udge wishes to become a minister in order that his sons
may be peers. At no epoch in the world's history has there been so eager
a thirst for education. To-day it is not intellect but cleverness that
promenades the streets. From every crevice in the rocky surface of
society brilliant flowers burst forth as the spring brings them on the
walls of a ruin; even in the caverns there droop from the vaulted
roof faintly colored tufts of green vegetation. The sun of education
permeates all. Since this vast development of thought, this even and
fruitful diffusion of light, we have scarcely any men of superiority,
because every single man represents the whole education of his age. We
are surrounded by living encyclopaedias who walk about, think, act and
wish to be immortalized. Hence the frightful catastrophes of climbing
ambitions and insensate passions. We feel the want of other worlds;
there are more hives needed to receive the swarms, and especially are we
in need of more pretty women.

But the maladies by which a man is afflicted do not nullify the sum
total of human passion. To our shame be it spoken, a woman is never so
much attached to us as when we are sick.

With this thought, all the epigrams written against the little sex--for
it is antiquated nowadays to say the fair sex--ought to be disarmed
of their point and changed into madrigals of eulogy! All men ought to
consider that the sole virtue of a woman is to love and that all women
are prodigiously virtuous, and at that point to close the book and end
their meditation.

Ah! do you not remember that black and gloomy hour when lonely and
suffering, making accusations against men and especially against your
friends, weak, discouraged, and filled with thoughts of death, your head
supported by a fevered pillow and stretched upon a sheet whose white
trellis-work of linen was stamped upon your skin, you traced with your
eyes the green paper which covered the walls of your silent chamber?
Do you recollect, I say, seeing some one noiselessly open your door,
exhibiting her fair young face, framed with rolls of gold, and a bonnet
which you had never seen before? She seemed like a star in a stormy
night, smiling and stealing towards you with an expression in which
distress and happiness were blended, and flinging herself into your
arms!

"How did you manage it? What did you tell your husband?" you ask.

"Your husband!"--Ah! this brings us back again into the depths of our
s