\nvoice of interest, they had both listened to that of self-sacrifice,\nand there was no place left for contempt or envy. Thus, instead of the\nbeggar in rags, that I had seen at the other door cursing the rich man,\nI had found here the happy child of the laborer loaded with flowers and\nblessing him! The problem, so difficult and so dangerous to examine into\nwith no regard but for the rights of it, I had just seen solved by love.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. COMPENSATION\n\nSunday, May 27th\n\nCapital cities have one thing peculiar to them: their days of rest seem\nto be the signal for a general dispersion and flight. Like birds that\nare just restored to liberty, the people come out of their stone cages,\nand joyfully fly toward the country. It is who shall find a green\nhillock for a seat, or the shade of a wood for a shelter; they gather\nMay flowers, they run about the fields; the town is forgotten until\nthe evening, when they return with sprigs of blooming hawthorn in their\nhats, and their hearts gladdened by pleasant thoughts and recollections\nof the past day; the next day they return again to their harness and to\nwork.\n\nThese rural adventures are most remarkable at Paris. When the fine\nweather comes, clerks, shop keepers, and workingmen look forward\nimpatiently for the Sunday as the day for trying a few hours of this\npastoral life; they walk through six miles of grocers' shops and\npublic-houses in the faubourgs, in the sole hope of finding a real\nturnip-field. The father of a family begins the practical education of\nhis son by showing him wheat which has not taken the form of a loaf,\nand cabbage \"in its wild state.\" Heaven only knows the encounters, the\ndiscoveries, the adventures that are met with! What Parisian has not had\nhis Odyssey in an excursion through the suburbs, and would not be able\nto write a companion to the famous Travels by Land and by Sea from Paris\nto St. Cloud?\n\nWe do not now speak of that floating population from all parts, for whom\nour French Babylon is the caravansary of Europe: a phalanx of thinkers,\nartists, men of business, and travellers, who, like Homer's hero, have\narrived in their intellectual country after beholding \"many peoples and\ncities;\" but of the settled Parisian, who keeps his appointed place, and\nlives on his own floor like the oyster on his rock, a curious vestige of\nthe credulity, the slowness, and the simplicity of bygone ages.\n\nFor one of the singularities of Paris is, that it unites twenty\npopulations completely different in character and manners. By the\nside of the gypsies of commerce and of art, who wander through all the\nseveral stages of fortune or fancy, live a quiet race of people with an\nindependence, or with regular work, whose existence resembles the dial\nof a clock, on which the same hand points by turns to the same hours. If\nno other city can show more brilliant and more stirring forms of life,\nno other contains more obscure and more tranquil ones. Great cities are\nlike the sea: storms agitate only the surface; if you go to the bottom,\nyou find a region inaccessible to the tumult and the noise.\n\nFor my part, I have settled on the verge of this region, but do not\nactually live in it. I am removed from the turmoil of the world, and\nlive in the shelter of solitude, but without being able to disconnect\nmy thoughts from the struggle going on. I follow at a distance all its\nevents of happiness or grief; I join the feasts and the funerals; for\nhow can he who looks on, and knows what passes, do other than take part?\nIgnorance alone can keep us strangers to the life around us: selfishness\nitself will not suffice for that.\n\nThese reflections I made to myself in my attic, in the intervals of the\nvarious household works to which a bachelor is forced when he has\nno other servant than his own ready will. While I was pursuing my\ndeductions, I had blacked my boots, brushed my coat, and tied my\ncravat; I had at last arrived at the important moment when we pronounce\ncomplacently that all is finished, and that well.\n\nA grand resolve had just decided me to depart from my usual habits. The\nevening before, I had seen by the advertisements that the next day was\na holiday at Sevres, and that the china manufactory would be open to the\npublic. I was tempted by the beauty of the morning, and suddenly decided\nto go there.\n\nOn my arrival at the station on the left bank, I noticed the crowd\nhurrying on in the fear of being late. Railroads, besides many other\nadvantages, possess that of teaching the French punctuality. They will\nsubmit to the clock when they are convinced that it is their master;\nthey will learn to wait when they find they will not be waited for.\nSocial virtues, are, in a great degree, good habits. How many great\nqualities are grafted into nations by their geographical position, by\npolitical necessity, and by institutions! Avarice was destroyed for a\ntime among the Lacedaemonians by the creation of an iron coinage, too\nheavy and too bulky to be conveniently hoarded.\n\nI found myself in a carriage with two middle-aged women belonging to the\ndomestic and retired class of Parisians I have spoken of above. A few\ncivilities were sufficient to gain me their confidence, and after some\nminutes I was acquainted with their whole history.\n\nThey were two poor sisters, left orphans at fifteen, and had lived ever\nsince, as those who work for their livelihood must live, by economy\nand privation. For the last twenty or thirty years they had worked\nin jewelry in the same house; they had seen ten masters succeed one\nanother, and make their fortunes in it, without any change in their own\nlot. They had always lived in the same room, at the end of one of the\npassages in the Rue St. Denis, where the air and the sun are unknown.\nThey began their work before daylight, went on with it till after\nnightfall, and saw year succeed to year without their lives being marked\nby any other events than the Sunday service, a walk, or an illness.\n\nThe younger of these worthy work-women was forty, and obeyed her sister\nas she did when a child. The elder looked after her, took care of her,\nand scolded her with a mother's tenderness. At first it was amusing;\nafterward one could not help seeing something affecting in these two\ngray-haired children, one unable to leave off the habit of obeying, the\nother that of protecting.\n\nAnd it was not in that alone that my two companions seemed younger than\ntheir years; they knew so little that their wonder never ceased. We had\nhardly arrived at Clamart before they involuntarily exclaimed, like the\nking in the children's game, that they \"did not think the world was so\ngreat\"!\n\nIt was the first time they had trusted themselves on a railroad, and\nit was amusing to see their sudden shocks, their alarms, and their\ncourageous determinations: everything was a marvel to them! They had\nremains of youth within them, which made them sensible to things which\nusually only strike us in childhood. Poor creatures! they had still the\nfeelings of another age, though they had lost its charms.\n\nBut was there not something holy in this simplicity, which had been\npreserved to them by abstinence from all the joys of life? Ah! accursed\nbe he who first had the bad courage to attach ridicule to that name\nof \"old maid,\" which recalls so many images of grievous deception, of\ndreariness, and of abandonment! Accursed be he who can find a subject\nfor sarcasm in involuntary misfortune, and who can crown gray hairs with\nthorns!\n\nThe two sisters were called Frances and Madeleine. This day's journey\nwas a feat of courage without example in their lives. The fever of\nthe times had infected them unawares. Yesterday Madeleine had suddenly\nproposed the idea of the expedition, and Frances had accepted it\nimmediately. Perhaps it would have been better not to yield to the great\ntemptation offered by her younger sister; but \"we have our follies\nat all ages,\" as the prudent Frances philosophically remarked. As\nfor Madeleine, there are no regrets or doubts for her; she is the\nlife-guardsman of the establishment.\n\n\"We really must amuse ourselves,\" said she; \"we live but once.\"\n\nAnd the elder sister smiled at this Epicurean maxim. It was evident that\nthe fever of independence was at its crisis in both of them.\n\nAnd in truth it would have been a great pity if any scruple had\ninterfered with their happiness, it was so frank and genial! The sight\nof the trees, which seemed to fly on both sides of the road, caused\nthem unceasing admiration. The meeting a train passing in the contrary\ndirection, with the noise and rapidity of a thunderbolt, made them shut\ntheir eyes and utter a cry; but it had already disappeared! They look\naround, take courage again, and express themselves full of astonishment\nat the marvel.\n\nMadeleine declares that such a sight is worth the expense of the\njourney, and Frances would have agreed with her if she had not\nrecollected, with some little alarm, the deficit which such an expense\nmust make in their budget. The three francs spent upon this single\nexpedition were the savings of a whole week of work. Thus the joy of the\nelder of the two sisters was mixed with remorse; the prodigal child now\nand then turned its eyes toward the back street of St. Denis.\n\nBut the motion and the succession of objects distract her. See the\nbridge of the Val surrounded by its lovely landscape: on the right,\nParis with its grand monuments, which rise through the fog, or sparkle\nin the sun; on the left, Meudon, with its villas, its woods, its vines,\nand its royal castle! The two work-women look from one window to the\nother with exclamations of delight. One fellow-passenger laughs at their\nchildish wonder; but to me it is deeply touching, for I see in it the\nsign of a long and monotonous seclusion: they are the prisoners of work,\nwho have recovered liberty and fresh air for a few hours.\n\nAt last the train stops, and we get out. I show the two sisters the path\nthat leads to Sevres, between the railway and the gardens, and they go\non before, while I inquire about the time of returning.\n\nI soon join them again at the next station, where they have stopped at\nthe little garden belonging to the gatekeeper; both are already in deep\nconversation with him while he digs his garden-borders, and marks out\nthe places for flower-seeds. He informs them that it is the time for\nhoeing out weeds, for making grafts and layers, for sowing annuals, and\nfor destroying the insects on the rose-trees. Madeleine has on the sill\nof her window two wooden boxes, in which, for want of air and sun, she\nhas never been able to make anything grow but mustard and cress; but she\npersuades herself that, thanks to this information, all other plants\nmay henceforth thrive in them. At last the gatekeeper, who is sowing a\nborder with mignonette, gives her the rest of the seeds which he does\nnot want, and the old maid goes off delighted, and begins to act over\nagain the dream of Paired and her can of milk, with these flowers of her\nimagination.\n\nOn reaching the grove of acacias, where the fair was going on, I lost\nsight of the two sisters. I went alone among the sights: there were\nlotteries going on, mountebank shows, places for eating and drinking,\nand for shooting with the cross-bow. I have always been struck by the\nspirit of these out-of-door festivities. In drawing-room entertainments,\npeople are cold, grave, often listless, and most of those who go there\nare brought together by habit or the obligations of society; in the\ncountry assemblies, on the contrary, you only find those who are\nattracted by the hope of enjoyment. There, it is a forced conscription;\nhere, they are volunteers for gayety! Then, how easily they are pleased!\nHow far this crowd of people is yet from knowing that to be pleased with\nnothing, and to look down on everything, is the height of fashion and\ngood taste! Doubtless their amusements are often coarse; elegance and\nrefinement are wanting in them; but at least they have heartiness. Oh,\nthat the hearty enjoyments of these merry-makings could be retained\nin union with less vulgar feeling! Formerly religion stamped its holy\ncharacter on the celebration of country festivals, and purified the\npleasures without depriving them of their simplicity.\n\nThe hour arrives at which the doors of the porcelain manufactory and the\nmuseum of pottery are open to the public. I meet Frances and Madeleine\nagain in the first room. Frightened at finding themselves in the midst\nof such regal magnificence, they hardly dare walk; they speak in a low\ntone, as if they were in a church.\n\n\"We are in the king's house,\" said the eldest sister, forgetting that\nthere is no longer a king in France.\n\nI encourage them to go on; I walk first, and they make up their minds to\nfollow me.\n\nWhat wonders are brought together in this collection! Here we see clay\nmoulded into every shape, tinted with every color, and combined with\nevery sort of substance!\n\nEarth and wood are the first substances worked upon by man, and seem\nmore particularly meant for his use. They, like the domestic animals,\nare the essential accessories of his life; therefore there must be a\nmore intimate connection between them and us. Stone and metals require\nlong preparations; they resist our first efforts, and belong less to the\nindividual than to communities. Earth and wood are, on the contrary, the\nprincipal instruments of the isolated being who must feed and shelter\nhimself.\n\nThis, doubtless, makes me feel so much interested in the collection I am\nexamining. These cups, so roughly modelled by the savage, admit me to\na knowledge of some of his habits; these elegant yet incorrectly formed\nvases of the Indian tell me of a declining intelligence,--in which still\nglimmers the twilight of what was once bright sunshine; these jars,\nloaded with arabesques, show the fancy of the Arab rudely and ignorantly\ncopied by the Spaniard! We find here the stamp of every race, every\ncountry, and every age.\n\nMy companions seemed little interested in these historical associations;\nthey looked at all with that credulous admiration which leaves no room\nfor examination or discussion. Madeleine read the name written under\nevery piece of workmanship, and her sister answered with an exclamation\nof wonder.\n\nIn this way we reached a little courtyard, where they had thrown away\nthe fragments of some broken china.\n\nFrances perceived a colored saucer almost whole, of which she took\npossession as a record of the visit she was making; henceforth she would\nhave a specimen of the Sevres china, \"which is only made for kings!\"\nI would not undeceive her by telling her that the products of the\nmanufactory are sold all over the world, and that her saucer, before\nit was cracked, was the same as those that are bought at the shops for\nsixpence! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble existence?\nAre we to break down the hedge-flowers that perfume our paths? Things\nare oftenest nothing in themselves; the thoughts we attach to them alone\ngive them value. To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover some\nuseless reality, is to be like those learned men who will see nothing in\na plant but the chemical elements of which it is composed.\n\nOn leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who had taken possession\nof me with the freedom of artlessness, invited me to share the luncheon\nthey had brought with them. I declined at first, but they insisted\nwith so much good-nature, that I feared to pain them, and with some\nawkwardness gave way.\n\nWe had only to look for a convenient spot. I led them up the hill,\nand we found a plot of grass enamelled with daisies, and shaded by two\nwalnut-trees.\n\nMadeleine could not contain herself for joy. All her life she had\ndreamed of a dinner out on the grass! While helping her sister to take\nthe provisions from the basket, she tells me of all her expeditions into\nthe country that had been planned, and put off. Frances, on the other\nhand, was brought up at Montmorency, and before she became an orphan she\nhad often gone back to her nurse's house. That which had the attraction\nof novelty for her sister, had for her the charm of recollection. She\ntold of the vintage harvests to which her parents had taken her; the\nrides on Mother Luret's donkey, that they could not make go to the right\nwithout pulling him to the left; the cherry-gathering; and the sails on\nthe lake in the innkeeper's boat.\n\nThese recollections have all the charm and freshness of childhood.\nFrances recalls to herself less what she has seen than what she has\nfelt. While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit down under\na tree. Before us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses\nabutting upon the gardens and the slopes of the hill; on the other side\nspreads out the park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of trees\ninterspersed with meadows; above stretch the heavens like an immense\nocean, in which the clouds are sailing! I look at this beautiful\ncountry, and I listen to these good old maids; I admire, and I am\ninterested; and time passes gently on without my perceiving it.\n\nAt last the sun sets, and we have to think of returning. While Madeleine\nand Frances clear away the dinner, I walk down to the manufactory to ask\nthe hour. The merrymaking is at its height; the blasts of the trombones\nresound from the band under the acacias. For a few moments I forget\nmyself with looking about; but I have promised the two sisters to take\nthem back to the Bellevue station; the train cannot wait, and I make\nhaste to climb the path again which leads to the walnut-trees.\n\nJust before I reached them, I heard voices on the other side of the\nhedge. Madeleine and Frances were speaking to a poor girl whose clothes\nwere burned, her hands blackened, and her face tied up with bloodstained\nbandages. I saw that she was one of the girls employed at the gunpowder\nmills, which are built further up on the common. An explosion had taken\nplace a few days before; the girl's mother and elder sister were killed;\nshe herself escaped by a miracle, and was now left without any means of\nsupport. She told all this with the resigned and unhopeful manner of\none who has always been accustomed to suffer. The two sisters were much\naffected; I saw them consulting with each other in a low tone: then\nFrances took thirty sous out of a little coarse silk purse, which was\nall they had left, and gave them to the poor girl. I hastened on to that\nside of the hedge; but, before I reached it, I met the two old sisters,\nwho called out to me that they would not return by the railway, but on\nfoot!\n\nI then understood that the money they had meant for the journey had just\nbeen given to the beggar! Good, like evil, is contagious: I run to the\npoor wounded girl, give her the sum that was to pay for my own place,\nand return to Frances and Madeleine, and tell them I will walk with\nthem.\n\n       ..........................\n\nI am just come back from taking them home; and have left them delighted\nwith their day, the recollection of which will long make them happy.\nThis morning I was pitying those whose lives are obscure and joyless;\nnow, I understand that God has provided a compensation with every trial.\nThe smallest pleasure derives from rarity a relish otherwise unknown.\nEnjoyment is only what we feel to be such, and the luxurious man feels\nno longer: satiety has destroyed his appetite, while privation preserves\nto the other that first of earthly blessings: the being easily made\nhappy. Oh, that I could persuade every one of this! that so the rich\nmight not abuse their riches, and that the poor might have patience. If\nhappiness is the rarest of blessings, it is because the reception of it\nis the rarest of virtues.\n\nMadeleine and Frances! ye poor old maids whose courage, resignation,\nand generous hearts are your only wealth, pray for the wretched who give\nthemselves up to despair; for the unhappy who hate and envy; and for the\nunfeeling into whose enjoyments no pity enters.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 2.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. UNCLE MAURICE\n\n\nJune 7th, Four O'clock A.M.\n\nI am not surprised at hearing, when I awake, the birds singing so\njoyfully outside my window; it is only by living, as they and I do, in\na top story, that one comes to know how cheerful the mornings really are\nup among the roofs. It is there that the sun sends his first rays, and\nthe breeze comes with the fragrance of the gardens and woods; there that\na wandering butterfly sometimes ventures among the flowers of the attic,\nand that the songs of the industrious work-woman welcome the dawn of\nday. The lower stories are still deep in sleep, silence, and shadow,\nwhile here labor, light, and song already reign.\n\nWhat life is around me! See the swallow returning from her search for\nfood, with her beak full of insects for her young ones; the sparrows\nshake the dew from their wings while they chase one another in the\nsunshine; and my neighbors throw open their windows, and welcome\nthe morning with their fresh faces! Delightful hour of waking, when\neverything returns to feeling and to motion; when the first light of day\nstrikes upon creation, and brings it to life again, as the magic wand\nstruck the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the wood! It is a moment of\nrest from every misery; the sufferings of the sick are allayed, and a\nbreath of hope enters into the hearts of the despairing. But, alas! it\nis but a short respite! Everything will soon resume its wonted course:\nthe great human machine, with its long strains, its deep gasps, its\ncollisions, and its crashes, will be again put in motion.\n\nThe tranquillity of this first morning hour reminds me of that of our\nfirst years of life. Then, too, the sun shines brightly, the air\nis fragrant, and the illusions of youth-those birds of our life's\nmorning-sing around us. Why do they fly away when we are older? Where\ndo this sadness and this solitude, which gradually steal upon us,\ncome from? The course seems to be the same with individuals and with\ncommunities: at starting, so readily made happy, so easily enchanted;\nand at the goal, the bitter disappointment or reality! The road, which\nbegan among hawthorns and primroses, ends speedily in deserts or in\nprecipices! Why is there so much confidence at first, so much doubt at\nlast? Has, then, the knowledge of life no other end but to make it\nunfit for happiness? Must we condemn ourselves to ignorance if we would\npreserve hope? Is the world and is the individual man intended, after\nall, to find rest only in an eternal childhood?\n\nHow many times have I asked myself these questions! Solitude has the\nadvantage or the danger of making us continually search more deeply into\nthe same ideas. As our discourse is only with ourself, we always give\nthe same direction to the conversation; we are not called to turn it\nto the subject which occupies another mind, or interests another's\nfeelings; and so an involuntary inclination makes us return forever to\nknock at the same doors!\n\nI interrupted my reflections to put my attic in order. I hate the\nlook of disorder, because it shows either a contempt for details or an\nunaptness for spiritual life. To arrange the things among which we have\nto live, is to establish the relation of property and of use between\nthem and us: it is to lay the foundation of those habits without which\nman tends to the savage state. What, in fact, is social organization but\na series of habits, settled in accordance with the dispositions of our\nnature?