For this reason: because he is sometimes a _littérateur_. As often as Fate, under its veil, dots off from the great world atlas to a special map the little life-stream of a _literatus_, which runs over some lecture-halls and bookshelves, it may possibly think and say thus: "Surely there is no cheaper or rarer way of making a creature happy than by making him a literary one: his goblet of joy is an inkhorn,--his feast of trumpets and carnival is (if he is a reviewer) the Easter-fair,--his whole Paphian grove is compressed into a bookcase,--and what else do his blue Mondays consist of than (written or read) Dog-post-days?" And so Fate itself leads me over to the 2. DOG-POST-DAY. Antediluvian History.--Victor's Plan of Life. At the gate of the First Chapter, the readers ask the incomers: "What is your name?--your character?--your business?" The Dog answers for all: H. Januarius--i. e. Herr Januarius, not Holy Januarius; but the Prince of Flachsenfingen bore that name--had, in his younger years, made the grand tour or journey round the beautiful and the great world. He everywhere distributed gifts to strangers, which cost him but a single _don gratuit_ from his subjects, and he succored and pitied many oppressed peasants in France, who fared as badly as his own did in Flachsenfingen. For the defenceless female sex, like all travelling princes, he did, if possible, still more; one may say of the greater number of them, that, like Titus, or like one sailing westward round the world, they, to be sure, sometimes lose a _day_, but seldom a _night_, without making others, and consequently being themselves, happy. In fact, the Regent must have foreseen the present depopulation of France; for he took measures betimes against it, and left behind him in three Gallic seaboard cities three sons, and on the so-called Seven Islands only one. The first was called the Welshman, the second the Brazilian, the third the Calabrian; the one on the Seven Islands, the Monsieur, or _Mosye_: these names were probably meant to allude to Princes of Wales, Brazil, and Asturias. He let his children grow up in no worse ignorance than ignorance of their rank: they were to be formed for future co-workers in his administration. Januarius was, to be sure, sensual and somewhat feeble, but--except where he _feared_--extremely philanthropic.