...

two of the liveliest ladies of Paris; he regards them attentively; he strikes his knees and his stomach many times in succession, and finds never another thing to say to them except: "Eh bien! mes demoiselles. ... Eh bien! vous voilà donc. Eh bien! vous voilà. ... Vous voilà ici?..." That phrase lasts for a quarter of an hour, without his being able to leave off. One of them rose impatiently: "Ah!" said she, "I strongly suspected it. That man is good for nothing but to eat veal!" Since that time he is relegated to the part of a spectator, and is none the less dined and courted. It is, in truth, a pleasant thing, the part he plays here; unfortunately for him- or rather for philosophic dignity, for as for him, he seems to accommodate himself well to this train of life. There had been no ruling mania in the country till he arrived; he is regarded as a godsend under those circumstances, and the effervescence of our young heads is turned toward him. All the lively women have taken possession of him; he is of all the fine suppers, and there is no good party without him in a word, he is for us charmers what the Genevese are for me.

:

Apropos, what do you say of Truly, I was going to name him, and I must not. Well, then! what do you say of Somebody who alleges that I ought to write you oftener than ever, because you must have need of dissipation, now that you are married? Ah! how I can hear you from here tell us grandly and ironically: "That man understands nothing but the marriages of Paris: he has hardly an idea of those of Geneva." Softly, uncle of ours: say that Somebody doesn't know your wife, and you are right; but no national apostrophes. They are always unjust: I don't like them. Believe me, men are everywhere the same; and as for a little modification of more or less, that is not worth the trouble of puffing one's self up, or humiliating others. Good-by.

TO DIDEROT.

Ah! Philosopher! how I revere your surprise, and how I congratulate you on your happy security! What you are serenely ignorant whence Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, and La Bruyère have drawn their moral maxims? You regard them as collections of physical experiences, which await some maxim that shall tie them together? Alas! a thousand times happy he who shall not find it, or who shall believe he has

authority to deny its existence! No: it is neither in themselves, nor in the heart of the people they have specially frequented, that they have seen man wicked, selfish, and false. It is not for policy that they believe they ought to show evil preferably to good: it is to speak the truth; and that truth they have drawn from the knowledge of human nature and its weakness, and search into society such as it is instituted.

Yes, a man consistently virtuous-for there are suchcannot applaud himself except for having escaped from circumstances; and if by chance men were given opportunity to swap, -advantages and evils, to change their object, they would not by that means have a more equitable distribution of them each would have his turn. That is the whole story.

But to conclude, you tell me that if man is not vicious, he is not virtuous either. Shall I dare to answer you that he is not born either virtuous or vicious? One man is born virtuous, one is born vicious — well and good; man in general is born susceptible of needs, handy and imitative. I do not speak of savage man, I do not know him and have never seen him; and the knowledge I have of civilized man has taught me to believe nothing of what he says to me that I have not seen, not examined for myself. I say, then, that a being susceptible of needs, handy and imitative, cast into society such as it is instituted, can be nothing except such as La Rochefoucald, Montaigne, and La Bruyère paint. It is a good thing to show him. such as he is that should at least obtain him indulgence, and it is the solitary advantage one can obtain from him, for he is susceptible of modifications.

It is not for us to mutually consent to the fact that we are what we are, nor vex ourselves about it, when it is a general and necessary condition. It was necessary that men should live in society: that first necessity entails all the others. We may modify all our institutions as we will more or less always we shall be what we are. We may change governments, administrations; we may perfect education.

Perfect education! That claim recalls to me a conversation I had fifteen years ago with Jean-Jacques [Rousseau], and of which I have already spoken to you: he maintained that fathers and mothers are not made by nature to teach, nor children to be taught. I lacked experience then; I had still all the illusion and the enthusiasm which produced virtue in an upright spirit: also, that opinion revolted me. But now the

veil is rent away, I am sick of it: Jean-Jacques is right, Philosopher, and I conclude that you are younger than I, although I have a good decade of years less than you.

TO THE ABBÉ GALIANI.