\n\nI distrust both the intellect and the morality of those people to whom\ndisorder is of no consequence--who can live at ease in an Augean stable.\nWhat surrounds us, reflects more or less that which is within us. The\nmind is like one of those dark lanterns which, in spite of everything,\nstill throw some light around. If our tastes did not reveal our\ncharacter, they would be no longer tastes, but instincts.\n\nWhile I was arranging everything in my attic, my eyes rested on the\nlittle almanac hanging over my chimney-piece. I looked for the day of\nthe month, and I saw these words written in large letters: \"FETE DIEU!\"\n\nIt is to-day! In this great city, where there are no longer any public\nreligious solemnities, there is nothing to remind us of it; but it is,\nin truth, the period so happily chosen by the primitive church. \"The day\nkept in honor of the Creator,\" says Chateaubriand, \"happens at a time\nwhen the heaven and the earth declare His power, when the woods and\nfields are full of new life, and all are united by the happiest ties;\nthere is not a single widowed plant in the fields.\"\n\nWhat recollections these words have just awakened! I left off what I was\nabout, I leaned my elbows on the windowsill, and, with my head between\nmy two hands, I went back in thought to the little town where the first\ndays of my childhood were passed.\n\nThe 'Fete Dieu' was then one of the great events of my life! It was\nnecessary to be diligent and obedient a long time beforehand, to deserve\nto share in it. I still recollect with what raptures of expectation I\ngot up on the morning of the day. There was a holy joy in the air. The\nneighbors, up earlier than usual, hung cloths with flowers or figures,\nworked in tapestry, along the streets. I went from one to another,\nby turns admiring religious scenes of the Middle Ages, mythological\ncompositions of the Renaissance, old battles in the style of Louis XIV,\nand the Arcadias of Madame de Pompadour. All this world of phantoms\nseemed to be coming forth from the dust of past ages, to assist--silent\nand motionless--at the holy ceremony. I looked, alternately in fear\nand wonder, at those terrible warriors with their swords always raised,\nthose beautiful huntresses shooting the arrow which never left the bow,\nand those shepherds in satin breeches always playing the flute at the\nfeet of the perpetually smiling shepherdess. Sometimes, when the wind\nblew behind these hanging pictures, it seemed to me that the figures\nthemselves moved, and I watched to see them detach themselves from the\nwall, and take their places in the procession! But these impressions\nwere vague and transitory. The feeling that predominated over every\nother was that of an overflowing yet quiet joy. In the midst of all the\nfloating draperies, the scattered flowers, the voices of the maidens,\nand the gladness which, like a perfume, exhaled from everything, you\nfelt transported in spite of yourself. The joyful sounds of the festival\nwere repeated in your heart, in a thousand melodious echoes. You were\nmore indulgent, more holy, more loving! For God was not only manifesting\nhimself without, but also within us.\n\nAnd then the altars for the occasion! the flowery arbors! the triumphal\narches made of green boughs! What competition among the different\nparishes for the erection of the resting-places where the procession was\nto halt! It was who should contribute the rarest and the most beautiful\nof his possessions!\n\nIt was there I made my first sacrifice!\n\nThe wreaths of flowers were arranged, the candles lighted, and the\nTabernacle dressed with roses; but one was wanting fit to crown the\nwhole! All the neighboring gardens had been ransacked. I alone possessed\na flower worthy of such a place. It was on the rose-tree given me by my\nmother on my birthday. I had watched it for several months, and there\nwas no other bud to blow on the tree. There it was, half open, in its\nmossy nest, the object of such long expectations, and of all a child's\npride! I hesitated for some moments. No one had asked me for it; I\nmight easily avoid losing it. I should hear no reproaches, but one rose\nnoiselessly within me. When every one else had given all they had, ought\nI alone to keep back my treasure? Ought I to grudge to God one of the\ngifts which, like all the rest, I had received from him? At this last\nthought I plucked the flower from the stem, and took it to put at the\ntop of the Tabernacle. Ah! why does the recollection of this sacrifice,\nwhich was so hard and yet so sweet to me, now make me smile? Is it\nso certain that the value of a gift is in itself, rather than in the\nintention? If the cup of cold water in the gospel is remembered to the\npoor man, why should not the flower be remembered to the child? Let us\nnot look down upon the child's simple act of generosity; it is these\nwhich accustom the soul to self-denial and to sympathy. I cherished this\nmoss-rose a long time as a sacred talisman; I had reason to cherish it\nalways, as the record of the first victory won over myself.\n\nIt is now many years since I witnessed the celebration of the 'Fete\nDieu'; but should I again feel in it the happy sensations of former\ndays? I still remember how, when the procession had passed, I walked\nthrough the streets strewed with flowers and shaded with green boughs.\nI felt intoxicated by the lingering perfumes of the incense, mixed with\nthe fragrance of syringas, jessamine, and roses, and I seemed no longer\nto touch the ground as I went along. I smiled at everything; the whole\nworld was Paradise in my eyes, and it seemed to me that God was floating\nin the air!\n\nMoreover, this feeling was not the excitement of the moment: it might be\nmore intense on certain days, but at the same time it continued through\nthe ordinary course of my life. Many years thus passed for me in an\nexpansion of heart, and a trustfulness which prevented sorrow, if not\nfrom coming, at least from staying with me. Sure of not being alone, I\nsoon took heart again, like the child who recovers its courage, because\nit hears its mother's voice close by. Why have I lost that confidence of\nmy childhood? Shall I never feel again so deeply that God is here?\n\nHow strange the association of our thoughts! A day of the month recalls\nmy infancy, and see, all the recollections of my former years are\ngrowing up around me! Why was I so happy then? I consider well, and\nnothing is sensibly changed in my condition. I possess, as I did\nthen, health and my daily bread; the only difference is, that I am\nnow responsible for myself! As a child, I accepted life when it came;\nanother cared and provided for me. So long as I fulfilled my present\nduties I was at peace within, and I left the future to the prudence of\nmy father! My destiny was a ship, in the directing of which I had no\nshare, and in which I sailed as a common passenger. There was the whole\nsecret of childhood's happy security. Since then worldly wisdom has\ndeprived me of it. When my lot was intrusted to my own and sole keeping,\nI thought to make myself master of it by means of a long insight into\nthe future. I have filled the present hour with anxieties, by occupying\nmy thoughts with the future; I have put my judgment in the place of\nProvidence, and the happy child is changed into the anxious man.\n\nA melancholy course, yet perhaps an important lesson. Who knows that,\nif I had trusted more to Him who rules the world, I should not have been\nspared all this anxiety? It may be that happiness is not possible here\nbelow, except on condition of living like a child, giving ourselves up\nto the duties of each day as it comes, and trusting in the goodness of\nour heavenly Father for all besides.\n\nThis reminds me of my Uncle Maurice! Whenever I have need to strengthen\nmyself in all that is good, I turn my thoughts to him; I see again the\ngentle expression of his half-smiling, half-mournful face; I hear his\nvoice, always soft and soothing as a breath of summer! The remembrance\nof him protects my life, and gives it light. He, too, was a saint and\nmartyr here below. Others have pointed out the path of heaven; he has\ntaught us to see those of earth aright.\n\nBut, except the angels, who are charged with noting down the sacrifices\nperformed in secret, and the virtues which are never known, who has ever\nheard of my Uncle Maurice? Perhaps I alone remember his name, and still\nrecall his history.\n\nWell! I will write it, not for others, but for myself! They say that,\nat the sight of the Apollo, the body erects itself and assumes a more\ndignified attitude: in the same way, the soul should feel itself raised\nand ennobled by the recollection of a good man's life!\n\nA ray of the rising sun lights up the little table on which I write; the\nbreeze brings me in the scent of the mignonette, and the swallows wheel\nabout my window with joyful twitterings. The image of my Uncle Maurice\nwill be in its proper place amid the songs, the sunshine, and the\nfragrance.\n\nSeven o'clock.--It is with men's lives as with days: some dawn radiant\nwith a thousand colors, others dark with gloomy clouds. That of my Uncle\nMaurice was one of the latter. He was so sickly, when he came into\nthe world, that they thought he must die; but notwithstanding these\nanticipations, which might be called hopes, he continued to live,\nsuffering and deformed.\n\nHe was deprived of all joys as well as of all the attractions of\nchildhood. He was oppressed because he was weak, and laughed at for his\ndeformity. In vain the little hunchback opened his arms to the world:\nthe world scoffed at him, and went its way.\n\nHowever, he still had his mother, and it was to her that the child\ndirected all the feelings of a heart repelled by others. With her he\nfound shelter, and was happy, till he reached the age when a man must\ntake his place in life; and Maurice had to content himself with that\nwhich others had refused with contempt. His education would\nhave qualified him for any course of life; and he became an\noctroi-clerk--[The octroi is the tax on provisions levied at the\nentrance of the town]--in one of the little toll-houses at the entrance\nof his native town.\n\nHe was always shut up in this dwelling of a few feet square, with no\nrelaxation from the office accounts but reading and his mother's visits.\nOn fine summer days she came to work at the door of his hut, under the\nshade of a clematis planted by Maurice. And, even when she was silent,\nher presence was a pleasant change for the hunchback; he heard the\nclinking of her long knitting-needles; he saw her mild and mournful\nprofile, which reminded him of so many courageously-borne trials; he\ncould every now and then rest his hand affectionately on that bowed\nneck, and exchange a smile with her!\n\nThis comfort was soon to be taken from him. His old mother fell sick,\nand at the end of a few days he had to give up all hope. Maurice was\novercome at the idea of a separation which would henceforth leave him\nalone on earth, and abandoned himself to boundless grief. He knelt by\nthe bedside of the dying woman, he called her by the fondest names, he\npressed her in his arms, as if he could so keep her in life. His mother\ntried to return his caresses, and to answer him; but her hands were\ncold, her voice was already gone. She could only press her lips against\nthe forehead of her son, heave a sigh, and close her eyes forever!\n\nThey tried to take Maurice away, but he resisted them and threw himself\non that now motionless form.\n\n\"Dead!\" cried he; \"dead! She who had never left me, she who was the only\none in the world who loved me! You, my mother, dead! What then remains\nfor me here below?\"\n\nA stifled voice replied:\n\n\"God!\"\n\nMaurice, startled, raised himself! Was that a last sigh from the dead,\nor his own conscience, that had answered him? He did not seek to know,\nbut he understood the answer, and accepted it.\n\nIt was then that I first knew him. I often went to see him in his little\ntoll-house. He joined in my childish games, told me his finest stories,\nand let me gather his flowers. Deprived as he was of all external\nattractiveness, he showed himself full of kindness to all who came to\nhim, and, though he never would put himself forward, he had a welcome\nfor everyone. Deserted, despised, he submitted to everything with a\ngentle patience; and while he was thus stretched on the cross of life,\namid the insults of his executioners, he repeated with Christ, \"Father,\nforgive them, for they know not what they do.\"\n\nNo other clerk showed so much honesty, zeal, and intelligence; but those\nwho otherwise might have promoted him as his services deserved were\nrepelled by his deformity. As he had no patrons, he found his claims\nwere always disregarded. They preferred before him those who were better\nable to make themselves agreeable, and seemed to be granting him a favor\nwhen letting him keep the humble office which enabled him to live. Uncle\nMaurice bore injustice as he had borne contempt; unfairly treated by\nmen, he raised his eyes higher, and trusted in the justice of Him who\ncannot be deceived.\n\nHe lived in an old house in the suburb, where many work-people, as poor\nbut not as forlorn as he, also lodged. Among these neighbors there was\na single woman, who lived by herself in a little garret, into which came\nboth wind and rain. She was a young girl, pale, silent, and with nothing\nto recommend her but her wretchedness and her resignation to it. She was\nnever seen speaking to any other woman, and no song cheered her garret.\nShe worked without interest and without relaxation; a depressing gloom\nseemed to envelop her like a shroud. Her dejection affected Maurice; he\nattempted to speak to her; she replied mildly, but in few words. It\nwas easy to see that she preferred her silence and her solitude to the\nlittle hunchback's good-will; he perceived it, and said no more.\n\nBut Toinette's needle was hardly sufficient for her support, and\npresently work failed her! Maurice learned that the poor girl was in\nwant of everything, and that the tradesmen refused to give her credit.\nHe immediately went to them privately and engaged to pay them for what\nthey supplied Toinette with.\n\nThings went on in this way for several months. The young dressmaker\ncontinued out of work, until she was at last frightened at the bills\nshe had contracted with the shopkeepers. When she came to an explanation\nwith them, everything was discovered. Her first impulse was to run to\nUncle Maurice, and thank him on her knees. Her habitual reserve had\ngiven way to a burst of deepest feeling. It seemed as if gratitude had\nmelted all the ice of that numbed heart.\n\nBeing now no longer embarrassed with a secret, the little hunchback\ncould give greater efficacy to his good offices. Toinette became to him\na sister, for whose wants he had a right to provide. It was the first\ntime since the death of his mother that he had been able to share his\nlife with another. The young woman received his attentions with feeling,\nbut with reserve. All Maurice's efforts were insufficient to dispel her\ngloom: she seemed touched by his kindness, and sometimes expressed her\nsense of it with warmth; but there she stopped. Her heart was a closed\nbook, which the little hunchback might bend over, but could not read. In\ntruth he cared little to do so; he gave himself up to the happiness of\nbeing no longer alone, and took Toinette such as her long trials had\nmade her; he loved her as she was, and wished for nothing else but still\nto enjoy her company.\n\nThis thought insensibly took possession of his mind, to the exclusion\nof all besides. The poor girl was as forlorn as himself; she had become\naccustomed to the deformity of the hunchback, and she seemed to look on\nhim with an affectionate sympathy! What more could he wish for? Until\nthen, the hopes of making himself acceptable to a helpmate had been\nrepelled by Maurice as a dream; but chance seemed willing to make it a\nreality. After much hesitation he took courage, and decided to speak to\nher.\n\nIt was evening; the little hunchback, in much agitation, directed his\nsteps toward the work-woman's garret just as he was about to enter,\nhe thought he heard a strange voice pronouncing the maiden's name.\nHe quickly pushed open the door, and perceived Toinette weeping, and\nleaning on the shoulder of a young man in the dress of a sailor.\n\nAt the sight of my uncle, she disengaged herself quickly, and ran to\nhim, crying out:\n\n\"Ah! come in--come in! It is he that I thought was dead: it is Julien;\nit is my betrothed!\"\n\nMaurice tottered, and drew back. A single word had told him all!\n\nIt seemed to him as if the ground shook and his heart was about to\nbreak; but the same voice that he had heard by his mother's deathbed\nagain sounded in his ears, and he soon recovered himself. God was still\nhis friend!\n\nHe himself accompanied the newly-married pair on the road when they left\nthe town, and, after wishing them all the happiness which was denied to\nhim, he returned with resignation to the old house in the suburb.\n\nIt was there that he ended his life, forsaken by men, but not as he said\nby the Father which is in heaven. He felt His presence everywhere; it\nwas to him in the place of all else. When he died, it was with a smile,\nand like an exile setting out for his own country. He who had consoled\nhim in poverty and ill-health, when he was suffering from injustice and\nforsaken by all, had made death a gain and blessing to him.\n\nEight o'clock.--All I have just written has pained me! Till now I have\nlooked into life for instruction how to live. Is it then true that\nhuman maxims are not always sufficient? that beyond goodness, prudence,\nmoderation, humility, self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth,\nwhich alone can face great misfortunes? and that, if man has need of\nvirtues for others, he has need of religion for himself?\n\nWhen, in youth, we drink our wine with a merry heart, as the Scripture\nexpresses it, we think we are sufficient for ourselves; strong, happy,\nand beloved, we believe, like Ajax, we shall be able to escape every\nstorm in spite of the gods. But later in life, when the back is\nbowed, when happiness proves a fading flower, and the affections grow\nchill-then, in fear of the void and the darkness, we stretch out our\narms, like the child overtaken by night, and we call for help to Him who\nis everywhere.\n\nI was asking this morning why this growing confusion alike for society\nand for the individual? In vain does human reason from hour to hour\nlight some new torch on the roadside: the night continues to grow ever\ndarker! Is it not because we are content to withdraw farther and farther\nfrom God, the Sun of spirits?\n\nBut what do these hermit's reveries signify to the world? The inward\nturmoils of most men are stifled by the outward ones; life does not give\nthem time to question themselves. Have they time to know what they are,\nand what they should be, whose whole thoughts are in the next lease or\nthe last price of stock? Heaven is very high, and wise men look only at\nthe earth.\n\nBut I--poor savage amid all this civilization, who seek neither power\nnor riches, and who have found in my own thoughts the home and shelter\nof my spirit--I can go back with impunity to these recollections of my\nchildhood; and, if this our great city no longer honors the name of\nGod with a festival, I will strive still to keep the feast to Him in my\nheart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THE PRICE OF POWER AND THE WORTH OF FAME\n\nSunday, July 1st\n\nYesterday the month dedicated to Juno (Junius, June) by the Romans\nended. To-day we enter on July.\n\nIn ancient Rome this latter month was called Quintiles (the fifth),\nbecause the year, which was then divided into only ten parts, began in\nMarch. When Numa Pompilius divided it into twelve months this name\nof Quintiles was preserved, as well as those that followed--Sexteles,\nSeptember, October, November, December--although these designations did\nnot accord with the newly arranged order of the months. At last, after\na time the month Quintiles, in which Julius Caesar was born, was called\nJulius, whence we have July. Thus this name, placed in the calendar, is\nbecome the imperishable record of a great man; it is an immortal epitaph\non Time's highway, engraved by the admiration of man.\n\nHow many similar inscriptions are there! Seas, continents, mountains,\nstars, and monuments, have all in succession served the same purpose! We\nhave turned the whole world into a Golden Book, like that in which\nthe state of Venice used to enroll its illustrious names and its great\ndeeds. It seems that mankind feels a necessity for honoring itself in\nits elect ones, and that it raises itself in its own eyes by choosing\nheroes from among its own race. The human family love to preserve\nthe memory; of the parvenus of glory, as we cherish that of a great\nancestor, or of a benefactor.\n\nIn fact, the talents granted to a single individual do not benefit\nhimself alone, but are gifts to the world; everyone shares them, for\neveryone suffers or benefits by his actions. Genius is a lighthouse,\nmeant to give light from afar; the man who bears it is but the rock upon\nwhich this lighthouse is built.\n\nI love to dwell upon these thoughts; they explain to me in what consists\nour admiration for glory. When glory has benefited men, that admiration\nis gratitude; when it is only remarkable in itself, it is the pride\nof race; as men, we love to immortalize the most shining examples of\nhumanity.\n\nWho knows whether we do not obey the same instinct in submitting to the\nhand of power? Apart from the requirements of a gradation of ranks, or\nthe consequences of a conquest, the multitude delight to surround their\nchiefs with privileges--whether it be that their vanity makes them thus\nto aggrandize one of their own creations, or whether they try to conceal\nthe humiliation of subjection by exaggerating the importance of those\nwho rule them. They wish to honor themselves through their master; they\nelevate him on their shoulders as on a pedestal; they surround him\nwith a halo of light, in order that some of it may be reflected upon\nthemselves. It is still the fable of the dog who contents himself with\nthe chain and collar, so that they are of gold.\n\nThis servile vanity is not less natural or less common than the vanity\nof dominion. Whoever feels himself incapable of command, at least\ndesires to obey a powerful chief. Serfs have been known to consider\nthemselves dishonored when they became the property of a mere count\nafter having been that of a prince, and Saint-Simon mentions a valet who\nwould only wait upon marquises.\n\nJuly 7th, seven o'clock P. M.--I have just now been up the Boulevards;\nit was the opera night, and there was a crowd of carriages in the\nRue Lepelletier. The foot-passengers who were stopped at a crossing\nrecognized the persons in some of these as we went by, and mentioned\ntheir names; they were those of celebrated or powerful men, the\nsuccessful ones of the day.\n\nNear me there was a man looking on with hollow cheeks and eager eyes,\nwhose thin black coat was threadbare. He followed with envious looks\nthese possessors of the privileges of power or of fame, and I read on\nhis lips, which curled with a bitter smile, all that passed in his mind.\n\n\"Look at them, the lucky fellows!