[Footnote 57: Boileau's admiration for Pascal was unbounded. He declared the "Lettres Provinciales" to be the best work in the French language. Madame de Sévigné, in her letters, narrates a whimsical scene that took place between him and some jesuits. Their conversation turning on literary subjects, Boileau declared that there was only one modern book to be compared to the works of the ancients. Bourdaloue begged him to name it. Boileau evaded the request. "You have read it more than once, I am sure," he said, "but do not ask me its name." The jesuit insisted; and Boileau, at last, taking him by the arm, exclaimed, "You are determined to have it, father; well, it is Pascal." "Morbleu! Pascal!" cried Bourdaloue, astonished. "Yes, certainly Pascal is as well written as any thing false can be." "False!" exclaimed Boileau, "False! Know that he is as true as he is inimitable." On another occasion, a jesuit, father Boubours, consulted Boileau as to what books he ought to consult as models for style. "There is but one," said Boileau, "read the 'Lettres Provinciales,' and believe me that will suffice." Voltaire pronounces the same opinion: he calls Pascal the greatest satirist of France; and says that Molière's best comedies have not the wit of the first of these Letters, nor had Bossuet written any thing so sublime as the latter ones.] [Footnote 58: He thus expresses his sentiments on individual attachments: "It is unjust to attach one's self, even though one should do it voluntarily and with pleasure: I should deceive those in whom I call forth affection--for I cannot be the end of any one, and possess not that by which they can be satisfied. As I should be culpable if I caused a falsehood to be believed, although I should persuade gently and was believed with pleasure, arid hence derive pleasure myself--so am I culpable if I caused myself to be loved, and attracted persons to attach themselves to me. I ought to undeceive those who are ready to give faith to a falsehood in which they ought not to believe, and in the same way teach them that they should not attach themselves to me; for their lives ought to be spent in pleasing God, and seeking him." As if the beneficent Creator would not be pleased in seeing his creatures linked by the bonds of those very affections which he himself has made the law of our lives. One wonders where and how Pascal lived, that he did not discover that the worst crimes and vices of mankind arose from want of attachment: and that hardness of heart, pride, and selfishness, would, in the common run of men, be the consequences of an adherence to his creed.] [Footnote 59: Lockhart, in his Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. VII.] [Footnote 60: The following is Pascal's address to Atheists:--