"The Minister had never been able formerly to draw the Prince into his interest, seldom to get him to his house; to be sure, he had sometimes not omitted to give in marriage a daughter who might please him; but either the diverse interest of the daughter's husband was always unpropitious to his own, or else the influence of his Lordship was. Hence he was more to be excused than condemned for espousing the cause of the _weaker_ party, namely, that of the Princess, who at least, in all events, was something, and who perhaps was only concealing still her Italian arts. On the whole, then, it was not unjust, that one should endeavor through Matthieu to attach the Princess, who has much _frailty_, to the house of Schleunes, wherein they constrained themselves to walk after her external grandioseness of virtue, while they could make up to her by the court page for the coldness of her spouse." ... If the reader imagines to himself the worst, he will comprehend Victor's incredulous staring and cursing; but he will let Zeusel have his say out first. "Fortunately the Court-Physician had done the family the honor of often visiting them; and the Schleuneses probably had encouraged him in _every_ way to a more frequent bestowal of his visits, especially as he thereby made the Prince also a familiar guest. Deponent had a variety of information on this subject from good authority." ... Victor guessed, what Zeusel from politeness concealed, the allusion to Joachime. "Singular,--is it not?" thought he, "that my father writes me almost the same thing! But here is a fine complication of purposes! I make the Minister my cloak of concealment in my designs upon the Princess, and he makes me his in his designs upon the Prince." That is what he ought to have known without me, that bad men never seek good ones out of love, and that Joachime's heart is nothing but a bait in the hands of the Minister; but poetic men, who keep the wings of fancy forever on the stretch, are caught, like larks, by means of their _outspread_ wings, even in nets which have the _widest_ meshes, through which the smooth body of a bird might easily slip. Only one word more: why did Victor demean himself toward the best persons--towards Clotilda, his father, &c.--more finely, handsomely, and properly than the best man of the world; and yet towards mediocre and bad people conduct himself so clumsily; why?--Because he did everything from inclination and regard, and nothing from selfishness and imitation; worldlings, on the contrary, maintain always a uniform demeanor, because they never shape it after other people's merits, but according to their own designs. Hence his father, on the island, among those rules of life which, taken together, were a fine covert prophecy of his faults and fortunes, gave him this one: _One commits the most follies among people whom one does not respect_.