\" thought he; \"all the pleasures\nof wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are theirs. Their names are\nrenowned, all their wishes fulfilled; they are the sovereigns of the\nworld, either by their intellect or their power; and while I, poor and\nunknown, toil painfully along the road below, they wing their way over\nthe mountain-tops gilded by the broad sunshine of prosperity.\"\n\nI have come home in deep thought. Is it true that there are these\ninequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, but in the happiness of men?\nDo genius and authority really wear life as a crown, while the greater\npart of mankind receive it as a yoke? Is the difference of rank but a\ndifferent use of men's dispositions and talents, or a real inequality\nin their destinies? A solemn question, as it regards the verification of\nGod's impartiality.\n\nJuly 8th, noon.--I went this morning to call upon a friend from the\nsame province as myself, who is the first usher-in-waiting to one of our\nministers. I took him some letters from his family, left for him by a\ntraveller just come from Brittany. He wished me to stay.\n\n\"To-day,\" said he, \"the Minister gives no audience: he takes a day of\nrest with his family. His younger sisters are arrived; he will take them\nthis morning to St. Cloud, and in the evening he has invited his friends\nto a private ball. I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the\nday. We can dine together; read the news while you are waiting for me.\"\n\nI sat down at a table covered with newspapers, all of which I looked\nover by turns. Most of them contained severe criticisms on the last\npolitical acts of the minister; some of them added suspicions as to the\nhonor of the minister himself.\n\nJust as I had finished reading, a secretary came for them to take them\nto his master.\n\nHe was then about to read these accusations, to suffer silently the\nabuse of all those tongues which were holding him up to indignation or\nto scorn! Like the Roman victor in his triumph, he had to endure the\ninsults of him who followed his car, relating to the crowd his follies,\nhis ignorance, or his vices.\n\nBut, among the arrows shot at him from every side, would no one be found\npoisoned? Would not one reach some spot in his heart where the wound\nwould be incurable? What is the worth of a life exposed to the attacks\nof envious hatred or furious conviction? The Christians yielded only the\nfragments of their flesh to the beasts of the amphitheatres; the man in\npower gives up his peace, his affections, his honor, to the cruel bites\nof the pen.\n\nWhile I was musing upon these dangers of greatness, the usher entered\nhastily. Important news had been received: the minister is just summoned\nto the council; he will not be able to take his sisters to St. Cloud.\n\nI saw, through the windows, the young ladies, who were waiting at the\ndoor, sorrowfully go upstairs again, while their brother went off to the\ncouncil. The carriage, which should have gone filled with so much family\nhappiness, is just out of sight, carrying only the cares of a statesman\nin it.\n\nThe usher came back discontented and disappointed. The more or less of\nliberty which he is allowed to enjoy, is his barometer of the political\natmosphere. If he gets leave, all goes well; if he is kept at his\npost, the country is in danger. His opinion on public affairs is but a\ncalculation of his own interest. My friend is almost a statesman.\n\nI had some conversation with him, and he told me several curious\nparticulars of public life.\n\nThe new minister has old friends whose opinions he opposes, though he\nstill retains his personal regard for them. Though separated from them\nby the colors he fights under, they remain united by old associations;\nbut the exigencies of party forbid him to meet them. If their\nintercourse continued, it would awaken suspicion; people would imagine\nthat some dishonorable bargain was going on; his friends would be held\nto be traitors desirous to sell themselves, and he the corrupt minister\nprepared to buy them. He has, therefore, been obliged to break off\nfriendships of twenty years' standing, and to sacrifice attachments\nwhich had become a second nature.\n\nSometimes, however, the minister still gives way to his old feelings; he\nreceives or visits his friends privately; he shuts himself up with\nthem, and talks of the times when they could be open friends. By dint\nof precautions they have hitherto succeeded in concealing this blot of\nfriendship against policy; but sooner or later the newspapers will be\ninformed of it, and will denounce him to the country as an object of\ndistrust.\n\nFor whether hatred be honest or dishonest, it never shrinks from any\naccusation. Sometimes it even proceeds to crime. The usher assured me\nthat several warnings had been given the minister which had made him\nfear the vengeance of an assassin, and that he no longer ventured out on\nfoot.\n\nThen, from one thing to another, I learned what temptations came in to\nmislead or overcome his judgment; how he found himself fatally led\ninto obliquities which he could not but deplore. Misled by passion,\nover-persuaded by entreaties, or compelled for reputation's sake, he has\nmany times held the balance with an unsteady hand. How sad the condition\nof him who is in authority! Not only are the miseries of power imposed\nupon him, but its vices also, which, not content with torturing, succeed\nin corrupting him.\n\nWe prolonged our conversation till it was interrupted by the minister's\nreturn. He threw himself out of the carriage with a handful of papers,\nand with an anxious manner went into his own room. An instant afterward\nhis bell was heard; his secretary was called to send off notices to all\nthose invited for the evening; the ball would not take place; they\nspoke mysteriously of bad news transmitted by the telegraph, and in such\ncircumstances an entertainment would seem to insult the public sorrow.\n\nI took leave of my friend, and here I am at home. What I have just seen\nis an answer to my doubts the other day. Now I know with what pangs men\npay for their dignities; now I understand\n\n     That Fortune sells what we believe she gives.\n\nThis explains to me the reason why Charles V. aspired to the repose of\nthe cloister.\n\nAnd yet I have only glanced at some of the sufferings attached to power.\nWhat shall I say of the falls in which its possessors are precipitated\nfrom the heights of heaven to the very depths of the earth? of that\npath of pain along which they must forever bear the burden of their\nresponsibility? of that chain of decorums and ennuis which encompasses\nevery act of their lives, and leaves them so little liberty?\n\nThe partisans of despotism adhere with reason to forms and ceremonies.\nIf men wish to give unlimited power to their fellow-man, they must keep\nhim separated from ordinary humanity; they must surround him with a\ncontinual worship, and, by a constant ceremonial, keep up for him\nthe superhuman part they have granted him. Our masters cannot remain\nabsolute, except on condition of being treated as idols.\n\nBut, after all, these idols are men, and, if the exclusive life they\nmust lead is an insult to the dignity of others, it is also a torment to\nthemselves. Everyone knows the law of the Spanish court, which used to\nregulate, hour by hour, the actions of the king and queen; \"so that,\"\nsays Voltaire, \"by reading it one can tell all that the sovereigns of\nSpain have done, or will do, from Philip II to the day of judgment.\" It\nwas by this law that Philip III, when sick, was obliged to endure such\nan excess of heat that he died in consequence, because the Duke of\nUzeda, who alone had the right to put out the fire in the royal chamber,\nhappened to be absent.\n\nWhen the wife of Charles II was run away with on a spirited horse, she\nwas about to perish before anyone dared to save her, because etiquette\nforbade them to touch the queen. Two young officers endangered their\nlives for her by stopping the horse. The prayers and tears of her whom\nthey had just snatched from death were necessary to obtain pardon for\ntheir crime. Every one knows the anecdote related by Madame Campan of\nMarie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. One day, being at her toilet, when\nthe chemise was about to be presented to her by one of the assistants,\na lady of very ancient family entered and claimed the honor, as she had\nthe right by etiquette; but, at the moment she was about to fulfil her\nduty, a lady of higher rank appeared, and in her turn took the garment\nshe was about to offer to the queen; when a third lady of still higher\ntitle came in her turn, and was followed by a fourth, who was no other\nthan the king's sister. The chemise was in this manner passed from hand\nto hand, with ceremonies, courtesies, and compliments, before it came\nto the queen, who, half naked and quite ashamed, was shivering with cold\nfor the great honor of etiquette.\n\n12th, seven o'clock, P.M.--On coming home this evening, I saw, standing\nat the door of a house, an old man, whose appearance and features\nreminded me of my father. There was the same beautiful smile, the same\ndeep and penetrating eye, the same noble bearing of the head, and the\nsame careless attitude.\n\nI began living over again the first years of my life, and recalling to\nmyself the conversations of that guide whom God in his mercy had given\nme, and whom in his severity he had too soon withdrawn.\n\nWhen my father spoke, it was not only to bring our two minds together by\nan interchange of thought, but his words always contained instruction.\n\nNot that he endeavored to make me feel it so: my father feared\neverything that had the appearance of a lesson. He used to say that\nvirtue could make herself devoted friends, but she did not take pupils:\ntherefore he was not desirous to teach goodness; he contented himself\nwith sowing the seeds of it, certain that experience would make them\ngrow.\n\nHow often has good grain fallen thus into a corner of the heart, and,\nwhen it has been long forgotten, all at once put forth the blade and\ncome into ear! It is a treasure laid aside in a time of ignorance, and\nwe do not know its value till we find ourselves in need of it.\n\nAmong the stories with which he enlivened our walks or our evenings,\nthere is one which now returns to my memory, doubtless because the time\nis come to derive its lesson from it.\n\nMy father, who was apprenticed at the age of twelve to one of those\ntrading collectors who call themselves naturalists, because they put all\ncreation under glasses that they may sell it by retail, had always led\na life of poverty and labor. Obliged to rise before daybreak, by turns\nshop-boy, clerk, and laborer, he was made to bear alone all the work\nof a trade of which his master reaped all the profits. In truth, this\nlatter had a peculiar talent for making the most of the labor of other\npeople. Though unfit himself for the execution of any kind of work, no\none knew better how to sell it. His words were a net, in which people\nfound themselves taken before they were aware. And since he was devoted\nto himself alone, and looked on the producer as his enemy, and the\nbuyer as prey, he used them both with that obstinate perseverance which\navarice teaches.\n\nMy father was a slave all the week, and could call himself his own only\non Sunday. The master naturalist, who used to spend the day at the house\nof an old female relative, then gave him his liberty on condition that\nhe dined out, and at his own expense. But my father used secretly to\ntake with him a crust of bread, which he hid in his botanizing-box, and,\nleaving Paris as soon as it was day, he would wander far into the valley\nof Montmorency, the wood of Meudon, or among the windings of the\nMarne. Excited by the fresh air, the penetrating perfume of the growing\nvegetation, or the fragrance of the honeysuckles, he would walk on until\nhunger or fatigue made itself felt. Then he would sit under a hedge,\nor by the side of a stream, and would make a rustic feast, by turns\non watercresses, wood strawberries, and blackberries picked from the\nhedges; he would gather a few plants, read a few pages of Florian,\nthen in greatest vogue, of Gessner, who was just translated, or of Jean\nJacques, of whom he possessed three old volumes. The day was thus passed\nalternately in activity and rest, in pursuit and meditation, until the\ndeclining sun warned him to take again the road to Paris, where he would\narrive, his feet torn and dusty, but his mind invigorated for a whole\nweek.\n\nOne day, as he was going toward the wood of Viroflay, he met, close to\nit, a stranger who was occupied in botanizing and in sorting the plants\nhe had just gathered. He was an elderly man with an honest face; but\nhis eyes, which were rather deep-set under his eyebrows, had a somewhat\nuneasy and timid expression. He was dressed in a brown cloth coat,\na gray waistcoat, black breeches, and worsted stockings, and held an\nivory-headed cane under his arm. His appearance was that of a small\nretired tradesman who was living on his means, and rather below the\ngolden mean of Horace.\n\nMy father, who had great respect for age, civilly raised his hat to\nhim as he passed. In doing so, a plant he held fell from his hand; the\nstranger stooped to take it up, and recognized it.\n\n\"It is a Deutaria heptaphyllos,\" said he; \"I have not yet seen any of\nthem in these woods; did you find it near here, sir?\"\n\nMy father replied that it was to be found in abundance on the top of the\nhill, toward Sevres, as well as the great Laserpitium.\n\n\"That, too!\" repeated the old man more briskly. \"Ah! I shall go and look\nfor them; I have gathered them formerly on the hillside of Robaila.\"\n\nMy father proposed to take him. The stranger accepted his proposal with\nthanks, and hastened to collect together the plants he had gathered; but\nall of a sudden he appeared seized with a scruple. He observed to his\ncompanion that the road he was going was halfway up the hill, and led\nin the direction of the castle of the Dames Royales at Bellevue; that by\ngoing to the top he would consequently turn out of his road, and that it\nwas not right he should take this trouble for a stranger.\n\nMy father insisted upon it with his habitual good-nature; but, the more\neagerness he showed, the more obstinately the old man refused; it\neven seemed to my father that his good intention at last excited his\nsuspicion. He therefore contented himself with pointing out the road to\nthe stranger, whom he saluted, and he soon lost sight of him.\n\nMany hours passed by, and he thought no more of the meeting. He had\nreached the copses of Chaville, where, stretched on the ground in a\nmossy glade, he read once more the last volume of Emile. The delight of\nreading it had so completely absorbed him that he had ceased to see or\nhear anything around him. With his cheeks flushed and his eyes moist, he\nrepeated aloud a passage which had particularly affected him.\n\nAn exclamation uttered close by him awoke him from his ecstasy; he\nraised his head, and perceived the tradesman-looking person he had met\nbefore on the crossroad at Viroflay.\n\nHe was loaded with plants, the collection of which seemed to have put\nhim into high good-humor.\n\n\"A thousand thanks, sir,\" said he to my father. \"I have found all that\nyou told me of, and I am indebted to you for a charming walk.\"\n\nMy father respectfully rose, and made a civil reply. The stranger had\ngrown quite familiar, and even asked if his young \"brother botanist\" did\nnot think of returning to Paris. My father replied in the affirmative,\nand opened his tin box to put his book back in it.\n\nThe stranger asked him with a smile if he might without impertinence ask\nthe name of it. My father answered that it was Rousseau's Emile.\n\nThe stranger immediately became grave.\n\nThey walked for some time side by side, my father expressing, with the\nwarmth of a heart still throbbing with emotion, all that this work\nhad made him feel; his companion remaining cold and silent. The former\nextolled the glory of the great Genevese writer, whose genius had made\nhim a citizen of the world; he expatiated on this privilege of great\nthinkers, who reign in spite of time and space, and gather together a\npeople of willing subjects out of all nations; but the stranger suddenly\ninterrupted him:\n\n\"And how do you know,\" said he, mildly, \"whether Jean Jacques would not\nexchange the reputation which you seem to envy for the life of one of\nthe wood-cutters whose chimneys' smoke we see? What has fame brought him\nexcept persecution? The unknown friends whom his books may have made\nfor him content themselves with blessing him in their hearts, while the\ndeclared enemies that they have drawn upon him pursue him with violence\nand calumny! His pride has been flattered by success: how many times has\nit been wounded by satire? And be assured that human pride is like the\nSybarite who was prevented from sleeping by a crease in a roseleaf. The\nactivity of a vigorous mind, by which the world profits, almost always\nturns against him who possesses it. He expects more from it as he grows\nolder; the ideal he pursues continually disgusts him with the actual;\nhe is like a man who, with a too-refined sight, discerns spots and\nblemishes in the most beautiful face. I will not speak of stronger\ntemptations and of deeper downfalls. Genius, you have said, is a\nkingdom; but what virtuous man is not afraid of being a king? He who\nfeels only his great powers, is--with the weaknesses and passions of our\nnature--preparing for great failures. Believe me, sir, the unhappy man\nwho wrote this book is no object of admiration or of envy; but, if you\nhave a feeling heart, pity him!\"\n\nMy father, astonished at the excitement with which his companion\npronounced these last words, did not know what to answer.\n\nJust then they reached the paved road which led from Meudon Castle to\nthat of Versailles; a carriage was passing.\n\nThe ladies who were in it perceived the old man, uttered an exclamation\nof surprise, and leaning out of the window repeated:\n\n\"There is Jean Jacques--there is Rousseau!\"\n\nThen the carriage disappeared in the distance.\n\nMy father remained motionless, confounded, and amazed, his eyes wide\nopen, and his hands clasped.\n\nRousseau, who had shuddered on hearing his name spoken, turned toward\nhim:\n\n\"You see,\" said he, with the bitter misanthropy which his later\nmisfortunes had produced in him, \"Jean Jacques cannot even hide himself:\nhe is an object of curiosity to some, of malignity to others, and to all\nhe is a public thing, at which they point the finger. It would signify\nless if he had only to submit to the impertinence of the idle; but, as\nsoon as a man has had the misfortune to make himself a name, he becomes\npublic property. Every one rakes into his life, relates his most trivial\nactions, and insults his feelings; he becomes like those walls, which\nevery passer-by may deface with some abusive writing. Perhaps you\nwill say that I have myself encouraged this curiosity by publishing my\nConfessions. But the world forced me to it. They looked into my house\nthrough the blinds, and they slandered me; I have opened the doors and\nwindows, so that they should at least know me such as I am. Adieu, sir.\nWhenever you wish to know the worth of fame, remember that you have seen\nRousseau.\"\n\nNine o'clock.--Ah! now I understand my father's story! It contains the\nanswer to one of the questions I asked myself a week ago. Yes, I now\nfeel that fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought; and that,\nwhen they dazzle the soul, both are oftenest, as Madame de Stael says,\nbut 'un deuil eclatant de bonheur!\n\n          'Tis better to be lowly born,\n          And range with humble livers in content,\n          Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,\n          And wear a golden sorrow.\n\n          [Henry VIII., Act II., Scene 3.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. MISANTHROPY AND REPENTANCE\n\nAugust 3d, Nine O'clock P.M.\n\nThere are days when everything appears gloomy to us; the world, like the\nsky, is covered by a dark fog. Nothing seems in its place; we see only\nmisery, improvidence, and cruelty; the world seems without God, and\ngiven up to all the evils of chance.\n\nYesterday I was in this unhappy humor. After a long walk in the\nfaubourgs, I returned home, sad and dispirited.\n\nEverything I had seen seemed to accuse the civilization of which we are\nso proud! I had wandered into a little by-street, with which I was not\nacquainted, and I found myself suddenly in the middle of those dreadful\nabodes where the poor are born, to languish and die. I looked at those\ndecaying walls, which time has covered with a foul leprosy; those\nwindows, from which dirty rags hang out to dry; those fetid gutters,\nwhich coil along the fronts of the houses like venomous reptiles! I felt\noppressed with grief, and hastened on.\n\nA little farther on I was stopped by the hearse of a hospital; a dead\nman, nailed down in his deal coffin, was going to his last abode,\nwithout funeral pomp or ceremony, and without followers. There was not\nhere even that last friend of the outcast--the dog, which a painter has\nintroduced as the sole attendant at the pauper's burial! He whom they\nwere preparing to commit to the earth was going to the tomb, as he had\nlived, alone; doubtless no one would be aware of his end. In this battle\nof society, what signifies a soldier the less?\n\nBut what, then, is this human society, if one of its members can thus\ndisappear like a leaf carried away by the wind?\n\nThe hospital was near a barrack, at the entrance of which old men,\nwomen, and children were quarrelling for the remains of the coarse\nbread which the soldiers had given them in charity! Thus, beings like\nourselves daily wait in destitution on our compassion till we give\nthem leave to live! Whole troops of outcasts, in addition to the trials\nimposed on all God's children, have to endure the pangs of cold, hunger,\nand humiliation. Unhappy human commonwealth! Where man is in a worse\ncondition than the bee in its hive, or the ant in its subterranean city!\n\nAh! what then avails our reason? What is the use of so many high\nfaculties, if we are neither the wiser nor the happier for them? Which\nof us would not exchange his life of labor and trouble with that of the\nbirds of the air, to whom the whole world is a life of joy?\n\nHow well I understand the complaint of Mao, in the popular tales of the\n'Foyer Breton' who, when dying of hunger and thirst, says, as he looks\nat the bullfinches rifling the fruit-trees:\n\n\"Alas! those birds are happier than Christians; they have no need of\ninns, or butchers, or bakers, or gardeners. God's heaven belongs to\nthem, and earth spreads a continual feast before them! The tiny flies\nare their game, ripe grass their cornfields, and hips and haws their\nstore of fruit. They have the right of taking everywhere, without paying\nor asking leave: thus comes it that the little birds are happy, and sing\nall the livelong day!\"\n\nBut the life of man in a natural state is like that of the birds; he\nequally enjoys nature. \"The earth spreads a continual feast before him.\"\nWhat, then, has he gained by that selfish and imperfect association\nwhich forms a nation? Would it not be better for every one to turn again\nto the fertile bosom of nature, and live there upon her bounty in peace\nand liberty?\n\nAugust 20th, four o'clock A.M.--The dawn casts a red glow on my\nbed-curtains; the breeze brings in the fragrance of the gardens below.