"Let her take him on St John's Day, when the earth performs her annual miracle, when every herb is in flower, when the plant seems to grow while you behold it; let her take him into the garden, embrace him, and say to him tenderly, 'You love me, you know only me. Well, listen! I am not all. You have another mother. All of us, men, women, children, animals, plants, and whatever has life, we have all a tender mother, who is ever feeding us, invisible, but present. Love her, my dear child; let us embrace her with all our hearts.' "Let there be nothing more. No metaphysics that destroy the impression. Let him brood over that sublime and tender mystery, which his whole life will not suffice to clear up. That is a day he will never forget. Throughout all the trials of life and the intricacies of science, amid all his passions and stormy nights, the gentle sun of St John's Day will ever illumine the deepest recesses of his heart with the immortal blossom of the purest, best love." The little gentleman, however, is not done with yet. The dose is not yet strong enough, although quite as strong as his mother, gentle creature, could mix it. The early jacket is discarded in favour of the swallow-tailed coat, and the youth passes into the hands of his father:-- "His father takes him--'tis a great public festival--immense crowds in Paris--he leads him from Notre Dame to the Louvre, the Tuileries, the triumphal arch. From some roof or terrace, he shows him the people, _the army passing, the bayonets clashing and glittering, and the tricolored flag_. In the moments of expectation especially, before the _fête_, by the fantastic reflections of the illumination, in that awful silence which suddenly takes place in that dark ocean of people, he stoops towards him and says, 'There, my son, look, there is France--there is your native country! All this is like one man, one soul, one heart. They would all die for one; and each man ought also to live and die for all. Those men passing yonder, who are armed, and now departing, are going away to fight for us. They leave here their father, their aged mother, who will want them. You will do the same; you will never forget that your mother is France.'" The education is very nearly completed. The father suffers the swallow-tail to wear out, the incipient mustache to take root, and then he leads his second and better self to the mountain-side. This time he does not stoop over him, for the youth is erect, and is as big a man as his father. "Climb that mountain, my son," says the venerable gentleman, "provided it be high enough; look to the four winds, you will see nothing but _enemies_."