on_ (vol. iii. p. 70). While I am writing, an article by M. Emile de
Laveleye on "How bad books may destroy States" (_Pall Mall Gazette_,
June 9, 1888) falls into my hands with a pertinent passage, which I
shall here extract:--

"The following are the terms in which, in an eighteenth century romance,
Count Clitandre explains to the Marquise Cidalise all the services that
philosophy has rendered to refined and elegant society. 'Thanks to
philosophy,' he says, 'we have the happiness to have found the truth,
and what does not this entail for us? Women have never been less prudish
under pretext of duty, and there has never been so little affectation of
virtue. A man and a woman please each other and a _liaison_ is formed;
they tire of it, and separate with as little ceremony as they commenced
it; if they come again to regret the separation, their former relations
may recommence, and with the same enthusiasm as the first time. These
again cease; and all this takes place without any quarrellings or
disputes! It is true that there has been no question whatever of _love_;
but after all, what is _love_ save a mere desire that people chose to
exaggerate, a physical sentiment of which men, in their vanity, chose to
make a virtue? Nowadays the desire alone exists, and if people, in their
mutual relations, speak of love, it is not because they really believe
in it, but because it is a politer way of obtaining what they
reciprocally wish for. As there has been no question of love at the
onset, there is no hatred at parting, and from the slight liking
mutually inspired rests a mutual desire and readiness to oblige each
other. I think, all things considered, that it is wise to sacrifice to
so much pleasure a few old-fashioned prejudices which bring but little
esteem and an infinite amount of worry to those who still make them
their rule of conduct.'"

[20] This paragraph reads amusingly like a satire upon English
"aesthetes."

[21] See above, vol i. p. 367.

[22] See above, chap. xxxi.

[23] The first or Paris edition bears, however, the date 1756.

[24] I have to say that what follows in this chapter has been very
considerably abridged from Gozzi's text. Apology is owed to him by the
translator for condensing his narrative and confining it to points of
permanent interest, if indeed there is any interest at all in bygone
literary squabbles, while retaining the first person.

[25] This poem is printed in vol. viii. of Colombani'