\nHere I am again leaning on my elbows by the windows, inhaling the\nfreshness and gladness of this first wakening of the day.\n\nMy eye always passes over the roofs filled with flowers, warbling, and\nsunlight, with the same pleasure; but to-day it stops at the end of a\nbuttress which separates our house from the next.\n\nThe storms have stripped the top of its plaster covering, and dust\ncarried by the wind has collected in the crevices, and, being fixed\nthere by the rain, has formed a sort of aerial terrace, where some green\ngrass has sprung up. Among it rises a stalk of wheat, which to-day is\nsurmounted by a sickly ear that droops its yellow head.\n\nThis poor stray crop on the roofs, the harvest of which will fall to the\nneighboring sparrows, has carried my thoughts to the rich crops which\nare now falling beneath the sickle; it has recalled to me the\nbeautiful walks I took as a child through my native province, when the\nthreshing-floors at the farmhouses resounded from every part with the\nsound of a flail, and when the carts, loaded with golden sheaves, came\nin by all the roads. I still remember the songs of the maidens, the\ncheerfulness of the old men, the open-hearted merriment of the laborers.\nThere was, at that time, something in their looks both of pride and\nfeeling. The latter came from thankfulness to God, the former from the\nsight of the harvest, the reward of their labor. They felt indistinctly\nthe grandeur and the holiness of their part in the general work of the\nworld; they looked with pride upon their mountains of corn-sheaves, and\nthey seemed to say, Next to God, it is we who feed the world!\n\nWhat a wonderful order there is in all human labor!\n\nWhile the husbandman furrows his land, and prepares for every one his\ndaily bread, the town artizan, far away, weaves the stuff in which he\nis to be clothed; the miner seeks underground the iron for his plow; the\nsoldier defends him against the invader; the judge takes care that\nthe law protects his fields; the tax-comptroller adjusts his private\ninterests with those of the public; the merchant occupies himself in\nexchanging his products with those of distant countries; the men of\nscience and of art add every day a few horses to this ideal team, which\ndraws along the material world, as steam impels the gigantic trains of\nour iron roads! Thus all unite together, all help one another; the\ntoil of each one benefits himself and all the world; the work has been\napportioned among the different members of the whole of society by a\ntacit agreement. If, in this apportionment, errors are committed,\nif certain individuals have not been employed according to their\ncapacities, those defects of detail diminish in the sublime conception\nof the whole. The poorest man included in this association has his\nplace, his work, his reason for being there; each is something in the\nwhole.\n\nThere is nothing like this for man in the state of nature. As he depends\nonly upon himself, it is necessary that he be sufficient for everything.\nAll creation is his property; but he finds in it as many hindrances as\nhelps. He must surmount these obstacles with the single strength that\nGod has given him; he cannot reckon on any other aid than chance and\nopportunity. No one reaps, manufactures, fights, or thinks for him; he\nis nothing to any one. He is a unit multiplied by the cipher of his own\nsingle powers; while the civilized man is a unit multiplied by the whole\nof society.\n\nBut, notwithstanding this, the other day, disgusted by the sight of some\nvices in detail, I cursed the latter, and almost envied the life of the\nsavage.\n\nOne of the infirmities of our nature is always to mistake feeling for\nevidence, and to judge of the season by a cloud or a ray of sunshine.\n\nWas the misery, the sight of which made me regret a savage life, really\nthe effect of civilization? Must we accuse society of having created\nthese evils, or acknowledge, on the contrary, that it has alleviated\nthem? Could the women and children, who were receiving the coarse bread\nfrom the soldier, hope in the desert for more help or pity? That dead\nman, whose forsaken state I deplored, had he not found, by the cares of\na hospital, a coffin and the humble grave where he was about to rest?\nAlone, and far from men, he would have died like the wild beast in his\nden, and would now be serving as food for vultures! These benefits of\nhuman society are shared, then, by the most destitute. Whoever eats the\nbread that another has reaped and kneaded, is under an obligation to his\nbrother, and cannot say he owes him nothing in return. The poorest of us\nhas received from society much more than his own single strength would\nhave permitted him to wrest from nature.\n\nBut cannot society give us more? Who doubts it? Errors have been\ncommitted in this distribution of tasks and workers. Time will diminish\nthe number of them; with new lights a better division will arise; the\nelements of society go on toward perfection, like everything else. The\ndifficulty is to know how to adapt ourselves to the slow step of time,\nwhose progress can never be forced on without danger.\n\nAugust 14th, six o'clock A.M.--My garret window rises upon the roof like\na massive watch-tower. The corners are covered by large sheets of lead,\nwhich run into the tiles; the successive action of cold and heat has\nmade them rise, and so a crevice has been formed in an angle on the\nright side. There a sparrow has built her nest.\n\nI have followed the progress of this aerial habitation from the first\nday. I have seen the bird successively bring the straw, moss, and wool\ndesigned for the construction of her abode; and I have admired the\npersevering skill she expended in this difficult work. At first, my new\nneighbor spent her days in fluttering over the poplar in the garden, and\nin chirping along the gutters; a fine lady's life seemed the only one to\nsuit her. Then all of a sudden, the necessity of preparing a shelter\nfor her brood transformed our idler into a worker; she no longer gave\nherself either rest or relaxation. I saw her always either flying,\nfetching, or carrying; neither rain nor sun stopped her. A striking\nexample of the power of necessity! We are indebted to it not only for\nmost of our talents, but for many of our virtues!\n\nIs it not necessity that has given the people of less favored climates\nthat constant activity which has placed them so quickly at the head of\nnations? As they are deprived of most of the gifts of nature, they\nhave supplied them by their industry; necessity has sharpened their\nunderstanding, endurance awakened their foresight. While elsewhere man,\nwarmed by an ever brilliant sun, and loaded with the bounties of the\nearth, was remaining poor, ignorant, and naked, in the midst of gifts he\ndid not attempt to explore, here he was forced by necessity to wrest his\nfood from the ground, to build habitations to defend himself from the\nintemperance of the weather, and to warm his body by clothing himself\nwith the wool of animals. Work makes him both more intelligent and more\nrobust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the ladder of\ncreation, while those more favored by nature remain on the step nearest\nto the brutes.\n\nI made these reflections while looking at the bird, whose instinct\nseemed to have become more acute since she had been occupied in work.\nAt last the nest was finished; she set up her household there, and I\nfollowed her through all the phases of her new existence.\n\nWhen she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were hatched, she fed\nthem with the most attentive care. The corner of my window had become\na stage of moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to take\nlessons from. The little ones soon became large, and this morning I have\nseen them take their first flight. One of them, weaker than the others,\nwas not able to clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter.\nI caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again on the tile in\nfront of his house, but the mother has not noticed him. Once freed from\nthe cares of a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the\ntrees and along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my window, to\ntake from her every excuse for fear; in vain the feeble little bird\nhas called to her with plaintive cries; his bad mother has passed by,\nsinging and fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. Once only the\nfather came near; he looked at his offspring with contempt, and then\ndisappeared, never to return!\n\nI crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but he did not know how\nto peck it with his bill. I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the\nforsaken nest. What will become of him there, if his mother does not\ncome back!\n\nAugust 15th, six o'clock.--This morning, on opening my window, I found\nthe little bird dying upon the tiles; his wounds showed me that he had\nbeen driven from the nest by his unworthy mother. I tried in vain to\nwarm him again with my breath; I felt the last pulsations of life; his\neyes were already closed, and his wings hung down! I placed him on the\nroof in a ray of sunshine, and I closed my window. The struggle of life\nagainst death has always something gloomy in it: it is a warning to us.\n\nHappily I hear some one in the passage; without doubt it is my old\nneighbor; his conversation will distract my thoughts.\n\nIt was my portress. Excellent woman! She wished me to read a letter from\nher son the sailor, and begged me to answer it for her.\n\nI kept it, to copy it in my journal. Here it is:\n\n   \"DEAR MOTHER: This is to tell you that I have been very well ever\n   since the last time, except that last week I was nearly drowned with\n   the boat, which would have been a great loss, as there is not a\n   better craft anywhere.\n\n   \"A gust of wind capsized us; and just as I came up above water, I\n   saw the captain sinking. I went after him, as was my duty, and,\n   after diving three times, I brought him to the surface, which\n   pleased him much; for when we were hoisted on board, and he had\n   recovered his senses, he threw his arms round my neck, as he would\n   have done to an officer.\n\n   \"I do not hide from you, dear mother, that this has delighted me.\n   But it isn't all; it seems that fishing up the captain has reminded\n   them that I had a good character, and they have just told me that I\n   am promoted to be a sailor of the first class! Directly I knew it,\n   I cried out, 'My mother shall have coffee twice a day!' And really,\n   dear mother, there is nothing now to hinder you, as I shall now have\n   a larger allowance to send you.\n\n   \"I include by begging you to take care of yourself if you wish to do\n   me good; for nothing makes me feel so well as to think that you want\n   for nothing.\n\n   \"Your son, from the bottom of my heart,\n\n                         \"JACQUES.\"\n\nThis is the answer that the portress dictated to me:\n\n   \"MY GOOD JACQUOT: It makes me very happy to see that your heart is\n   still as true as ever, and that you will never shame those who have\n   brought you up. I need not tell you to take care of your life,\n   because you know it is the same as my own, and that without you,\n   dear child, I should wish for nothing but the grave; but we are not\n   bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty.\n\n   \"Do not fear for my health, good Jacques; I was never better! I do\n   not grow old at all, for fear of making you unhappy. I want\n   nothing, and I live like a lady. I even had some money over this\n   year, and as my drawers shut very badly, I put it into the savings'\n   bank, where I have opened an account in your name. So, when you\n   come back, you will find yourself with an income. I have also\n   furnished your chest with new linen, and I have knitted you three\n   new sea-jackets.\n\n   \"All your friends are well. Your cousin is just dead, leaving his\n   widow in difficulties. I gave her your thirty francs' remittance\n   and said that you had sent it her; and the poor woman remembers you\n   day and night in her prayers. So, you see, I have put that money in\n   another sort of savings' bank; but there it is our hearts that get\n   the interest.\n\n   \"Good-bye, dear Jacquot. Write to me often, and always remember the\n   good God, and your old mother,\n\n                    \"PHROSINE MILLOT.\"\n\nGood son, and worthy mother! how such examples bring us back to a love\nfor the human race! In a fit of fanciful misanthropy, we may envy the\nfate of the savage, and prefer that of the bird to such as he; but\nimpartial observation soon does justice to such paradoxes. We find, on\nexamination, that in the mixed good and evil of human nature, the good\nso far abounds that we are not in the habit of noticing it, while the\nevil strikes us precisely on account of its being the exception. If\nnothing is perfect, nothing is so bad as to be without its compensation\nor its remedy. What spiritual riches are there in the midst of the evils\nof society! how much does the moral world redeem the material!\n\nThat which will ever distinguish man from the rest of creation, is his\npower of deliberate affection and of enduring self-sacrifice. The mother\nwho took care of her brood in the corner of my window devoted to\nthem the necessary time for accomplishing the laws which insure the\npreservation of her kind; but she obeyed an instinct, and not a\nrational choice. When she had accomplished the mission appointed her\nby Providence, she cast off the duty as we get rid of a burden, and\nshe returned again to her selfish liberty. The other mother, on the\ncontrary, will go on with her task as long as God shall leave her here\nbelow: the life of her son will still remain, so to speak, joined to her\nown; and when she disappears from the earth, she will leave there that\npart of herself.\n\nThus, the affections make for our species an existence separate from\nall the rest of creation. Thanks to them, we enjoy a sort of terrestrial\nimmortality; and if other beings succeed one another, man alone\nperpetuates himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT\n\nSeptember 15th, Eight O'clock\n\nThis morning, while I was arranging my books, Mother Genevieve came in,\nand brought me the basket of fruit I buy of her every Sunday. For the\nnearly twenty years that I have lived in this quarter, I have dealt in\nher little fruit-shop. Perhaps I should be better served elsewhere, but\nMother Genevieve has but little custom; to leave her would do her harm,\nand cause her unnecessary pain. It seems to me that the length of our\nacquaintance has made me incur a sort of tacit obligation to her; my\npatronage has become her property.\n\nShe has put the basket upon my table, and as I want her husband, who is\na joiner, to add some shelves to my bookcase, she has gone downstairs\nagain immediately to send him to me.\n\nAt first I did not notice either her looks or the sound of her voice:\nbut, now that I recall them, it seems to me that she was not as jovial\nas usual. Can Mother Genevieve be in trouble about anything?\n\nPoor woman! All her best years were subject to such bitter trials, that\nshe might think she had received her full share already. Were I to live\na hundred years, I should never forget the circumstances which made her\nknown to me, and which obtained for her my respect.\n\nIt was at the time of my first settling in the faubourg. I had noticed\nher empty fruit-shop, which nobody came into, and, being attracted by\nits forsaken appearance, I made my little purchases in it. I have always\ninstinctively preferred the poor shops; there is less choice in them,\nbut it seems to me that my purchase is a sign of sympathy with a brother\nin poverty. These little dealings are almost always an anchor of hope\nto those whose very existence is in peril--the only means by which some\norphan gains a livelihood. There the aim of the tradesman is not to\nenrich himself, but to live! The purchase you make of him is more than\nan exchange--it is a good action.\n\nMother Genevieve at that time was still young, but had already lost that\nfresh bloom of youth which suffering causes to wither so soon among\nthe poor. Her husband, a clever joiner, gradually left off working to\nbecome, according to the picturesque expression of the workshops, a\nworshipper of Saint Monday. The wages of the week, which was always\nreduced to two or three working days, were completely dedicated by him\nto the worship of this god of the Barriers,--[The cheap wine shops are\noutside the Barriers, to avoid the octroi, or municipal excise.]--and\nGenevieve was obliged herself to provide for all the wants of the\nhousehold.\n\nOne evening, when I went to make some trifling purchases of her, I\nheard a sound of quarrelling in the back shop. There were the voices of\nseveral women, among which I distinguished that of Genevieve, broken by\nsobs. On looking farther in, I perceived the fruit-woman holding a child\nin her arms, and kissing it, while a country nurse seemed to be claiming\nher wages from her. The poor woman, who without doubt had exhausted\nevery explanation and every excuse, was crying in silence, and one of\nher neighbors was trying in vain to appease the countrywoman. Excited by\nthat love of money which the evils of a hard peasant life but too well\nexcuse, and disappointed by the refusal of her expected wages, the nurse\nwas launching forth in recriminations, threats, and abuse. In spite\nof myself, I listened to the quarrel, not daring to interfere, and not\nthinking of going away, when Michael Arout appeared at the shop-door.\n\nThe joiner had just come from the Barriers, where he had passed part of\nthe day at a public-house. His blouse, without a belt, and untied at the\nthroat, showed none of the noble stains of work: in his hand he held\nhis cap, which he had just picked up out of the mud; his hair was in\ndisorder, his eye fixed, and the pallor of drunkenness in his face. He\ncame reeling in, looked wildly around him, and called Genevieve.\n\nShe heard his voice, gave a start, and rushed into the shop; but at the\nsight of the miserable man, who was trying in vain to steady himself,\nshe pressed the child in her arms, and bent over it with tears.\n\nThe countrywoman and the neighbor had followed her.\n\n\"Come! come!\" cried the former in a rage, \"do you intend to pay me,\nafter all?\"\n\n\"Ask the master for the money,\" ironically answered the woman from\nthe next door, pointing to the joiner, who had just fallen against the\ncounter.\n\nThe countrywoman looked at him.\n\n\"Ah! he is the father,\" returned she. \"Well, what idle beggars! not to\nhave a penny to pay honest people; and get tipsy with wine in that way.\"\n\nThe drunkard raised his head.\n\n\"What! what!\" stammered he; \"who is it that talks of wine? I've had\nnothing but brandy! But I am going back again to get some wine! Wife,\ngive me your money; there are some friends waiting for me at the 'Pere\nla Tuille'.\"\n\nGenevieve did not answer: he went round the counter, opened the till,\nand began to rummage in it.\n\n\"You see where the money of the house goes!\" observed the neighbor to\nthe countrywoman; \"how can the poor unhappy woman pay you when he takes\nall?\"\n\n\"Is that my fault?\" replied the nurse, angrily. \"They owe to me, and\nsomehow or other they must pay me!\"\n\nAnd letting loose her tongue, as these women out of the country do, she\nbegan relating at length all the care she had taken of the child, and\nall the expense it had been to her. In proportion as she recalled all\nshe had done, her words seemed to convince her more than ever of her\nrights, and to increase her anger. The poor mother, who no doubt feared\nthat her violence would frighten the child, returned into the back shop,\nand put it into its cradle.\n\nWhether it is that the countrywoman saw in this act a determination to\nescape her claims, or that she was blinded by passion, I cannot say; but\nshe rushed into the next room, where I heard the sounds of quarrelling,\nwith which the cries of the child were soon mingled. The joiner, who was\nstill rummaging in the till, was startled, and raised his head.\n\nAt the same moment Genevieve appeared at the door, holding in her arms\nthe baby that the countrywoman was trying to tear from her. She ran\ntoward the counter, and throwing herself behind her husband, cried:\n\n\"Michael, defend your son!\"\n\nThe drunken man quickly stood up erect, like one who awakes with a\nstart.\n\n\"My son!\" stammered he; \"what son?\"\n\nHis looks fell upon the child; a vague ray of intelligence passed over\nhis features.\n\n\"Robert,\" resumed he; \"it is Robert!\"\n\nHe tried to steady himself on his feet, that he might take the baby, but\nhe tottered. The nurse approached him in a rage.\n\n\"My money, or I shall take the child away!\" cried she. \"It is I who have\nfed and brought it up: if you don't pay me for what has made it live, it\nought to be the same to you as if it were dead. I shall not go until I\nhave my due, or the baby.\"\n\n\"And what would you do with him?\" murmured Genevieve, pressing Robert\nagainst her bosom.\n\n\"Take it to the Foundling!\" replied the countrywoman, harshly; \"the\nhospital is a better mother than you are, for it pays for the food of\nits little ones.\"\n\nAt the word \"Foundling,\" Genevieve had exclaimed aloud in horror. With\nher arms wound round her son, whose head she hid in her bosom, and her\ntwo hands spread over him, she had retreated to the wall, and remained\nwith her back against it, like a lioness defending her young. The\nneighbor and I contemplated this scene, without knowing how we could\ninterfere. As for Michael, he looked at us by turns, making a visible\neffort to comprehend it all. When his eye rested upon Genevieve and the\nchild, it lit up with a gleam of pleasure; but when he turned toward us,\nhe again became stupid and hesitating.\n\nAt last, apparently making a prodigious effort, he cried out, \"Wait!\"\n\nAnd going to a tub filled with water, he plunged his face into it\nseveral times.\n\nEvery eye was turned upon him; the countrywoman herself seemed\nastonished. At length he raised his dripping head. This ablution had\npartly dispelled his drunkenness; he looked at us for a moment, then he\nturned to Genevieve, and his face brightened up.\n\n\"Robert!\" cried he, going up to the child, and taking him in his arms.\n\"Ah! give him me, wife; I must look at him.\"\n\nThe mother seemed to give up his son to him with reluctance, and stayed\nbefore him with her arms extended, as if she feared the child would\nhave a fall. The nurse began again in her turn to speak, and renewed\nher claims, this time threatening to appeal to law. At first Michael\nlistened to her attentively, and when he comprehended her meaning, he\ngave the child back to its mother.\n\n\"How much do we owe you?\" asked he.\n\nThe countrywoman began to reckon up the different expenses, which\namounted to nearly thirty francs. The joiner felt to the bottom of\nhis pockets, but could find nothing. His forehead became contracted by\nfrowns; low curses began to escape him. All of a sudden he rummaged in\nhis breast, drew forth a large watch, and holding it up above his head:\n\n\"Here it is--here's your money!\" cried he with a joyful laugh; \"a watch,\na good one! I always said it would keep for a drink on a dry day; but it\nis not I who will drink it, but the young one. Ah! ah! ah! go and sell\nit for me, neighbor, and if that is not enough, I have my earrings.