borrow the words invented for our family life. Men
have named themselves the sons of a heavenly Father!

Ah! let us carefully preserve these chains of domestic union. Do not let
us unbind the human sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of
chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us
carry the principles and the habits of home beyond set bounds; and, if
it may be, let us realize the prayer of the Apostle of the Gentiles
when he exclaimed to the newborn children of Christ: "Be ye like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind."

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER X. OUR COUNTRY

October 12th, Seven O'clock A.M.

The nights are already become cold and long; the sun, shining through my
curtains, no more wakens me long before the hour for work; and even when
my eyes are open, the pleasant warmth of the bed keeps me fast under
my counterpane. Every morning there begins a long argument between my
activity and my indolence; and, snugly wrapped up to the eyes, I wait
like the Gascon, until they have succeeded in coming to an agreement.

This morning, however, a light, which shone from my door upon my
pillow, awoke me earlier than usual. In vain I turned on my side;
the persevering light, like a victorious enemy, pursued me into every
position. At last, quite out of patience, I sat up and hurled my
nightcap to the foot of the bed!

(I will observe, by way of parenthesis, that the various evolutions of
this pacific headgear seem to have been, from the remotest time, symbols
of the vehement emotions of the mind; for our language has borrowed its
most common images from them.)

But be this as it may, I got up in a very bad humor, grumbling at my
new neighbor, who took it into his head to be wakeful when I wished to
sleep. We are all made thus; we do not understand that others may live
on their own account. Each one of us is like the earth, according to the
old system of Ptolemy, and thinks he can have the whole universe revolve
around himself. On this point, to make use of the metaphor alluded to:
'Tous les hommes ont la tete dans le meme bonnet'.

I had for the time being, as I have already said, thrown mine to the
other end of my bed; and I slowly disengaged my legs from the
warm bedclothes, while making a host of evil reflections upon the
inconvenience of having neighbors.

For more than a month I had not had to complain of those whom chance
had given me; most of