He considered that Lessing had wronged the great representative of the French language; and the remark of Claudius, "Voltaire says he weeps, and Shakespeare does weep," appeared to him like the saying, "Much that is new and beautiful has M. Arouet said; but it is a pity that the beautiful is not new and the new not beautiful,"--more witty than true. The English think that Shakespeare, as the Germans think that Lessing, really weeps; the French think the same of Voltaire. But the first weeps for the whole world, it is said, the last only for his own people. What the French call "Le Nord" is, to be sure, rather a large territory, but not the entire world! France calls "whimpering" in one case and "blubbering" in another what we call weeping. The general mistake is that we do not understand the nature of the people and the language, in which and for whom the weeping is done. We must be English when we read Shakespeare, German when we read Klopstock, French when we read Voltaire. The man whose soul cannot shed its national costume and don that of other nations ought not to read, much less to judge, their masterpieces. He will be looking at the moon by day and at the sun by night, and see the first without lustre and the last not at all. PHILOSOPHY ON THE HEATH From 'The Labyrinth' Caillard was a man of experience, taste, and knowledge. He told me the story of his life from beginning to end, he confided to me his principles and his affairs, and I took him to be the happiest man in the world. "I have everything," he said, "all that I have wished for or can wish for: health, riches, domestic peace (being unmarried), a tolerably good conscience, books--and as much sense as I need to enjoy them. I experience only one single want, lack only one single pleasure in this world; but that one is enough to embitter my life and class me with other unfortunates." I could not guess what might yet be wanting to such a man under such conditions, "It cannot be liberty," I said, "for how can a rich merchant in a free town lack this?" "No! Heaven save me--I neither would nor could live one single day without liberty." "You do not happen to be in love with some cruel or unhappy princess?" "That is still less the case." "Ah!--now I have it, no doubt--your soul is consumed with a thirst for truth, for a satisfactory answer to the many questions which are but philosophic riddles. You are seeking what so many brave men from Anaxagoras to Spinoza have sought in vain--the corner-stone of philosophy, the foundation of the structure of our ideas." He assured me that in this respect he was quite at ease. "Then, in spite of your good health, you must be subject to that miserable thing, a cold in the head?" I said. "Uno minor--Jove, dives Liber, honoratus, pulcher rex denique regum, Praecipue sanus--nisi cum pituita molesta est." --HORACE. When he denied this too, I gave up trying to solve the meaning of his dark words.