\nEh! Genevieve, take them off for me; the earrings will square all! They\nshall not say you have been disgraced on account of the child--no, not\neven if I must pledge a bit of my flesh! My watch, my earrings, and my\nring--get rid of all of them for me at the goldsmith's; pay the woman,\nand let the little fool go to sleep. Give him me, Genevieve; I will put\nhim to bed.\"\n\nAnd, taking the baby from the arms of his mother, he carried him with a\nfirm step to his cradle.\n\nIt was easy to perceive the change which took place in Michael from\nthis day. He cut all his old drinking acquaintances. He went early every\nmorning to his work, and returned regularly in the evening to finish the\nday with Genevieve and Robert. Very soon he would not leave them at all,\nand he hired a place near the fruit-shop, and worked in it on his own\naccount.\n\nThey would soon have been able to live in comfort, had it not been for\nthe expenses which the child required. Everything was given up to his\neducation. He had gone through the regular school training, had studied\nmathematics, drawing, and the carpenter's trade, and had only begun to\nwork a few months ago. Till now, they had been exhausting every resource\nwhich their laborious industry could provide to push him forward in his\nbusiness; and, happily, all these exertions had not proved useless: the\nseed had brought forth fruit, and the days of harvest were close by.\n\nWhile I was thus recalling these remembrances to my mind, Michael had\ncome in, and was occupied in fixing shelves where they were wanted.\n\nDuring the time I was writing the notes of my journal, I was also\nscrutinizing the joiner.\n\nThe excesses of his youth and the labor of his manhood have deeply\nmarked his face; his hair is thin and gray, his shoulders stoop, his\nlegs are shrunken and slightly bent. There seems a sort of weight in\nhis whole being. His very features have an expression of sorrow and\ndespondency. He answers my questions by monosyllables, and like a man\nwho wishes to avoid conversation. Whence comes this dejection, when one\nwould think he had all he could wish for? I should like to know!\n\nTen o'clock.--Michael is just gone downstairs to look for a tool he has\nforgotten. I have at last succeeded in drawing from him the secret of\nhis and Genevieve's sorrow. Their son Robert is the cause of it!\n\nNot that he has turned out ill after all their care--not that he is\nidle or dissipated; but both were in hopes he would never leave them any\nmore. The presence of the young man was to have renewed and made glad\ntheir lives once more; his mother counted the days, his father prepared\neverything to receive their dear associate in their toils; and at the\nmoment when they were thus about to be repaid for all their sacrifices,\nRobert had suddenly informed them that he had just engaged himself to a\ncontractor at Versailles.\n\nEvery remonstrance and every prayer were useless; he brought forward\nthe necessity of initiating himself into all the details of an important\ncontract, the facilities he should have in his new position of improving\nhimself in his trade, and the hopes he had of turning his knowledge\nto advantage. At, last, when his mother, having come to the end of her\narguments, began to cry, he hastily kissed her, and went away that he\nmight avoid any further remonstrances.\n\nHe had been absent a year, and there was nothing to give them hopes of\nhis return. His parents hardly saw him once a month, and then he only\nstayed a few moments with them.\n\n\"I have been punished where I had hoped to be rewarded,\" Michael said to\nme just now. \"I had wished for a saving and industrious son, and God has\ngiven me an ambitious and avaricious one! I had always said to myself\nthat when once he was grown up we should have him always with us,\nto recall our youth and to enliven our hearts. His mother was always\nthinking of getting him married, and having children again to care for.\nYou know women always will busy themselves about others. As for me, I\nthought of him working near my bench, and singing his new songs; for he\nhas learnt music, and is one of the best singers at the Orpheon.\n\n\"A dream, sir, truly! Directly the bird was fledged, he took to flight,\nand remembers neither father nor mother. Yesterday, for instance, was\nthe day we expected him; he should have come to supper with us. No\nRobert to-day, either! He has had some plan to finish, or some bargain\nto arrange, and his old parents are put down last in the accounts, after\nthe customers and the joiner's work. Ah! if I could have guessed how it\nwould have turned out! Fool! to have sacrificed my likings and my money,\nfor nearly twenty years, to the education of a thankless son! Was it\nfor this I took the trouble to cure myself of drinking, to break with\nmy friends, to become an example to the neighborhood? The jovial good\nfellow has made a goose of himself. Oh! if I had to begin again! No, no!\nyou see women and children are our bane. They soften our hearts; they\nlead us a life of hope and affection; we pass a quarter of our lives in\nfostering the growth of a grain of corn which is to be everything to us\nin our old age, and when the harvest-time comes--good-night, the ear is\nempty!\"\n\nWhile he was speaking, Michael's voice became hoarse, his eyes fierce,\nand his lips quivered. I wished to answer him, but I could only think of\ncommonplace consolations, and I remained silent. The joiner pretended he\nneeded a tool, and left me.\n\nPoor father! Ah! I know those moments of temptation when virtue has\nfailed to reward us, and we regret having obeyed her! Who has not felt\nthis weakness in hours of trial, and who has not uttered, at least once,\nthe mournful exclamation of Brutus?\n\nBut if virtue is only a word, what is there then in life that is true\nand real? No, I will not believe that goodness is in vain! It does not\nalways give the happiness we had hoped for, but it brings some other. In\nthe world everything is ruled by order, and has its proper and necessary\nconsequences, and virtue cannot be the sole exception to the general\nlaw. If it had been prejudicial to those who practised it, experience\nwould have avenged them; but experience has, on the contrary, made it\nmore universal and more holy. We only accuse it of being a faithless\ndebtor because we demand an immediate payment, and one apparent to our\nsenses. We always consider life as a fairytale, in which every good\naction must be rewarded by a visible wonder. We do not accept as payment\na peaceful conscience, self-content, or a good name among men--treasures\nthat are more precious than any other, but the value of which we do not\nfeel till after we have lost them!\n\nMichael is come back, and has returned to his work. His son has not yet\narrived.\n\nBy telling me of his hopes and his grievous disappointments, he became\nexcited; he unceasingly went over again the same subject, always adding\nsomething to his griefs. He had just wound up his confidential discourse\nby speaking to me of a joiner's business which he had hoped to buy, and\nwork to good account with Robert's help. The present owner had made a\nfortune by it, and, after thirty years of business, he was thinking of\nretiring to one of the ornamental cottages in the outskirts of the city,\na usual retreat for the frugal and successful workingman. Michael had\nnot indeed the two thousand francs which must be paid down; but perhaps\nhe could have persuaded Master Benoit to wait. Robert's presence would\nhave been a security for him, for the young man could not fail to insure\nthe prosperity of a workshop; besides science and skill, he had the\npower of invention and bringing to perfection. His father had discovered\namong his drawings a new plan for a staircase, which had occupied his\nthoughts for a long time; and he even suspected him of having engaged\nhimself to the Versailles contractor for the very purpose of executing\nit. The youth was tormented by this spirit of invention, which took\npossession of all his thoughts, and, while devoting his mind to study,\nhe had no time to listen to his feelings.\n\nMichael told me all this with a mixed feeling of pride and vexation. I\nsaw he was proud of the son he was abusing, and that his very pride made\nhim more sensitive to that son's neglect.\n\nSix o'clock P.M.--I have just finished a happy day. How many events\nhave happened within a few hours, and what a change for Genevieve and\nMichael!\n\nHe had just finished fixing the shelves, and telling me of his son,\nwhile I laid the cloth for my breakfast.\n\nSuddenly we heard hurried steps in the passage, the door opened, and\nGenevieve entered with Robert.\n\nThe joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but he repressed it\nimmediately, as if he wished to keep up the appearance of displeasure.\n\nThe young man did not appear to notice it, but threw himself into his\narms in an open-hearted manner, which surprised me. Genevieve, whose\nface shone with happiness, seemed to wish to speak, and to restrain\nherself with difficulty.\n\nI told Robert I was glad to see him, and he answered me with ease and\ncivility.\n\n\"I expected you yesterday,\" said Michael Arout, rather dryly.\n\n\"Forgive me, father,\" replied the young workman, \"but I had business at\nSt. Germain's. I was not able to come back till it was very late, and\nthen the master kept me.\"\n\nThe joiner looked at his son sidewise, and then took up his hammer\nagain.\n\n\"All right,\" muttered he, in a grumbling tone; \"when we are with other\npeople we must do as they wish; but there are some who would like better\nto eat brown bread with their own knife than partridges with the silver\nfork of a master.\"\n\n\"And I am one of those, father,\" replied Robert, merrily, \"but, as the\nproverb says, 'you must shell the peas before you can eat them.' It was\nnecessary that I should first work in a great workshop--\"\n\n\"To go on with your plan of the staircase,\" interrupted Michael,\nironically.\n\n\"You must now say Monsieur Raymond's plan, father,\" replied Robert,\nsmiling.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I have sold it to him.\"\n\nThe joiner, who was planing a board, turned round quickly.\n\n\"Sold it!\" cried he, with sparkling eyes.\n\n\"For the reason that I was not rich enough to give it him.\"\n\nMichael threw down the board and tool.\n\n\"There he is again!\" resumed he, angrily; \"his good genius puts an idea\ninto his head which would have made him known, and he goes and sells it\nto a rich man, who will take the honor of it himself.\"\n\n\"Well, what harm is there done?\" asked Genevieve.\n\n\"What harm!\" cried the joiner, in a passion. \"You understand nothing\nabout it--you are a woman; but he--he knows well that a true workman\nnever gives up his own inventions for money, no more than a soldier\nwould give up his cross. That is his glory; he is bound to keep it for\nthe honor it does him! Ah, thunder! if I had ever made a discovery,\nrather than put it up at auction I would have sold one of my eyes! Don't\nyou see that a new invention is like a child to a workman? He takes care\nof it, he brings it up, he makes a way for it in the world, and it is\nonly a poor creature who sells it.\"\n\nRobert colored a little.\n\n\"You will think differently, father,\" said he, \"when you know why I sold\nmy plan.\"\n\n\"Yes, and you will thank him for it,\" added Genevieve, who could no\nlonger keep silence.\n\n\"Never!\" replied Michael.\n\n\"But, wretched man!\" cried she, \"he sold it only for our sakes!\"\n\nThe joiner looked at his wife and son with astonishment. It was\nnecessary to come to an explanation. The latter related how he had\nentered into a negotiation with Master Benoit, who had positively\nrefused to sell his business unless one half of the two thousand francs\nwere first paid down. It was in the hopes of obtaining this sum that\nhe had gone to work with the contractor at Versailles; he had had an\nopportunity of trying his invention, and of finding a purchaser. Thanks\nto the money he received for it, he had just concluded the bargain with\nBenoit, and had brought his father the key of the new work-yard.\n\nThis explanation was given by the young workman with so much modesty\nand simplicity that I was quite affected by it. Genevieve cried; Michael\npressed his son to his heart, and in a long embrace he seemed to ask his\npardon for having unjustly accused him.\n\nAll was now explained with honor to Robert. The conduct which his\nparents had ascribed to indifference really sprang from affection; he\nhad neither obeyed the voice of ambition nor of avarice, nor even the\nnobler inspiration of inventive genius: his whole motive and single aim\nhad been the happiness of Genevieve and Michael. The day for proving his\ngratitude had come, and he had returned them sacrifice for sacrifice!\n\nAfter the explanations and exclamations of joy were over, all three were\nabout to leave me; but, the cloth being laid, I added three more places,\nand kept them to breakfast.\n\nThe meal was prolonged: the fare was only tolerable; but the\nover-flowings of affection made it delicious. Never had I better\nunderstood the unspeakable charm of family love. What calm enjoyment in\nthat happiness which is always shared with others; in that community\nof interests which unites such various feelings; in that association of\nexistences which forms one single being of so many! What is man without\nthose home affections, which, like so many roots, fix him firmly in\nthe earth, and permit him to imbibe all the juices of life? Energy,\nhappiness--do not all these come from them? Without family life where\nwould man learn to love, to associate, to deny himself? A community in\nlittle, is it not this which teaches us how to live in the great one?\nSuch is the holiness of home, that, to express our relation with God, we\nhave been obliged to borrow the words invented for our family life. Men\nhave named themselves the sons of a heavenly Father!\n\nAh! let us carefully preserve these chains of domestic union. Do not let\nus unbind the human sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of\nchance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us\ncarry the principles and the habits of home beyond set bounds; and, if\nit may be, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles\nwhen he exclaimed to the newborn children of Christ: \"Be ye like-minded,\nhaving the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK 3.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. OUR COUNTRY\n\n\nOctober 12th, Seven O'clock A.M.\n\nThe nights are already become cold and long; the sun, shining through my\ncurtains, no more wakens me long before the hour for work; and even when\nmy eyes are open, the pleasant warmth of the bed keeps me fast under\nmy counterpane. Every morning there begins a long argument between my\nactivity and my indolence; and, snugly wrapped up to the eyes, I wait\nlike the Gascon, until they have succeeded in coming to an agreement.\n\nThis morning, however, a light, which shone from my door upon my\npillow, awoke me earlier than usual. In vain I turned on my side;\nthe persevering light, like a victorious enemy, pursued me into every\nposition. At last, quite out of patience, I sat up and hurled my\nnightcap to the foot of the bed!\n\n(I will observe, by way of parenthesis, that the various evolutions of\nthis pacific headgear seem to have been, from the remotest time, symbols\nof the vehement emotions of the mind; for our language has borrowed its\nmost common images from them.)\n\nBut be this as it may, I got up in a very bad humor, grumbling at my\nnew neighbor, who took it into his head to be wakeful when I wished to\nsleep. We are all made thus; we do not understand that others may live\non their own account. Each one of us is like the earth, according to the\nold system of Ptolemy, and thinks he can have the whole universe revolve\naround himself. On this point, to make use of the metaphor alluded to:\n'Tous les hommes ont la tete dans le meme bonnet'.\n\nI had for the time being, as I have already said, thrown mine to the\nother end of my bed; and I slowly disengaged my legs from the\nwarm bedclothes, while making a host of evil reflections upon the\ninconvenience of having neighbors.\n\nFor more than a month I had not had to complain of those whom chance\nhad given me; most of them only came in to sleep, and went away again\non rising. I was almost always alone on this top story--alone with the\nclouds and the sparrows!\n\nBut at Paris nothing lasts; the current of life carries us along, like\nthe seaweed torn from the rock; the houses are vessels which take mere\npassengers. How many different faces have I already seen pass along the\nlanding-place belonging to our attics! How many companions of a few days\nhave disappeared forever! Some are lost in that medley of the living\nwhich whirls continually under the scourge of necessity, and others in\nthat resting-place of the dead, who sleep under the hand of God!\n\nPeter the bookbinder is one of these last. Wrapped up in selfishness,\nhe lived alone and friendless, and he died as he had lived. His loss was\nneither mourned by any one, nor disarranged anything in the world; there\nwas merely a ditch filled up in the graveyard, and an attic emptied in\nour house.\n\nIt is the same which my new neighbor has inhabited for the last few\ndays.\n\nTo say truly (now that I am quite awake, and my ill humor is gone with\nmy nightcap)--to say truly, this new neighbor, although rising earlier\nthan suits my idleness, is not the less a very good man: he carries\nhis misfortunes, as few know how to carry their good fortunes, with\ncheerfulness and moderation.\n\nBut fate has cruelly tried him. Father Chaufour is but the wreck of a\nman. In the place of one of his arms hangs an empty sleeve; his left leg\nis made by the turner, and he drags the right along with difficulty; but\nabove these ruins rises a calm and happy face. While looking upon his\ncountenance, radiant with a serene energy, while listening to his voice,\nthe tone of which has, so to speak, the accent of goodness, we see\nthat the soul has remained entire in the half-destroyed covering. The\nfortress is a little damaged, as Father Chaufour says, but the garrison\nis quite hearty.\n\nDecidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, the more I reproach\nmyself for the sort of malediction I bestowed on him when I awoke.\n\nWe are generally too indulgent in our secret wrongs toward our neighbor.\nAll ill-will which does not pass the region of thought seems innocent to\nus, and, with our clumsy justice, we excuse without examination the sin\nwhich does not betray itself by action!\n\nBut are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws? Besides\nthese external relations, is there not a real relation of feeling\nbetween men? Do we not owe to all those who live under the same heaven\nas ourselves the aid not only of our acts but of our purposes? Ought not\nevery human life to be to us like a vessel that we accompany with our\nprayers for a happy voyage? It is not enough that men do not harm\none another; they must also help and love one another! The papal\nbenediction, 'Urbi et orbi'! should be the constant cry from all hearts.\nTo condemn him who does not deserve it, even in the mind, even by a\npassing thought, is to break the great law, that which has established\nthe union of souls here below, and to which Christ has given the sweet\nname of charity.\n\nThese thoughts came into my mind as I finished dressing, and I said to\nmyself that Father Chaufour had a right to reparation from me. To make\namends for the feeling of ill-will I had against him just now, I owed\nhim some explicit proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune in\nhis room; he was at work, and I determined that I would make the first\nneighborly call.\n\nEight o'clock P.M.--I found Father Chaufour at a table lighted by a\nlittle smoky lamp, without a fire, although it is already cold, and\nmaking large pasteboard boxes; he was humming a popular song in a low\ntone. I had hardly entered the room when he uttered an exclamation of\nsurprise and pleasure.\n\n\"Eh! is it you, neighbor? Come in, then! I did not think you got up so\nearly, so I put a damper on my music; I was afraid of waking you.\"\n\nExcellent man! while I was sending him to the devil he was putting\nhimself out of his way for me!\n\nThis thought touched me, and I paid my compliments on his having become\nmy neighbor with a warmth which opened his heart.\n\n\"Faith! you seem to me to have the look of a good Christian,\" said he in\na voice of soldierlike cordiality, and shaking me by the hand. \"I do not\nlike those people who look on a landing-place as a frontier line, and\ntreat their neighbors as if they were Cossacks. When men snuff the same\nair, and speak the same lingo, they are not meant to turn their backs\nto each other. Sit down there, neighbor; I don't mean to order you; only\ntake care of the stool; it has but three legs, and we must put good-will\nin place of the fourth.\"\n\n\"It seems that that is a treasure which there is no want of here,\" I\nobserved.\n\n\"Good-will!\" repeated Chaufour; \"that is all my mother left me, and I\ntake it no son has received a better inheritance. Therefore they used to\ncall me Monsieur Content in the batteries.\"\n\n\"You are a soldier, then?\"\n\n\"I served in the Third Artillery under the Republic, and afterward\nin the Guard, through all the commotions. I was at Jemappes and at\nWaterloo; so I was at the christening and at the burial of our glory, as\none may say!\"\n\nI looked at him with astonishment.\n\n\"And how old were you then, at Jemappes?\" asked I.\n\n\"Somewhere about fifteen,\" said he.\n\n\"How came you to think of being a soldier so early?\"\n\n\"I did not really think about it. I then worked at toy-making, and never\ndreamed that France would ask me for anything else than to make her\ndraught-boards, shuttlecocks, and cups and balls. But I had an old uncle\nat Vincennes whom I went to see from time to time--a Fontenoy veteran in\nthe same rank of life as myself, but with ability enough to have risen\nto that of a marshal. Unluckily, in those days there was no way for\ncommon people to get on. My uncle, whose services would have got him\nmade a prince under the other, had then retired with the mere rank of\nsub-lieutenant. But you should have seen him in his uniform, his cross\nof St. Louis, his wooden leg, his white moustaches, and his noble\ncountenance. You would have said he was a portrait of one of those old\nheroes in powdered hair which are at Versailles!\n\n\"Every time I visited him, he said something which remained fixed in my\nmemory. But one day I found him quite grave.\n\n\"'Jerome,' said he, 'do you know what is going on on the frontier?'\n\n\"'No, lieutenant,' replied I.\n\n\"'Well,' resumed he, 'our country is in danger!'\n\n\"I did not well understand him, and yet it seemed something to me.\n\n\"'Perhaps you have never thought what your country means,' continued he,\nplacing his hand on my shoulder; `it is all that surrounds you, all that\nhas brought you up and fed you, all that you have loved! This ground\nthat you see, these houses, these trees, those girls who go along there\nlaughing--this is your country! The laws which protect you, the bread\nwhich pays for your work, the words you interchange with others, the\njoy and grief which come to you from the men and things among which you\nlive--this is your country! The little room where you used to see\nyour mother, the remembrances she has left you, the earth where she\nrests--this is your country! You see it, you breathe it, everywhere!