men who control
large bodies of men; but this is a mere trifle. Ah! if you knew with
what magic influence a man is endowed, what wealth of intellectual
force, what longevity in physical strength he enjoys, when detaching
himself from every species of human passion he spends all his energy
to the profit of his soul! If you could enjoy for two minutes the
riches which God dispenses to the enlightened men who consider love as
merely a passing need which it is sufficient to satisfy for six months
in their twentieth year; to the men who, scorning the luxurious and
surfeiting beefsteaks of Normandy, feed on the roots which God has
given in abundance, and take their repose on a bed of withered leaves,
like the recluses of the Thebaid!--ah! you would not keep on three
seconds the wool of fifteen merinos which covers you; you would fling
away your childish switch, and go to live in the heaven of heavens!
There you would find the love you sought in vain amid the swine of
earth; there you would hear a concert of somewhat different melody
from that of M. Rossini, voices more faultless than that of Malibran.
But I am speaking as a blind man might, and repeating hearsays. If I
had not visited Germany about the year 1791, I should know nothing of
all this. Yes!--man has a vocation for the infinite. There dwells
within him an instinct that calls him to God. God is all, gives all,
brings oblivion on all, and thought is the thread which he has given
us as a clue to communication with himself!"

He suddenly stopped, and fixed his eyes upon the heavens.

"The poor fellow has lost his wits!" I thought to myself.

"Sir," I said to him, "it would be pushing my devotion to eclectic
philosophy too far to insert your ideas in my book; they would destroy
it. Everything in it is based on love, platonic and sensual. God
forbid that I should end my book by such social blasphemies! I would
rather try to return by some pantagruelian subtlety to my herd of
celibates and honest women, with many an attempt to discover some
social utility in their passions and follies. Oh! if conjugal peace
leads us to arguments so disillusionizing and so gloomy as these, I
know a great many husbands who would prefer war to peace."

"At any rate, young man," the old marquis cried, "I shall never have
to reproach myself with refusing to give true directions to a traveler
who had lost his way."

"Adieu, thou old carcase!" I said to myself; "adieu, thou walking
marriag