for fighting when insulted, there can be no doubt on that head; but, in other respects, what interest have we in allowing ourselves to be perplexed by a thousand fastidious chimeras?'--'Interest!' I repeated; 'that is not the word in question.'--'To speak seriously,' he returned, 'there are few men who have a clear view of this subject. I know they formerly talked of honorable misfortunes, and glorious falls; but now that all men are persecuted, knaves as well as those by courtesy called honest, the only difference is between the birds who are trapped, and those who escape.'--'I know of other distinctions,' I replied, 'where prosperity is despised, and misfortune honored by the good.'--'Show me the good, though,' he said, 'whose courageous esteem would console you for your own destruction. On the contrary, the self-elected virtuous are those who excuse you if happy, and love you if powerful. It is very fine in you, no doubt, to repent thwarting a father, who ought no longer to meddle with your affairs; yet, do anything rather than linger where you may lose your life in a thousand ways. For my part, whatever happens to me, I would, at any price, spare, my friends the sight of my sufferings, and myself their long faces of condolence.'--'In my opinion,' interrupted I, 'the aim of an honest man's life is not the happiness which serves only himself, but the virtue which is useful to others.'--'Virtue!' exclaimed Maltigues, 'virtue----' he hesitated for a moment, then, with more decision, continued; 'that's a language for the vulgar, that even priests cannot talk between themselves without laughing. There are good souls whom certain harmonious words still move; for their sakes let the tune be played: all the poetry that they call conscience and devotion was invented to console those who cannot get on in the world, like the _de profundis_ that is sung for the dead, The living and the prosperous are by no means ambitious of like homage.' I was so irritated that I could not help saying, haughtily, 'I shall be sorry, sir, when I have a right in the house of Madame d'Arbigny, if she persists in receiving a man who thinks and speaks as you do.'--'When that time comes,' he answered, 'you may act as you please; but if my cousin is led by me, she will never marry a man who looks forward in such affright to his union with her. I have always, as she can tell you, censured her folly, and the means she has wasted on an object so little worth her trouble,' At these words, which their accent rendered still more insulting, I made him a sign to follow me; and, on our way, it is but justice to tell you that he continued to develop his system with the greatest possible coolness: he might be no more in a few minutes, yet said not one serious, one feeling word. 'If I had been addicted to all the absurdities of other young men,' he pursued, 'would not what I have seen in my own country have cured me? When has your scrupulousness done you any good?'--'I agree