\nThink to yourself, my son, of your rights and your duties, your\naffections and your wants, your past and your present blessings; write\nthem all under a single name--and that name will be your country!'\n\n\"I was trembling with emotion, and great tears were in my eyes.\n\n\"'Ah! I understand,' cried I; 'it is our home in large; it is that part\nof the world where God has placed our body and our soul.'\n\n\"'You are right, Jerome,' continued the old soldier; 'so you comprehend\nalso what we owe it.'\n\n\"'Truly,' resumed I, 'we owe it all that we are; it is a question of\nlove.'\n\n\"'And of honesty, my son,' concluded he. 'The member of a family who\ndoes not contribute his share of work and of happiness fails in his\nduty, and is a bad kinsman; the member of a partnership who does not\nenrich it with all his might, with all his courage, and with all his\nheart, defrauds it of what belongs to it, and is a dishonest man. It\nis the same with him who enjoys the advantages of having a country, and\ndoes not accept the burdens of it; he forfeits his honor, and is a bad\ncitizen!'\n\n\"'And what must one do, lieutenant, to be a good citizen?' asked I.\n\n\"'Do for your country what you would do for your father and mother,'\nsaid he.\n\n\"I did not answer at the moment; my heart was swelling, and the blood\nboiling in my veins; but on returning along the road, my uncle's words\nwere, so to speak, written up before my eyes. I repeated, 'Do for your\ncountry what you would do for your father and mother.' And my country is\nin danger; an enemy attacks it, while I--I turn cups and balls!\n\n\"This thought tormented me so much all night that the next day I\nreturned to Vincennes to announce to the lieutenant that I had just\nenlisted, and was going off to the frontier. The brave man pressed upon\nme his cross of St. Louis, and I went away as proud as an ambassador.\n\n\"That is how, neighbor, I became a volunteer under the Republic before I\nhad cut my wisdom teeth.\"\n\nAll this was told quietly, and in the cheerful spirit of him who looks\nupon an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance.\n\nWhile he spoke, Father Chaufour grew animated, not on account of\nhimself, but of the general subject. Evidently that which occupied him\nin the drama of life was not his own part, but the drama itself.\n\nThis sort of disinterestedness touched me. I prolonged my visit, and\nshowed myself as frank as possible, in order to win his confidence in\nreturn. In an hour's time he knew my position and my habits; I was on\nthe footing of an old acquaintance.\n\nI even confessed the ill-humor the light of his lamp put me into a short\ntime before. He took what I said with the touching cheerfulness which\ncomes from a heart in the right place, and which looks upon everything\non the good side. He neither spoke to me of the necessity which obliged\nhim to work while I could sleep, nor of the deprivations of the old\nsoldier compared to the luxury of the young clerk; he only struck his\nforehead, accused himself of thoughtlessness, and promised to put list\nround his door!\n\nO great and beautiful soul! with whom nothing turns to bitterness, and\nwho art peremptory only in duty and benevolence!\n\nOctober 15th.--This morning I was looking at a little engraving I\nhad framed myself, and hung over my writing-table; it is a design of\nGavarni's; in which, in a grave mood, he has represented a veteran and a\nconscript.\n\nBy often contemplating these two figures, so different in expression,\nand so true to life, both have become living in my eyes; I have seen\nthem move, I have heard them speak; the picture has become a real scene,\nat which I am present as spectator.\n\nThe veteran advances slowly, his hand leaning on the shoulder of the\nyoung soldier. His eyes, closed for ever, no longer perceive the sun\nshining through the flowering chestnut-trees. In the place of his right\narm hangs an empty sleeve, and he walks with a wooden leg, the sound of\nwhich on the pavement makes those who pass turn to look.\n\nAt the sight of this ancient wreck from our patriotic wars, the greater\nnumber shake their heads in pity, and I seem to hear a sigh or an\nimprecation.\n\n\"See the worth of glory!\" says a portly merchant, turning away his eyes\nin horror.\n\n\"What a deplorable use of human life!\" rejoins a young man who carries a\nvolume of philosophy under his arm.\n\n\"The trooper would better not have left his plow,\" adds a countryman,\nwith a cunning air.\n\n\"Poor old man!\" murmurs a woman, almost crying.\n\nThe veteran has heard, and he knits his brow; for it seems to him that\nhis guide has grown thoughtful. The latter, attracted by what he hears\naround him, hardly answers the old man's questions, and his eyes,\nvaguely lost in space, seem to be seeking there for the solution of some\nproblem.\n\nI seem to see a twitching in the gray moustaches of the veteran; he\nstops abruptly, and, holding back his guide with his remaining arm:\n\n\"They all pity me,\" says he, \"because they do not understand it; but if\nI were to answer them--\"\n\n\"What would you say to them, father?\" asks the young man, with\ncuriosity.\n\n\"I should say first to the woman who weeps when she looks at me, to keep\nher tears for other misfortunes; for each of my wounds calls to mind\nsome struggle for my colors. There is room for doubting how some men\nhave done their duty; with me it is visible. I carry the account of my\nservices, written with the enemy's steel and lead, on myself; to pity me\nfor having done my duty is to suppose I would better have been false to\nit.\"\n\n\"And what would you say to the countryman, father?\"\n\n\"I should tell him that, to drive the plow in peace, we must first\nsecure the country itself; and that, as long as there are foreigners\nready to eat our harvest, there must be arms to defend it.\"\n\n\"But the young student, too, shook his head when he lamented such a use\nof life.\"\n\n\"Because he does not know what self-sacrifice and suffering can teach.\nThe books that he studies we have put in practice, though we never\nread them: the principles he applauds we have defended with powder and\nbayonet.\"\n\n\"And at the price of your limbs and your blood. The merchant said, when\nhe saw your maimed body, 'See the worth of glory!\"'\n\n\"Do not believe him, my son: the true glory is the bread of the soul;\nit is this which nourishes self-sacrifice, patience, and courage. The\nMaster of all has bestowed it as a tie the more between men. When we\ndesire to be distinguished by our brethren, do we not thus prove our\nesteem and our sympathy for them? The longing for admiration is but one\nside of love. No, no; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for!\nThat which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which prove\na generous self-sacrifice, but those which our vices or our imprudence\nhave called forth. Ah! if I could speak aloud to those who, when\npassing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man whose\nexcesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, 'What have you done\nwith your eyes?' To the slothful man, who with difficulty drags along\nhis enervated mass of flesh, 'What have you done with your feet?' To the\nold man, who is punished for his intemperance by the gout, 'What have\nyou done with your hands?' To all, 'What have you done with the days God\ngranted you, with the faculties you should have employed for the good of\nyour brethren?' If you cannot answer, bestow no more of your pity upon\nthe old soldier maimed in his country's cause; for he--he at least--can\nshow his scars without shame.\"\n\nOctober 16th.--The little engraving has made me comprehend better the\nmerits of Father Chaufour, and I therefore esteem him all the more.\n\nHe has just now left my attic. There no longer passes a single day\nwithout his coming to work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by\nhis board.\n\nThe old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of it. For twenty\nyears he was an armed traveller throughout Europe, and he fought without\nhatred, for he was possessed by a single thought--the honor of the\nnational flag! It might have been his superstition, if you will; but it\nwas, at the same time, his safeguard.\n\nThe word FRANCE, which was then resounding so gloriously through the\nworld, served as a talisman to him against all sorts of temptation. To\nhave to support a great name may seem a burden to vulgar minds, but it\nis an encouragement to vigorous ones.\n\n\"I, too, have had many moments,\" said he to me the other day, \"when I\nhave been tempted to make friends with the devil. War is not precisely\nthe school for rural virtues. By dint of burning, destroying, and\nkilling, you grow a little tough as regards your feelings; 'and, when\nthe bayonet has made you king, the notions of an autocrat come into\nyour head a little strongly. But at these moments I called to mind that\ncountry which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whispered to myself\nthe well-known phrase, 'Toujours Francais! It has been laughed at since.\nPeople who would make a joke of the death of their mother have turned it\ninto ridicule, as if the name of our country was not also a noble and a\nbinding thing. For my part, I shall never forget from how many follies\nthe title of Frenchman has kept me. When, overcome with fatigue, I\nhave found myself in the rear of the colors, and when the musketry\nwas rattling in the front ranks, many a time I heard a voice, which\nwhispered in my ear, 'Leave the others to fight, and for today take care\nof your own hide!' But then, that word Francais! murmured within me, and\nI pressed forward to help my comrades. At other times, when, irritated\nby hunger, cold, and wounds, I have arrived at the hovel of some\nMeinherr, I have been seized by an itching to break the master's back,\nand to burn his hut; but I whispered to myself, Francais! and this name\nwould not rhyme with either incendiary or murderer. I have, in this\nway, passed through kingdoms from east to west, and from north to south,\nalways determined not to bring disgrace upon my country's flag. The\nlieutenant, you see, had taught me a magic word--My country! Not only\nmust we defend it, but we must also make it great and loved.\"\n\nOctober 17th.--To-day I have paid my neighbor a long visit. A chance\nexpression led the way to his telling me more of himself than he had yet\ndone.\n\nI asked him whether both his limbs had been lost in the same battle.\n\n\"No, no!\" replied he; \"the cannon only took my leg; it was the Clamart\nquarries that my arm went to feed.\"\n\nAnd when I asked him for the particulars--\n\n\"That's as easy as to say good-morning,\" continued he. \"After the great\nbreak-up at Waterloo, I stayed three months in the camp hospital to give\nmy wooden leg time to grow. As soon as I was able to hobble a little, I\ntook leave of headquarters, and took the road to Paris, where I hoped to\nfind some relative or friend; but no--all were gone, or underground. I\nshould have found myself less strange at Vienna, Madrid, or Berlin. And\nalthough I had a leg the less to provide for, I was none the better off;\nmy appetite had come back, and my last sous were taking flight.\n\n\"I had indeed met my old colonel, who recollected that I had helped\nhim out of the skirmish at Montereau by giving him my horse, and he had\noffered me bed and board at his house. I knew that the year before he\nhad married a castle and no few farms, so that I might become permanent\ncoat-brusher to a millionaire, which was not without its temptations.\nIt remained to see if I had not anything better to do. One evening I set\nmyself to reflect upon it.\n\n\"'Let us see, Chaufour,' said I to myself; 'the question is to act like\na man. The colonel's place suits you, but cannot you do anything better?\nYour body is still in good condition, and your arms strong; do you not\nowe all your strength to your country, as your Vincennes uncle said?\nWhy not leave some old soldier, more cut up than you are, to get his\nhospital at the colonel's? Come, trooper, you are still fit for another\nstout charge or two! You must not lay up before your time.'\n\n\"Whereupon I went to thank the colonel, and to offer my services to an\nold artilleryman, who had gone back to his home at Clamart, and who had\ntaken up the quarryman's pick again.\n\n\"For the first few months I played the conscript's part--that is to say,\nthere was more stir than work; but with a good will one gets the better\nof stones, as of everything else. I did not become, so to speak, the\nleader of a column, but I brought up the rank among the good workmen,\nand I ate my bread with a good appetite, seeing I had earned it with\na good will. For even underground, you see, I still kept my pride. The\nthought that I was working to do my part in changing rocks into houses\npleased my heart. I said to myself, 'Courage, Chaufour, my old boy; you\nare helping to beautify your country.' And that kept up my spirit.\n\n\"Unfortunately, some of my companions were rather too sensible to the\ncharms of the brandy-bottle; so much so, that one day one of them, who\ncould hardly distinguish his right hand from his left, thought proper to\nstrike a light close to a charged mine. The mine exploded suddenly,\nand sent a shower of stone grape among us, which killed three men, and\ncarried away the arm of which I have now only the sleeve.\"\n\n\"So you were again without means of living?\" said I to the old soldier.\n\n\"That is to say, I had to change them,\" replied he, quietly. \"The\ndifficulty was to find one which would do with five fingers instead of\nten; I found it, however.\"\n\n\"How was that?\"\n\n\"Among the Paris street-sweepers.\"\n\n\"What! you have been one--\"\n\n\"Of the pioneers of the health force for a while, neighbor, and that was\nnot my worst time either. The corps of sweepers is not so low as it is\ndirty, I can tell you! There are old actresses in it who could never\nlearn to save their money, and ruined merchants from the exchange; we\neven had a professor of classics, who for a little drink would recite\nLatin to you, or Greek tragedies, as you chose. They could not have\ncompeted for the Monthyon prize; but we excused faults on account of\npoverty, and cheered our poverty by our good-humor and jokes. I was as\nragged and as cheerful as the rest, while trying to be something better.\nEven in the mire of the gutter I preserved my faith that nothing is\ndishonorable which is useful to our country.\n\n\"'Chaufour,' said I to myself with a smile, 'after the sword, the\nhammer; after the hammer, the broom; you are going downstairs, my old\nboy, but you are still serving your country.'\"\n\n\"'However, you ended by leaving your new profession?' said I.\"\n\n\"A reform was required, neighbor. The street-sweepers seldom have their\nfeet dry, and the damp at last made the wounds in my good leg open\nagain. I could no longer follow the regiment, and it was necessary to\nlay down my arms. It is now two months since I left off working in the\nsanitary department of Paris.\n\n\"At the first moment I was daunted. Of my four limbs, I had now only my\nright hand, and even that had lost its strength; so it was necessary\nto find some gentlemanly occupation for it. After trying a little of\neverything, I fell upon card-box making, and here I am at cases for the\nlace and buttons of the national guard; it is work of little profit, but\nit is within the capacity of all. By getting up at four and working\ntill eight, I earn sixty-five centimes; my lodging and bowl of soup\ntake fifty of them, and there are three sous over for luxuries. So I am\nricher than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget; and I\ncontinue to serve her, as I save her lace and buttons.\"\n\nAt these words Father Chaufour looked at me with a smile, and with his\ngreat scissors began cutting the green paper again for his cardboard\ncases. My heart was touched, and I remained lost in thought.\n\nHere is still another member of that sacred phalanx who, in the battle\nof life, always march in front for the example and the salvation of the\nworld! Each of these brave soldiers has his war-cry; for this one it is\n\"Country,\" for that \"Home,\" for a third \"Mankind;\" but they all\nfollow the same standard--that of duty; for all the same divine law\nreigns--that of self-sacrifice. To love something more than one's\nself--that is the secret of all that is great; to know how to live for\nothers--that is the aim of all noble souls.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. MORAL USE OF INVENTORIES\n\nNovember 13th, Nine O'clock P.M.\n\nI had well stopped up the chinks of my window; my little carpet was\nnailed down in its place; my lamp, provided with its shade, cast a\nsubdued light around, and my stove made a low, murmuring sound, as if\nsome live creature was sharing my hearth with me.\n\nAll was silent around me. But, out of doors the snow and rain swept the\nroofs, and with a low, rushing sound ran along the gurgling gutters;\nsometimes a gust of wind forced itself beneath the tiles, which\nrattled together like castanets, and afterward it was lost in the empty\ncorridor. Then a slight and pleasurable shiver thrilled through my\nveins: I drew the flaps of my old wadded dressing-gown around me, I\npulled my threadbare velvet cap over my eyes, and, letting myself sink\ndeeper into my easy-chair, while my feet basked in the heat and light\nwhich shone through the door of the stove, I gave myself up to a\nsensation of enjoyment, made more lively by the consciousness of the\nstorm which raged without. My eyes, swimming in a sort of mist, wandered\nover all the details of my peaceful abode; they passed from my prints to\nmy bookcase, resting upon the little chintz sofa, the white curtains of\nthe iron bedstead, and the portfolio of loose papers--those archives\nof the attics; and then, returning to the book I held in my hand, they\nattempted to seize once more the thread of the reading which had been\nthus interrupted.\n\nIn fact, this book, the subject of which had at first interested me, had\nbecome painful to me. I had come to the conclusion that the pictures of\nthe writer were too sombre. His description of the miseries of the\nworld appeared exaggerated to me; I could not believe in such excess of\npoverty and of suffering; neither God nor man could show themselves so\nharsh toward the sons of Adam. The author had yielded to an artistic\ntemptation: he was making a show of the sufferings of humanity, as Nero\nburned Rome for the sake of the picturesque.\n\nTaken altogether, this poor human house, so often repaired, so much\ncriticised, is still a pretty good abode; we may find enough in it to\nsatisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them; the happiness\nof the wise man costs but little, and asks but little space.\n\nThese consoling reflections became more and more confused. At last my\nbook fell on the ground without my having the resolution to stoop and\ntake it up again; and insensibly overcome by the luxury of the silence,\nthe subdued light, and the warmth, I fell asleep.\n\nI remained for some time lost in the sort of insensibility belonging to\na first sleep; at last some vague and broken sensations came over me.\nIt seemed to me that the day grew darker, that the air became colder.\nI half perceived bushes covered with the scarlet berries which foretell\nthe coming of winter. I walked on a dreary road, bordered here and there\nwith juniper-trees white with frost. Then the scene suddenly changed.\nI was in the diligence; the cold wind shook the doors and windows; the\ntrees, loaded with snow, passed by like ghosts; in vain I thrust my\nbenumbed feet into the crushed straw. At last the carriage stopped, and,\nby one of those stage effects so common in sleep, I found myself alone\nin a barn, without a fireplace, and open to the winds on all sides.\nI saw again my mother's gentle face, known only to me in my early\nchildhood, the noble and stern countenance of my father, the little fair\nhead of my sister, who was taken from us at ten years old; all my dead\nfamily lived again around me; they were there, exposed to the bitings\nof the cold and to the pangs of hunger. My mother prayed by the resigned\nold man, and my sister, rolled up on some rags of which they had made\nher a bed, wept in silence, and held her naked feet in her little blue\nhands.\n\nIt was a page from the book I had just read transferred into my own\nexistence.\n\nMy heart was oppressed with inexpressible anguish. Crouched in a corner,\nwith my eyes fixed upon this dismal picture, I felt the cold slowly\ncreeping upon me, and I said to myself with bitterness:\n\n\"Let us die, since poverty is a dungeon guarded by suspicion, apathy,\nand contempt, and from which it is vain to try to escape; let us die,\nsince there is no place for us at the banquet of the living!\"\n\nAnd I tried to rise to join my mother again, and to wait at her feet for\nthe hour of release.\n\nThis effort dispelled my dream, and I awoke with a start.\n\nI looked around me; my lamp was expiring, the fire in my stove\nextinguished, and my half-opened door was letting in an icy wind. I\ngot up, with a shiver, to shut and double-lock it; then I made for the\nalcove, and went to bed in haste.\n\nBut the cold kept me awake a long time, and my thoughts continued the\ninterrupted dream.\n\nThe pictures I had lately accused of exaggeration now seemed but a too\nfaithful representation of reality; and I went to sleep without being\nable to recover my optimism--or my warmth.\n\nThus did a cold stove and a badly closed door alter my point of view.\nAll went well when my blood circulated properly; all looked gloomy when\nthe cold laid hold on me.\n\nThis reminds me of the story of the duchess who was obliged to pay a\nvisit to the neighboring convent on a winter's day. The convent was\npoor, there was no wood, and the monks had nothing but their discipline\nand the ardor of their prayers to keep out the cold. The duchess, who\nwas shivering with cold, returned home, greatly pitying the poor monks.\nWhile the servants were taking off her cloak and adding two more logs to\nher fire, she called her steward, whom she ordered to send some wood\nto the convent immediately. She then had her couch moved close to the\nfireside, the warmth of which soon revived her. The recollection of what\nshe had just suffered was speedily lost in her present comfort, when the\nsteward came in again to ask how many loads of wood he was to send.\n\n\"Oh! you may wait,\" said the great lady carelessly; \"the weather is very\nmuch milder.\"\n\nThus, man's judgments are formed less from reason than from sensation;\nand as sensation comes to him from the outward world, so he finds\nhimself more or less under its influence; by little and little he\nimbibes a portion of his habits and feelings from it.\n\nIt is not, then, without cause that, when we wish to judge of a\nstranger beforehand, we look for indications of his character in the\ncircumstances which surround him. The things among which we live are\nnecessarily made to take our image, and we unconsciously leave in them\na thousand impressions of our minds. As we can judge by an empty bed\nof the height and attitude of him who has slept in it, so the abode of\nevery man discovers to a close observer the extent of his intelligence\nand the feelings of his heart. Bernardin de St.