“_I._—I almost agree with you. But many must attempt these arts in order that the man of genius may overtop them. Thenceforth he is one among many. But I have not seen you for an age. I never think of you but when I see you. Yet I am rejoiced whenever I recover you. What have you been about? “_He._—That which you and the others are about—good, bad, and naught. I have moreover, hungered and eaten if occasion served. Then I was sometimes athirst, and often drank; yes, and my beard grew and I was shaved. “_I._—There you were wrong; for the beard is all you lack in order to be a sage. “_He._—Quite so! My brow is large and wrinkled, my eye flashes, my nose is high, my cheek is broad, my eyebrows brown and heavy, the mouth well-disclosed, lips well-turned, and the face square. Take notice, this huge chin, if covered by a long beard, would look well in brass or marble. “_I._—Beside Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates? “_He._—No! I would rather stand betwixt Diogenes and Phryne. I am as shameless as one, and would gladly visit the other. “_I._—You are always in good case? “_He._—Yes, usually; but not particularly so to-day. “_I._—What! with this rotundity of Silenus, and a countenance— “_He._—A countenance that— Do you consider that the bitter humor which shrivels up the uncle, makes the nephew fat? “_I._—_Apropos!_ Your uncle. Do you see him often? “_He._—Yes, often passing in the street. “_I._—Does he render you no service? “_He._—If he serves any body, it is without knowing it. He is a philosophe in his way; he thinks only of himself, and the rest of the world he regards as his bellows-hand. His wife and daughter may die for all that he cares, provided the bells that toll them to their grave ring in just twelfths and seventeenths. A lucky man is he! and I know how to reckon this quality in your men of genius, that they are good at one thing, and over and above this nothing. Nothing know they of being citizens, fathers, mothers, kinsmen or friends. _Inter nos_, one would crave to be like them; only wishing that the growth should not become too common. We must have men—not men of genius. No, surely no! These are they who turn the world upside down, and the folly of individuals runs so high at present that one can’t repress them without manœuvre.—No! the monk’s wisdom, in Rabelais, is the true wisdom for our peace, and the peace of others. To do duty, as far as may be, to speak well of the prior, and to let the world wag as it will. And things go right well, for the mass is content with this. If I knew history, I would prove to you, that all the ills on earth come of your men of genius; but history I know none, because I know nothing. Confound me if I ever learnt any thing, and I find myself none the worse off. One day I was at the table of a royal minister, who had mind enough for a dozen. He proved, as plain as two and two make four, that nothing is more useful to nations than lies, and nothing more hurtful than truth. I