"When the shining sun scatters the stars, know ye, O mortal men, whether ye will see the evening of that day? And, when the sombre curtains of night are let fall from the sky, can you tell whether you will see the dawn of another morn?"
"Faith? 'Tis a blessed field that breeds a superb harvest, and every laborer may therein reap and garner to his heart's content, and carry home his sheaves."
"Science is a forest where some are laying out roads, where many lose their way, and where all see the bounds of the forest recede as fast as they go forward."
"God does not illuminate the world with the lightning and the meteors. He guides peacefully in their courses the stars of the night, which fill the sky with their light. So the divine revelations succeed one another in order, reason, and harmony."
"Religion and Friendship are twin companions, who aid us to traverse the painful path of life."
I cannot forego the pleasure of inserting here, at the close of this chapter, a fable, dictated like the others by table-rappings, and sent to me by M. Joubert, vice-president of the civil tribunal of Carcassonne.[13] The sentiment of it may be queried by some; but is not the central principle applicable to all epochs and to all governments: Do not the "_arrivistes_"[14] belong to all times?
A king who had profaned the public liberties, who for twenty years had slaked his thirst in the blood of heretics; awaiting the quiet peace of the hangman in his declining days; decrepit, surfeited with adulterous amours; this king, this haughty monster of whom they had made a great man,--Louis the Fourteenth, in short, if I must name him,--was one day airing under the leafy arches of his vast gardens his Scarron, his infamy and his troubles. The noble band of court flunkeys came along. Each one at once lost at least six inches of his height. Pages, counts, marquises, dukes, princes, marshals, ministers, bowed low before insulting rivals, the creatures of the king. Grave magistrates made their deep reverences, each humbler than a suitor asking for audience. 'Twas pleasant to see how the ribbons, crosses and decorations on their embroidered coats went ever backwards. Always and always that ignoble bowing and scraping and cringing. I should like to wake up some morning an emperor, that I might sting with my whip the backbone of a flatterer. But see! alone, confronting the despot, yet without abasing his head, forging along with slow steps on his own way, modest, clad in coarse homespun garments, comes one who seems a peasant, perhaps a philosopher, and passes by the groups of insolent courtiers. "Oh," cries the king, in great surprise, "why do you alone confront me without bending the knee?" "Sire," said the unknown, "must I be frank? It is because I alone here expect nothing from you."