-Pierre has related the\nstory of a young girl who refused a suitor because he would never have\nflowers or domestic animals in his house. Perhaps the sentence was\nsevere, but not without reason. We may presume that a man insensible\nto beauty and to humble affection must be ill prepared to feel the\nenjoyments of a happy marriage.\n\n14th, seven o'clock P.M.--This morning, as I was opening my journal to\nwrite, I had a visit from our old cashier.\n\nHis sight is not so good as it was, his hand begins to shake, and the\nwork he was able to do formerly is now becoming somewhat laborious to\nhim. I had undertaken to write out some of his papers, and he came for\nthose I had finished.\n\nWe conversed a long time by the stove, while he was drinking a cup of\ncoffee which I made him take.\n\nM. Rateau is a sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little; so\nthat he has always something to say.\n\nWhile looking over the accounts I had prepared for him, his look fell\nupon my journal, and I was obliged to acknowledge that in this way I\nwrote a diary of my actions and thoughts every evening for private use.\nFrom one thing to another, I began speaking to him of my dream the day\nbefore, and my reflections about the influence of outward objects upon\nour ordinary sentiments. He smiled.\n\n\"Ah! you, too, have my superstitions,\" he said, quietly. \"I have always\nbelieved, like you, that you may know the game by the lair: it is\nonly necessary to have tact and experience; but without them we commit\nourselves to many rash judgments. For my part. I have been guilty of\nthis more than once, but sometimes I have also drawn a right conclusion.\nI recollect especially an adventure which goes as far back as the first\nyears of my youth--\"\n\nHe stopped. I looked at him as if I waited for his story, and he told it\nme at once.\n\nAt this time he was still but third clerk to an attorney at Orleans. His\nmaster had sent him to Montargis on different affairs, and he intended\nto return in the diligence the same evening, after having received\nthe amount of a bill at a neighboring town; but they kept him at the\ndebtor's house, and when he was able to set out the day had already\nclosed.\n\nFearing not to be able to reach Montargis in good time, he took a\ncrossroad they pointed out to him. Unfortunately the fog increased, no\nstar was visible in the heavens, and the darkness became so great\nthat he lost his road. He tried to retrace his steps, passed twenty\nfootpaths, and at last was completely astray.\n\nAfter the vexation of losing his place in the diligence, came the\nfeeling of uneasiness as to his situation. He was alone, on foot, lost\nin a forest, without any means of finding his right road again, and with\na considerable sum of money about him, for which he was responsible.\nHis anxiety was increased by his inexperience. The idea of a forest was\nconnected in his mind with so many adventures of robbery and murder,\nthat he expected some fatal encounter every instant.\n\nTo say the truth, his situation was not encouraging. The place was not\nconsidered safe, and for some time past there had been rumors of the\nsudden disappearance of several horse-dealers, though there was no trace\nof any crime having been committed.\n\nOur young traveller, with his eyes staring forward, and his ears\nlistening, followed a footpath which he supposed might take him to some\nhouse or road; but woods always succeeded to woods. At last he perceived\na light at a distance, and in a quarter of an hour he reached the\nhighroad.\n\nA single house, the light from which had attracted him, appeared at a\nlittle distance. He was going toward the entrance gate of the courtyard,\nwhen the trot of a horse made him turn his head. A man on horseback had\njust appeared at the turning of the road, and in an instant was close to\nhim.\n\nThe first words he addressed to the young man showed him to be the\nfarmer himself. He related how he had lost himself, and learned from the\ncountryman that he was on the road to Pithiviers. Montargis was three\nleagues behind him.\n\nThe fog had insensibly changed into a drizzling rain, which was\nbeginning to wet the young clerk through; he seemed afraid of the\ndistance he had still to go, and the horseman, who saw his hesitation,\ninvited him to come into the farmhouse.\n\nIt had something of the look of a fortress. Surrounded by a pretty high\nwall, it could not be seen except through the bars of the great gate,\nwhich was carefully closed. The farmer, who had got off his horse, did\nnot go near it, but, turning to the right, reached another entrance\nclosed in the same way, but of which he had the key.\n\nHardly had he passed the threshold when a terrible barking resounded\nfrom each end of the yard. The farmer told his guest to fear nothing,\nand showed him the dogs chained up to their kennels; both were of an\nextraordinary size, and so savage that the sight of their master himself\ncould not quiet them.\n\nA boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the house and took the\nfarmer's horse. The latter began questioning him about some orders he\nhad given before he left the house, and went toward the stable to see\nthat they had been executed.\n\nThus left alone, our clerk looked about him.\n\nA lantern which the boy had placed on the ground cast a dim light over\nthe courtyard. All around seemed empty and deserted. Not a trace was\nvisible of the disorder often seen in a country farmyard, and which\nshows a temporary cessation of the work which is soon to be resumed\nagain. Neither a cart forgotten where the horses had been unharnessed,\nnor sheaves of corn heaped up ready for threshing, nor a plow overturned\nin a corner and half hidden under the freshly-cut clover. The yard was\nswept, the barns shut up and padlocked. Not a single vine creeping up\nthe walls; everywhere stone, wood, and iron!\n\nHe took up the lantern and went up to the corner of the house. Behind\nwas a second yard, where he heard the barking of a third dog, and a\ncovered wall was built in the middle of it.\n\nOur traveller looked in vain for the little farm garden, where pumpkins\nof different sorts creep along the ground, or where the bees from the\nhives hum under the hedges of honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and\nflowers were nowhere to be seen. He did not even perceive the sight of a\npoultry-yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of his host was everywhere\nwanting in that which makes the grace and the life of the country.\n\nThe young man thought that his host must be of a very careless or a very\ncalculating disposition, to concede so little to domestic enjoyments and\nthe pleasures of the eye; and judging, in spite of himself, by what he\nsaw, he could not help feeling a distrust of his character.\n\nIn the mean time the farmer returned from the stables, and made him\nenter the house.\n\nThe inside of the farmhouse corresponded to its outside. The whitewashed\nwalls had no other ornament than a row of guns of all sizes; the massive\nfurniture hardly redeemed its clumsy appearance by its great solidity.\nThe cleanliness was doubtful, and the absence of all minor conveniences\nproved that a woman's care was wanting in the household concerns. The\nyoung clerk learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here with no one but\nhis two sons.\n\nOf this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A table with the cloth\nlaid, that no one had taken the trouble to clear away, was left near the\nwindow. The plates and dishes were scattered upon it without any order,\nand loaded with potato-parings and half-picked bones. Several empty\nbottles emitted an odor of brandy, mixed with the pungent smell of\ntobacco-smoke.\n\nAfter seating his guest, the farmer lighted his pipe, and his two sons\nresumed their work by the fireside. Now and then the silence was just\nbroken by a short remark, answered by a word or an exclamation; and then\nall became as mute as before.\n\n\"From my childhood,\" said the old cashier, \"I had been very sensible to\nthe impression of outward objects; later in life, reflection had taught\nme to study the causes of these impressions rather than to drive them\naway. I set myself, then, to examine everything around me with great\nattention.\n\n\"Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, some wolftraps were\nsuspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf's\npaw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened\nchimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall,\ntheir wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each;\na fox's skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larder\nhook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose body\nswayed about over our heads.\n\n\"My eyes were offended by all these details, and I turned them again\nupon my hosts. The father, who sat opposite to me, only interrupted his\nsmoking to pour out his drink, or address some reprimand to his\nsons. The eldest of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody\nscrapings, which he threw into the fire every instant, filled the room\nwith a disagreeable fetid smell; the second son was sharpening some\nbutcher's knives. I learned from a word dropped from the father that\nthey were preparing to kill a pig the next day.\n\n\"These occupations and the whole aspect of things inside the house told\nof such habitual coarseness in their way of living as seemed to explain,\nwhile it formed the fitting counterpart of, the forbidding gloominess\nof the outside. My astonishment by degrees changed into disgust, and my\ndisgust into uneasiness. I cannot detail the whole chain of ideas which\nsucceeded one another in my imagination; but, yielding to an impulse I\ncould not overcome, I got up, declaring I would go on my road again.\n\n\"The farmer made some effort to keep me; he spoke of the rain, of the\ndarkness, and of the length of the way. I replied to all by the absolute\nnecessity there was for my being at Montargis that very night; and\nthanking him for his brief hospitality, I set off again in a haste which\nmight well have confirmed the truth of my words to him.\n\n\"However, the freshness of the night and the exercise of walking did not\nfail to change the directions of my thoughts. When away from the objects\nwhich had awakened such lively disgust in me, I felt it gradually\ndiminishing. I began to smile at the susceptibility of my feelings,\nand then, in proportion as the rain became heavier and colder, these\nstrictures on myself assumed a tone of ill-temper. I silently accused\nmyself of the absurdity of mistaking sensation for admonitions of my\nreason. After all, were not the farmer and his sons free to live alone,\nto hunt, to keep dogs, and to kill a pig? Where was the crime of it?\nWith less nervous susceptibility, I should have accepted the shelter\nthey offered me, and I should now be sleeping snugly on a truss of\nstraw, instead of walking with difficulty through the cold and drizzling\nrain. I thus continued to reproach myself, until, toward morning, I\narrived at Montargis, jaded and benumbed with cold.\n\n\"When, however, I got up refreshed, toward the middle of the next day,\nI instinctively returned to my first opinion. The appearance of the\nfarmhouse presented itself to me under the same repulsive colors which\nthe evening before had determined me to make my escape from it. Reason\nitself remained silent when reviewing all those coarse details, and was\nforced to recognize in them the indications of a low nature, or else the\npresence of some baleful influence.\n\n\"I went away the next day without being able to learn anything\nconcerning the farmer or his sons; but the recollection of my adventure\nremained deeply fixed in my memory.\n\n\"Ten years afterward I was travelling in the diligence through the\ndepartment of the Loiret; I was leaning from the window, and looking at\nsome coppice ground now for the first time brought under cultivation,\nand the mode of clearing which one of my travelling companions was\nexplaining to me, when my eyes fell upon a walled inclosure, with an\niron-barred gate. Inside it I perceived a house with all the blinds\nclosed, and which I immediately recollected; it was the farmhouse where\nI had been sheltered. I eagerly pointed it out to my companion, and\nasked who lived in it.\n\n\"'Nobody just now,' replied he.\n\n\"'But was it not kept, some years ago, by a farmer and his two sons?'\n\n\"'The Turreaus;' said my travelling companion, looking at me; 'did you\nknow them?'\n\n\"'I saw them once.'\n\n\"He shook his head.\n\n\"'Yes, yes!' resumed he; 'for many years they lived there like wolves in\ntheir den; they merely knew how to till land, kill game, and drink. The\nfather managed the house, but men living alone, without women to love\nthem, without children to soften them, and without God to make them\nthink of heaven, always turn into wild beasts, you see; so one morning\nthe eldest son, who had been drinking too much brandy, would not harness\nthe plow-horses; his father struck him with his whip, and the son, who\nwas mad drunk, shot him dead with his gun.'\"\n\n16th, P.M.--I have been thinking of the story of the old cashier these\ntwo days; it came so opportunely upon the reflections my dream had\nsuggested to me.\n\nHave I not an important lesson to learn from all this?\n\nIf our sensations have an incontestable influence upon our judgments,\nhow comes it that we are so little careful of those things which awaken\nor modify these sensations? The external world is always reflected in us\nas in a mirror, and fills our minds with pictures which, unconsciously\nto ourselves, become the germs of our opinions and of our rules of\nconduct. All the objects which surround us are then, in reality, so many\ntalismans whence good and evil influences are emitted, and it is for\nus to choose them wisely, so as to create a healthy atmosphere for our\nminds.\n\nFeeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a survey of my\nattic.\n\nThe first object on which my eyes rest is an old map of the history of\nthe principal monastery in my native province. I had unrolled it with\nmuch satisfaction, and placed it on the most conspicuous part of the\nwall. Why had I given it this place? Ought this sheet of old worm-eaten\nparchment to be of so much value to me, who am neither an antiquary nor\na scholar? Is not its real importance in my sight that one of the abbots\nwho founded it bore my name, and that I shall, perchance, be able\nto make myself a genealogical tree of it for the edification of my\nvisitors? While writing this, I feel my own blushes. Come, down with the\nmap! let us banish it into my deepest drawer.\n\nAs I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting cards complacently\ndisplayed in the frame. By what chance is it that there are only\nnames that make a show among them? Here is a Polish count--a retired\ncolonel--the deputy of my department. Quick, quick, into the fire with\nthese proofs of vanity! and let us put this card in the handwriting of\nour office-boy, this direction for cheap dinners, and the receipt of\nthe broker where I bought my last armchair, in their place. These\nindications of my poverty will serve, as Montaigne says, 'mater ma\nsuperbe', and will always make me recollect the modesty in which the\ndignity of the lowly consists.\n\nI have stopped before the prints hanging upon the wall. This large\nand smiling Pomona, seated on sheaves of corn, and whose basket is\noverflowing with fruit, only produces thoughts of joy and plenty; I was\nlooking at her the other day, when I fell asleep denying such a thing\nas misery. Let us give her as companion this picture of Winter, in which\neverything tells of sorrow and suffering: one picture will modify the\nother.\n\nAnd this Happy Family of Greuze's! What joy in the children's eyes! What\nsweet repose in the young woman's face! What religious feeling in the\ngrandfather's countenance! May God preserve their happiness to them! but\nlet us hang by its side the picture of this mother, who weeps over an\nempty cradle. Human life has two faces, both of which we must dare to\ncontemplate in their turn.\n\nLet me hide, too, these ridiculous monsters which ornament my\nchimneypiece. Plato has said that \"the beautiful is nothing else than\nthe visible form of the good.\" If it is so, the ugly should be the\nvisible form of the evil, and, by constantly beholding it, the mind\ninsensibly deteriorates.\n\nBut above all, in order to cherish the feelings of kindness and pity,\nlet me hang at the foot of my bed this affecting picture of the Last\nSleep! Never have I been able to look at it without feeling my heart\ntouched.\n\nAn old woman, clothed in rags, is lying by a roadside; her stick is at\nher feet, and her head rests upon a stone; she has fallen asleep; her\nhands are clasped; murmuring a prayer of her childhood, she sleeps her\nlast sleep, she dreams her last dream!\n\nShe sees herself, again a strong and happy child, keeping the sheep on\nthe common, gathering the berries from the hedges, singing, curtsying to\npassers-by, and making the sign of the cross when the first star appears\nin the heavens! Happy time, filled with fragrance and sunshine! She\nwants nothing yet, for she is ignorant of what there is to wish for.\n\nBut see her grown up; the time is come for working bravely: she must\ncut the corn, thresh the wheat, carry the bundles of flowering clover\nor branches of withered leaves to the farm. If her toil is hard, hope\nshines like a sun over everything and it wipes the drops of sweat away.\nThe growing girl already sees that life is a task, but she still sings\nas she fulfills it.\n\nBy-and-bye the burden becomes heavier; she is a wife, she is a mother!\nShe must economize the bread of to-day, have her eye upon the morrow,\ntake care of the sick, and sustain the feeble; she must act, in short,\nthat part of an earthly Providence, so easy when God gives us his aid,\nso hard when he forsakes us. She is still strong, but she is anxious;\nshe sings no longer!\n\nYet a few years, and all is overcast. The husband's health is broken;\nhis wife sees him pine away by the now fireless hearth; cold and hunger\nfinish what sickness had begun; he dies, and his widow sits on the\nground by the coffin provided by the charity of others, pressing her two\nhalf-naked little ones in her arms. She dreads the future, she weeps,\nand she droops her head.\n\nAt last the future has come; the children are grown up, but they are no\nlonger with her. Her son is fighting under his country's flag, and his\nsister is gone. Both have been lost to her for a long time--perhaps\nforever; and the strong girl, the brave wife, the courageous mother, is\nhenceforth only a poor old beggar-woman, without a family, and without\na home! She weeps no more, sorrow has subdued her; she surrenders, and\nwaits for death.\n\nDeath, that faithful friend of the wretched, is come: not hideous and\nwith mockery, as superstition represents, but beautiful, smiling, and\ncrowned with stars! The gentle phantom stoops to the beggar; its pale\nlips murmur a few airy words, which announce to her the end of her\nlabors; a peaceful joy comes over the aged beggarwoman, and, leaning on\nthe shoulder of the great Deliverer, she has passed unconsciously from\nher last earthly sleep to her eternal rest.\n\nLie there, thou poor way-wearied woman! The leaves will serve thee for a\nwinding-sheet. Night will shed her tears of dew over thee, and the birds\nwill sing sweetly by thy remains. Thy visit here below will not have\nleft more trace than their flight through the air; thy name is already\nforgotten, and the only legacy thou hast to leave is the hawthorn stick\nlying forgotten at thy feet!\n\nWell! some one will take it up--some soldier of that great human host\nwhich is scattered abroad by misery or by vice; for thou art not an\nexception, thou art an instance; and under the same sun which shines\nso pleasantly upon all, in the midst of these flowering vineyards, this\nripe corn, and these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, succeed\neach other, and still bequeath to each the beggar's stick!\n\nThe sight of this sad picture shall make me more grateful for what God\nhas given me, and more compassionate for those whom he has treated with\nless indulgence; it shall be a lesson and a subject for reflection for\nme.\n\nAh! if we would watch for everything that might improve and instruct\nus; if the arrangements of our daily life were so disposed as to be a\nconstant school for our minds! but oftenest we take no heed of them. Man\nis an eternal mystery to himself; his own person is a house into which\nhe never enters, and of which he studies the outside alone. Each of\nus need have continually before him the famous inscription which once\ninstructed Socrates, and which was engraved on the walls of Delphi by an\nunknown hand:\n\n             KNOW THYSELF.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. THE END OF THE YEAR\n\nDecember 30th, P.M.\n\nI was in bed, and hardly recovered from the delirious fever which had\nkept me for so long between life and death. My weakened brain was\nmaking efforts to recover its activity; my thoughts, like rays of light\nstruggling through the clouds, were still confused and imperfect; at\ntimes I felt a return of the dizziness which made a chaos of all my\nideas, and I floated, so to speak, between alternate fits of mental\nwandering and consciousness.\n\nSometimes everything seemed plain to me, like the prospect which, from\nthe top of some high mountain, opens before us in clear weather. We\ndistinguish water, woods, villages, cattle, even the cottage perched on\nthe edge of the ravine; then suddenly there comes a gust of wind laden\nwith mist, and all is confused and indistinct.\n\nThus, yielding to the oscillations of a half-recovered reason, I allowed\nmy mind to follow its various impulses without troubling myself to\nseparate the real from the imaginary; I glided softly from one to the\nother, and my dreams and waking thoughts succeeded closely upon one\nanother.\n\nNow, while my mind is wandering in this unsettled state, see, underneath\nthe clock which measures the hours with its loud ticking, a female\nfigure appears before me!\n\nAt first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that she was not a daughter of\nEve. In her eye was the last flash of an expiring star, and her face had\nthe pallor of an heroic death-struggle. She was dressed in a drapery of\na thousand changing colors of the brightest and the most sombre hues,\nand held a withered garland in her hand.\n\nAfter having contemplated her for some moments, I asked her name, and\nwhat brought her into my attic. Her eyes, which were following the\nmovements of the clock, turned toward me, and she replied:\n\n\"You see in me the year which is just drawing to its end; I come to\nreceive your thanks and your farewell.\"\n\nI raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon gave place to bitter\nresentment.\n\n\"Ah! you want thanks,\" cried I; \"but first let me know what for?\n\n\"When I welcomed your coming, I was still young and vigorous: you have\ntaken from me each day some little of my strength, and you have ended by\ninflicting an illness upon me; already, thanks to you, my blood is less\nwarm, my muscles less firm, and my feet less agile than before! You\nhave planted the germs of infirmity in my bosom; there, where the summer\nflowers of life were growing, you have wickedly sown the nettles of old\nage!