That I cannot have a moment to myself! always some anxieties, some business affairs, some etceteras. Oh, the stupid life I lead! My son-in-law is there with the toothache. he suffers!

Oh, how

He makes faces like one with a devil. His wife has the colic. Ragot has convulsions.. Rosette barks to split my head. I want to write - no, there's a visitor: a woman I have never seen; she comes to see the house. It is to let, my house; people must of course come to see it. This woman is a busybody, a chatterbox. - Madame, your servant. - Your most humble servant, Madame. Madame, this house seems charming: ah, heaven, how can you leave it? is it yours? but perhaps you don't like country life? - Pardon me, madame, I regret... Perhaps it is unhealthy? There is plenty of water. You have a delicate look. - Madame, this residence is not unhealthy, but I... - Ah, madame, there is the river, I believe? -No, madame, it is a canal. And the furniture? is the furniture left in? - Madame, one must buy the canal, and may fish in it for the furniture the entire three years.

Truly, I did talk like that, I was so flustered by her questions and her heedless gabble. As for the rest - the details of the house, the inventories-everything has something so sad, so afflicting, that I have to make the greatest effort not to weep. Everything that I have done here, that I have arranged, that I have planted, seems to me better done, more interesting than ever but I am not paid; no one knows when he will be. I have children, debts, old domestics whom I must be able to pay. Equity counsels that I reduce myself to what is necessary, but I do not hide from you that that reform costs me infinitely. Oh, what a task my lot gives to my friends! by accumulating on my head so many vexations and at times even desperate circumstances! It is only they, by their friendship, who can avert the progress of the blackness which thickens over me. Judge what place you occupy in the very short list of my compensations.

They say the Abbé Morellet is angry he refutes you. Many have seen his rejoinder. I do not know it; but he loves

me, and that reassures me as to the tone which they say pervades it. Diderot will speak to you about it. Your affairs desolate me that enchanter does not make an end.1 Monsieur de Sartine has given us a censor who has allowed your book2 to be read for the benefit of rural visages—and who is one of them himself, I have hardly any doubt. I believe, nevertheless that if he was sure of it, he would not find it good. Patience and courage, my dear abbé. All that afflicts me is the not having power to enable you to touch your money promptly, for I feel from experience that it is often hard not to have it.

I believe that to repay me for my disasters, I am going to make myself schoolmistress; or to speak more correctly, a most excellent weaner. There has come to me from the depths of the Pyrenees a little daughter of mine, two years old, who is an original little creature. She is black as a mole, she is of Spanish gravity, of a truly Huron wildness; with that, the most beautiful eyes in the world, and certain natural graces, a mixture of good nature, of serenity in all her person, very marked and very singular for her age. I wager that she will have character; yes, I wager it. And in order that she may preserve it, the desire seizes me to possess myself of that little creature. These are terrible chains which I shall give myself. I know myself-that merits reflection, or rather I must not rush headlong into the new snare my star sets for me; her own will be no worse. Ah well, here is a deciding motive; come, hear what I say to-morrow I lift her to her mother, I take possession of her, and we shall see for once what will become of a child who is neither coerced nor restrained. It will be the first example in Paris. I think I am the only one who does not make her afraid; she smiles at me, abbé, do you see that? then she calls me Emilie. The charming name and the means of ending it there!

And

You advise me to believe in the excuses of M. de Pignatelli. I have much difficulty in taking them as genuine. I want your advice before writing to him. Adieu, adieu, my dear abbé. In truth, I am so stupid to-day that you are very fortunate that I have not time to write more to you.

1 The Merlin Library owed Galiani money.

2" Dialogues on Wheat."

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON.

(From "Rasselas.")

[For biographical sketch, see Vol. 17, page 198.]

YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty Emperor in whose dominions the father of waters begins his course— - whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over the world the harvests of Egypt.

According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne.

The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it had long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massive that no man, without the help of engines, could open or shut them.

From the mountains on every side rivulets descended, that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.

The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits