in the provinces, where, if we do raise
them, we never keep them. The education of that high product is
too slow and too risky a speculation for country folks.

Besides, men of intellect alarm us; we call them "originals." The
men belonging to the scientific category from which you will have
to obtain your co-operator do not flourish here, and I was on the
point of writing to you that I despaired of fulfilling your
commission. You want a poet, a man of ideas,--in short, what we
should here call a fool, and all our fools go to Paris. I have
spoken of your plans to the young men employed in land surveying,
to contractors on the canals, and makers of the embankments, and
none of them see any "advantage" in what you propose.

But suddenly, as good luck would have it, chance has thrown in my
way the very man you want; a young man to whom I believe I render
a service in naming him to you. You will see by his letter,
herewith enclosed, that deeds of beneficence ought not to be done
hap-hazard. Nothing needs more reflection than a good action. We
never know whether that which seems best at one moment may not
prove an evil later. The exercise of beneficence, as I have lived
to discover, is to usurp the role of Destiny.

As she read that sentence Madame Graslin let fall the letter and was
thoughtful for several minutes.

"My God!" she said at last, "when wilt thou cease to strike me down on
all sides?"

Then she took up the letter and continued reading it:

Gerard seems to me to have a cool head and an ardent heart; that's
the sort of man you want. Paris is just now a hotbed of new
doctrines; I should be delighted to have the lad removed from the
traps which ambitious minds are setting for the generous youth of
France. While I do not altogether approve of the narrow and
stupefying life of the provinces, neither do I like the passionate
life of Paris, with its ardor of reformation, which is driving
youth into so many unknown ways. You alone know my opinions; to my
mind the moral world revolves upon its own axis, like the material
world. My poor protege demands (as you will see from his letter)
things impossible. No power can resist ambitions so violent, so
imperious, so absolute, as those of to-day. I am in favor of low
levels and slowness in political change; I dislike these social
overturns to which ambitious minds subject us.

To you I confide these pr