\n\n\"And, as if it were not enough to weaken my body, you have also\ndiminished the powers of my soul; you have extinguished her enthusiasm;\nshe is become more sluggish and more timid. Formerly her eyes took in\nthe whole of mankind in their generous survey; but you have made her\nnearsighted, and now she hardly sees beyond herself! That is what you\nhave done for my spiritual being: then as to my outward existence, see\nto what grief, neglect, and misery you have reduced it! For the many\ndays that the fever has kept me chained to this bed, who has taken care\nof this home in which I placed all my joy? Shall I not find my closets\nempty, my bookcase, stripped, all my poor treasures lost through\nnegligence or dishonesty? Where are the plants I cultivated, the birds I\nfed? All are gone! my attic is despoiled, silent and solitary! As it is\nonly for the last few moments that I have returned to a consciousness of\nwhat surrounds me, I am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long\nillness! Doubtless some hireling, who will leave when all my means of\nrecompense are exhausted! And what will my masters, for whom I am\nbound to work, have said to my absence? At this time of the year, when\nbusiness is most pressing, can they have done without me, will they\neven have tried to do so? Perhaps I am already superseded in the humble\nsituation by which I earned my daily bread! And it is thou-thou alone,\nwicked daughter of Time--who hast brought all these misfortunes upon\nme: strength, health, comfort, work--thou hast taken all from me. I have\nonly received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou darest to claim\nmy gratitude!\"\n\n\"Ah! die then, since thy day is come; but die despised and cursed; and\nmay I write on thy tomb the epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon that\nof a king:\n\n     \"'Rejoice, thou passer-by: he whom we have buried here\n     cannot live again.'\"\n\n       .......................\n\nI was wakened by a hand taking mine; and opening my eyes, I recognized\nthe doctor.\n\nAfter having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat down at the foot of\nthe bed, and looked at me, rubbing his nose with his snuffbox. I have\nsince learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor.\n\n\"Well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?\" said M. Lambert, in\nhis half-joking, half-scolding way. \"What the deuce of a hurry we were\nin! It was necessary to hold you back with both arms at least!\"\n\n\"Then you had given me up, doctor?\" asked I, rather alarmed.\n\n\"Not at all,\" replied the old physician. \"We can't give up what we\nhave not got; and I make it a rule never to have any hope. We are but\ninstruments in the hands of Providence, and each of us should say, with\nAmbroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!\"'\n\n\"May He be blessed then, as well as you,\" cried I; \"and may my health\ncome back with the new year!\"\n\nM. Lambert shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"Begin by asking yourself for it,\" resumed he, bluntly. \"God has given\nit you, and it is your own sense, and not chance, that must keep it for\nyou. One would think, to hear people talk, that sickness comes upon us\nlike the rain or the sunshine, without one having a word to say in the\nmatter. Before we complain of being ill we should prove that we deserve\nto be well.\"\n\nI was about to smile, but the doctor looked angry.\n\n\"Ah! you think that I am joking,\" resumed he, raising his voice; \"but\ntell me, then, which of us gives his health the same attention that he\ngives to his business? Do you economize your strength as you economize\nyour money? Do you avoid excess and imprudence in the one case with the\nsame care as extravagance or foolish speculations in the other? Do\nyou keep as regular accounts of your mode of living as you do of\nyour income? Do you consider every evening what has been wholesome\nor unwholesome for you, with the same care that you bring to the\nexamination of your expenditure? You may smile; but have you not brought\nthis illness on yourself by a thousand indiscretions?\"\n\nI began to protest against this, and asked him to point out these\nindiscretions. The old doctor spread out his fingers, and began to\nreckon upon them one by one.\n\n\"Primo,\" cried he, \"want of exercise. You live here like a mouse in\na cheese, without air, motion, or change. Consequently, the blood\ncirculates badly, the fluids thicken, the muscles, being inactive, do\nnot claim their share of nutrition, the stomach flags, and the brain\ngrows weary.\n\n\"Secundo. Irregular food. Caprice is your cook; your stomach a slave who\nmust accept what you give it, but who presently takes a sullen revenge,\nlike all slaves.\n\n\"Tertio. Sitting up late. Instead of using the night for sleep, you\nspend it in reading; your bedstead is a bookcase, your pillows a desk!\nAt the time when the wearied brain asks for rest, you lead it through\nthese nocturnal orgies, and you are surprised to find it the worse for\nthem the next day.\n\n\"Quarto. Luxurious habits. Shut up in your attic, you insensibly\nsurround yourself with a thousand effeminate indulgences. You must have\nlist for your door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, an\neasy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire lit at the\nfirst sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp; and thanks to all these\nprecautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, common chairs give\nyou no rest, and you must wear spectacles to support the light of\nday. You have thought you were acquiring comforts, and you have only\ncontracted infirmities.\n\n\"Quinto\"\n\n\"Ah! enough, enough, doctor!\" cried I. \"Pray, do not carry your\nexamination farther; do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my\npleasures.\"\n\nThe old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuffbox.\n\n\"You see,\" said he, more gently, and rising at the same time, \"you would\nescape from the truth. You shrink from inquiry--a proof that you are\nguilty. 'Habemus confitentem reum'! But at least, my friend, do not go\non laying the blame on Time, like an old woman.\"\n\nThereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, declaring that his\nfunction was at an end, and that the rest depended upon myself.\n\nWhen the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting upon what he had said.\n\nAlthough his words were too sweeping, they were not the less true in the\nmain. How often we accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we\nshould seek in ourselves! Perhaps it would have been wiser to let him\nfinish the examination he had begun.\n\nBut is there not another of more importance--that which concerns\nthe health of the soul? Am I so sure of having neglected no means of\npreserving that during the year which is now ending? Have I, as one of\nGod's soldiers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms efficient? Shall\nI be ready for the great review of souls which must pass before Him WHO\nIS in the dark valley of Jehoshaphat?\n\nDarest thou examine thyself, O my soul! and see how often thou hast\nerred?\n\nFirst, thou hast erred through pride! for I have not duly valued the\nlowly. I have drunk too deeply of the intoxicating wines of genius, and\nhave found no relish in pure water. I have disdained those words which\nhad no other beauty than their sincerity; I have ceased to love men\nsolely because they are men--I have loved them for their endowments; I\nhave contracted the world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, and\nmy sympathy has been awakened by admiration only. The vulgar crowd,\nwhich I ought to have followed with a friendly eye because it is\ncomposed of my brothers in hope or grief, I have let pass by with as\nmuch indifference as if it were a flock of sheep. I am indignant with\nhim who rolls in riches and despises the man poor in worldly wealth; and\nyet, vain of my trifling knowledge, I despise him who is poor in mind--I\nscorn the poverty of intellect as others do that of dress; I take credit\nfor a gift which I did not bestow on myself, and turn the favor of\nfortune into a weapon with which to attack others.\n\nAh! if, in the worst days of revolutions, ignorance has revolted and\nraised a cry of hatred against genius, the fault is not alone in\nthe envious malice of ignorance, but comes in part, too, from the\ncontemptuous pride of knowledge.\n\nAlas! I have too completely forgotten the fable of the two sons of the\nmagician of Bagdad.\n\nOne of them, struck by an irrevocable decree of destiny, was born blind,\nwhile the other enjoyed all the delights of sight. The latter, proud of\nhis own advantages, laughed at his brother's blindness, and disdained\nhim as a companion. One morning the blind boy wished to go out with him.\n\n\"To what purpose,\" said he, \"since the gods have put nothing in common\nbetween us? For me creation is a stage, where a thousand charming scenes\nand wonderful actors appear in succession; for you it is only an\nobscure abyss, at the bottom of which you hear the confused murmur of\nan invisible world. Continue then alone in your darkness, and leave the\npleasures of light to those upon whom the day-star shines.\"\n\nWith these words he went away, and his brother, left alone, began to cry\nbitterly. His father, who heard him, immediately ran to him, and tried\nto console him by promising to give him whatever he desired.\n\n\"Can you give me sight?\" asked the child.\n\n\"Fate does not permit it,\" said the magician.\n\n\"Then,\" cried the blind boy, eagerly, \"I ask you to put out the sun!\"\n\nWho knows whether my pride has not provoked the same wish on the part of\nsome one of my brothers who does not see?\n\nBut how much oftener have I erred through levity and want of thought!\nHow many resolutions have I taken at random! how many judgments have I\npronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have I not\ndone without any sense of my responsibility! The greater part of men\nharm one another for the sake of doing something. We laugh at the honor\nof one, and compromise the reputation of another, like an idle man who\nsaunters along a hedgerow, breaking the young branches and destroying\nthe most beautiful flowers.\n\nAnd, nevertheless, it is by this very thoughtlessness that the fame of\nsome men is created. It rises gradually, like one of those mysterious\nmounds in barbarous countries, to which a stone is added by every\npasserby; each one brings something at random, and adds it as he passes,\nwithout being able himself to see whether he is raising a pedestal or a\ngibbet. Who will dare look behind him, to see his rash judgments held up\nthere to view?\n\nSome time ago I was walking along the edge of the green mound on which\nthe Montmartre telegraph stands. Below me, along one of the zigzag paths\nwhich wind up the hill, a man and a girl were coming up, and arrested my\nattention. The man wore a shaggy coat, which gave him some resemblance\nto a wild beast; and he held a thick stick in his hand, with which he\ndescribed various strange figures in the air. He spoke very loud, and\nin a voice which seemed to me convulsed with passion. He raised his\neyes every now and then with an expression of savage harshness, and it\nappeared to me that he was reproaching and threatening the girl, and\nthat she was listening to him with a submissiveness which touched my\nheart. Two or three times she ventured a few words, doubtless in the\nattempt to justify herself; but the man in the greatcoat began again\nimmediately with his loud and angry voice, his savage looks, and his\nthreatening evolutions in the air. I followed him with my eyes, vainly\nendeavoring to catch a word as he passed, until he disappeared behind\nthe hill.\n\nI had evidently just seen one of those domestic tyrants whose sullen\ntempers are excited by the patience of their victims, and who, though\nthey have the power to become the beneficent gods of a family, choose\nrather to be their tormentors.\n\nI cursed the unknown savage in my heart, and I felt indignant that these\ncrimes against the sacred peace of home could not be punished as they\ndeserve, when I heard his voice approaching nearer. He had turned the\npath, and soon appeared before me at the top of the slope.\n\nThe first glance, and his first words, explained everything to me: in\nplace of what I had taken for the furious tones and terrible looks of an\nangry man, and the attitude of a frightened victim, I had before me only\nan honest citizen, who squinted and stuttered, but who was explaining\nthe management of silkworms to his attentive daughter.\n\nI turned homeward, smiling at my mistake; but before I reached my\nfaubourg I saw a crowd running, I heard calls for help, and every\nfinger pointed in the same direction to a distant column of flame. A\nmanufactory had taken fire, and everybody was rushing forward to assist\nin extinguishing it.\n\nI hesitated. Night was coming on; I felt tired; a favorite book was\nawaiting me; I thought there would be no want of help, and I went on my\nway.\n\nJust before I had erred from want of consideration; now it was from\nselfishness and cowardice.\n\nBut what! have I not on a thousand other occasions forgotten the duties\nwhich bind us to our fellowmen? Is this the first time I have avoided\npaying society what I owe it? Have I not always behaved to my companions\nwith injustice, and like the lion? Have I not claimed successively every\nshare? If any one is so ill-advised as to ask me to return some little\nportion, I get provoked, I am angry, I try to escape from it by every\nmeans. How many times, when I have perceived a beggar sitting huddled up\nat the end of the street, have I not gone out of my way, for fear that\ncompassion would impoverish me by forcing me to be charitable! How often\nhave I doubted the misfortunes of others, that I might with justice\nharden my heart against them.\n\nWith what satisfaction have I sometimes verified the vices of the poor\nman, in order to show that his misery is the punishment he deserves!\n\nOh! let us not go farther--let us not go farther! I interrupted the\ndoctor's examination, but how much sadder is this one! We pity the\ndiseases of the body; we shudder at those of the soul.\n\nI was happily disturbed in my reverie by my neighbor, the old soldier.\n\nNow I think of it, I seem always to have seen, during my fever, the\nfigure of this good old man, sometimes leaning against my bed, and\nsometimes sitting at his table, surrounded by his sheets of pasteboard.\n\nHe has just come in with his glue-pot, his quire of green paper, and\nhis great scissors. I called him by his name; he uttered a joyful\nexclamation, and came near me.\n\n\"Well! so the bullet is found again!\" cried he, taking my two hands into\nthe maimed one which was left him; \"it has not been without trouble, I\ncan tell you; the campaign has been long enough to win two clasps in.\nI have seen no few fellows with the fever batter windmills during my\nhospital days: at Leipsic, I had a neighbor who fancied a chimney was\non fire in his stomach, and who was always calling for the fire-engines;\nbut the third day it all went out of itself. But with you it has lasted\ntwenty-eight days--as long as one of the Little Corporal's campaigns.\"\n\n\"I am not mistaken then; you were near me?\"\n\n\"Well! I had only to cross the passage. This left hand has not made you\na bad nurse for want of the right; but, bah! you did not know what hand\ngave you drink, and it did not prevent that beggar of a fever from being\ndrowned--for all the world like Poniatowski in the Elster.\"\n\nThe old soldier began to laugh, and I, feeling too much affected to\nspeak, pressed his hand against my breast. He saw my emotion, and\nhastened to put an end to it.\n\n\"By-the-bye, you know that from to-day you have a right to draw\nyour rations again,\" resumed he gayly; \"four meals, like the German\nmeinherrs--nothing more! The doctor is your house steward.\"\n\n\"We must find the cook, too,\" replied I, with a smile.\n\n\"She is found,\" said the veteran.\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"Genevieve.\"\n\n\"The fruit-woman?\"\n\n\"While I am talking she is cooking for you, neighbor; and do not fear\nher sparing either butter or trouble. As long as life and death were\nfighting for you, the honest woman passed her time in going up and down\nstairs to learn which way the battle went. And, stay, I am sure this is\nshe.\"\n\nIn fact we heard steps in the passage, and he went to open the door.\n\n\"Oh, well!\" continued he, \"it is Mother Millot, our portress, another\nof your good friends, neighbor, and whose poultices I recommend to you.\nCome in, Mother Millot--come in; we are quite bonny boys this morning,\nand ready to step a minuet if we had our dancing-shoes.\"\n\nThe portress came in, quite delighted. She brought my linen, washed and\nmended by herself, with a little bottle of Spanish wine, the gift of her\nsailor son, and kept for great occasions. I would have thanked her,\nbut the good woman imposed silence upon me, under the pretext that the\ndoctor had forbidden me to speak. I saw her arrange everything in my\ndrawers, the neat appearance of which struck me; an attentive hand\nhad evidently been there, and day by day put straight the unavoidable\ndisorder consequent on sickness.\n\nAs she finished, Genevieve arrived with my dinner; she was followed by\nMother Denis, the milk-woman over the way, who had learned, at the\nsame time, the danger I had been in, and that I was now beginning to\nbe convalescent. The good Savoyard brought me a new-laid egg, which she\nherself wished to see me eat.\n\nIt was necessary to relate minutely all my illness to her. At every\ndetail she uttered loud exclamations; then, when the portress warned her\nto be less noisy, she excused herself in a whisper. They made a circle\naround me to see me eat my dinner; each mouthful I took was accompanied\nby their expressions of satisfaction and thankfulness. Never had the\nKing of France, when he dined in public, excited such admiration among\nthe spectators.\n\nAs they were taking the dinner away, my colleague, the old cashier,\nentered in his turn.\n\nI could not prevent my heart beating as I recognized him. How would the\nheads of the firm look upon my absence, and what did he come to tell me?\n\nI waited with inexpressible anxiety for him to speak; but he sat down by\nme, took my hand, and began rejoicing over my recovery, without saying a\nword about our masters. I could not endure this uncertainty any longer.\n\n\"And the Messieurs Durmer,\" asked I, hesitatingly, \"how have they\ntaken--the interruption to my work?\"\n\n\"There has been no interruption,\" replied the old clerk, quietly.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Each one in the office took a share of your duty; all has gone on as\nusual, and the Messieurs Durmer have perceived no difference.\"\n\nThis was too much. After so many instances of affection, this filled up\nthe measure. I could not restrain my tears.\n\nThus the few services I had been able to do for others had been\nacknowledged by them a hundredfold! I had sown a little seed, and every\ngrain had fallen on good ground, and brought forth a whole sheaf. Ah!\nthis completes the lesson the doctor gave me. If it is true that the\ndiseases, whether of the mind or body, are the fruit of our follies and\nour vices, sympathy and affection are also the rewards of our having\ndone our duty. Every one of us, with God's help, and within the\nnarrow limits of human capability, himself makes his own disposition,\ncharacter, and permanent condition.\n\nEverybody is gone; the old soldier has brought me back my flowers and\nmy birds, and they are my only companions. The setting sun reddens my\nhalf-closed curtains with its last rays. My brain is clear, and my heart\nlighter. A thin mist floats before my eyes, and I feel myself in that\nhappy state which precedes a refreshing sleep.\n\nYonder, opposite the bed, the pale goddess in her drapery of a thousand\nchanging colors, and with her withered garland, again appears before me;\nbut this time I hold out my hand to her with a grateful smile.\n\n\"Adieu, beloved year! whom I but now unjustly accused. That which I have\nsuffered must not be laid to thee; for thou wast but a tract through\nwhich God had marked out my road--a ground where I had reaped the\nharvest I had sown. I will love thee, thou wayside shelter, for those\nhours of happiness thou hast seen me enjoy; I will love thee even for\nthe suffering thou hast seen me endure. Neither happiness nor suffering\ncame from thee; but thou hast been the scene for them. Descend again\nthen, in peace, into eternity, and be blest, thou who hast left me\nexperience in the place of youth, sweet memories instead of past time,\nand gratitude as payment for good offices.\"\n\n\n     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:\n\n     Always to mistake feeling for evidence\n     Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!'\n     Are we then bound to others only by the enforcement of laws\n     Attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures\n     Brought them up to poverty\n     But above these ruins rises a calm and happy face\n     Carn-ival means, literally, \"farewell to flesh!\"\n     Coffee is the grand work of a bachelor's housekeeping\n     Contemptuous pride of knowledge\n     Death, that faithful friend of the wretched\n     Defeat and victory only displace each other by turns\n     Did not think the world was so great\n     Do they understand what makes them so gay?\n     Each of us regards himself as the mirror of the community\n     Ease with which the poor forget their wretchedness\n     Every one keeps his holidays in his own way\n     Fame and power are gifts that are dearly bought\n     Favorite and conclusive answer of his class--\"I know\"\n     Fear of losing a moment from business\n     Finishes his sin thoroughly before he begins to repent\n     Fortune sells what we believe she gives\n     Her kindness, which never sleeps\n     Houses are vessels which take mere passengers\n     Hubbub of questions which waited for no reply\n     I make it a rule never to have any hope\n     Ignorant of what there is to wish for\n     Looks on an accomplished duty neither as a merit nor a grievance\n     Make himself a name: he becomes public property\n     Moderation is the great social virtue\n     More stir than work\n     My patronage has become her property\n     No one is so unhappy as to have nothing to give\n     Not desirous to teach goodness\n     Nothing is dishonorable which is useful\n     Our tempers are like an opera-glass\n     Poverty, you see, is a famous schoolmistress\n     Power of necessity\n     Prisoners of work\n     Progress can never be forced on without danger\n     Question is not to discover what will suit us\n     Richer than France herself, for I have no deficit in my budget\n     Ruining myself, but we must all have our Carnival\n     Satisfy our wants, if we know how to set bounds to them\n     Sensible man, who has observed much and speaks little\n     So much confidence at first, so much doubt at las\n     Sullen tempers are excited by the patience of their victims\n     The happiness of the wise man costs but little\n     The man in power gives up his peace\n     Two thirds of human existence are wasted in hesitation\n     Virtue made friends, but she did not take pupils\n     We do not understand that others may live on their own account\n     We are not bound to live, while we are bound to do our duty\n     What have you done with the days God granted you\n     What a small dwelling joy can live\n     You may know the game by the lair","title":"An Attic Philosopher in Paris \u2014 Complete","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":46179}