_He._--They are far better than people suppose; but who is there who knows how to read them? _I._--Everybody does, according to the measure of his intelligence. _He._--No; hardly anybody. Could you tell me what people look for in them? _I._--Amusement and instruction. _He._--But what instruction, for that is the point? _I._--The knowledge of one's duties, the love of virtue, the hatred of vice. _He._--For my part, I gather from them all that one ought to do, and all that one ought not to say. Thus, when I read the _Avare_, I say to myself: "Be a miser if thou wilt, but beware of talking like the miser." When I read _Tartufe_, I say: "Be a hypocrite if thou wilt, but do not talk like a hypocrite. Keep the vices that are useful to thee, but avoid their tone and the appearances that would make thee laughable." To preserve thyself from such a tone and such appearances, it is necessary to know what they are. Now these authors have drawn excellent pictures of them. I am myself, and I remain what I am, but I act and I speak as becomes the character. I am not one of those who despise moralists; there is a great deal of profit to be got from them, especially with those who have applied morality to action. Vice only hurts men from time to time; the characteristics of vice hurt them from morning to night. Perhaps it would be better to be insolent than to have an insolent expression. One who is insolent in character only insults people now and again; one who is insolent in expression insults them incessantly. And do not imagine that I am the only reader of my kind. I have no other merit in this respect than having done on system, from a natural integrity of understanding, and with true and reasonable vision, what most others do by instinct. And so their readings make them no better than I am, and they remain ridiculous in spite of themselves, while I am only so when I choose, and always leave them a vast distance behind me; for the same art which teaches me how to escape ridicule on certain occasions teaches me also on certain others how to incur it happily. Then I recall to myself all that the others said, and all that I read, and I add all that issues from my own originality, which is in this kind wondrous fertile. _I._--You have done well to reveal these mysteries to me, for otherwise I should have thought you self-contradictory.