d become
exceedingly scarce. Two to one! the game would seem too desperate; few
people would be bold enough to face the peril. There would be no
marriages but for money; and these are already too numerous. People in
difficulties would doubtless not fail to marry; for instance, a
merchant placed by his pitiless creditor between marriage and a warrant.

To be transformed, re-made, remodelled, and changed in nature! A grand
and difficult change! But there would be no merit in it, if it was not
of one's free will, and only brought about by a sort of domestic
persecution, or household warfare.

First of all, we must know whether transformation means amelioration,
whether it be intended by transformation to ascend higher and higher in
moral life, and become more virtuous and wise. To ascend would be well
and good; but if it should be to fall lower?

And first of all, the wisdom they offer us does not imply knowledge.
"What is the use of knowledge and literature? They are mere toys of
luxury, vain and dangerous ornaments of the mind, both strangers to the
soul." Let us not contest the matter, but pass over this empty
distinction that opposes the mind to the soul, as if ignorance was
innocence, and as if they could have the gifts of the soul and heart
with a poor, insipid, idiotic literature!

But where is their heart? Let us catch a glimpse of it. How is it
that those who undertake to develope it in others dispense with giving
any proof of it in themselves? But this living fountain of the heart
is impossible to be hidden, if we really have it within us. It springs
out in spite of everything; if you were to stop it on one side, it
would run out by the other. It is more difficult to be confined than
the flowing of great rivers:--try to shut up the sources of the Rhone
or Rhine! These are vain metaphors, and very ill-placed, I allow: to
what deserts of Arabia must I not resort to find more suitable ones?

We are in a church: see the crowd, the dense mass of people who after
having wandered far, enter here weary and athirst, hoping to find some
refreshment; they wait with open mouths. Will there even be one small
drop of dew?

No; a decent, proper, blunt-looking man ascends the pulpit: he will not
affect them; he confines himself to proofs. He makes a grand display
of reasoning, with high logical pretensions and much solemnity in his
premises. Then come sudden, sharp conclusions; but for middle term
there i