rompts us to court death is
but the courage of a moment, and is often excited by the vain applause
of men, or by the hopes of posthumous renown. There is another
description of courage, rarer and more necessary, which enables us to
support, without witness and without applause, the vexations of life;
this virtue is patience. Relying for support, not upon the opinions
of others, or the impulse of the passions, but upon the will of God,
patience is the courage of virtue."

"Ah!" cried he, "I am then without virtue! Every thing overwhelms me
and drives me to despair."--"Equal, constant, and invariable virtue,"
I replied, "belongs not to man. In the midst of the many passions which
agitate us, our reason is disordered and obscured: but there is an
everburning lamp, at which we can rekindle its flame; and that is,
literature.

"Literature, my dear son, is the gift of Heaven, a ray of that wisdom by
which the universe is governed, and which man, inspired by a celestial
intelligence, has drawn down to earth. Like the rays of the sun, it
enlightens us, it rejoices us, it warms us with a heavenly flame, and
seems, in some sort, like the element of fire, to bend all nature to
our use. By its means we are enabled to bring around us all things, all
places, all men, and all times. It assists us to regulate our manners
and our life. By its aid, too, our passions are calmed, vice is
suppressed, and virtue encouraged by the memorable examples of great and
good men which it has handed down to us, and whose time-honoured images
it ever brings before our eyes. Literature is a daughter of Heaven who
has descended upon earth to soften and to charm away all the evils of
the human race. The greatest writers have ever appeared in the worst
times,--in times in which society can hardly be held together,--the
times of barbarism and every species of depravity. My son, literature
has consoled an infinite number of men more unhappy than yourself:
Xenophon, banished from his country after having saved to her ten
thousand of her sons; Scipio Africanus, wearied to death by the
calumnies of the Romans; Lucullus, tormented by their cabals; and
Catinat, by the ingratitude of a court. The Greeks, with their
never-failing ingenuity, assigned to each of the Muses a portion of the
great circle of human intelligence for her especial superintendence;
we ought in the same manner, to give up to them the regulation of our
passions, to bring them under proper res