her voice was always broken. These stirring and terrible scenes had
imprinted themselves for ever upon her mind. When she began to go back
over these recollections, indissolubly bound up with the days of
her girlhood, when she remembered how enthusiasm and wild delight
alternated with scenes of terror, her whole life seemed to rise up
before her I learnt from her to be so proud of the Revolution that I
have liked it since, in spite of my reason and of all that I have said
against it. I do not withdraw anything that I have already said; but
when I see the inveterate persistency of foreign writers to try and
prove that the French Revolution was one long story of folly and
shame, and that it is but an unimportant factor in the world's
history, I begin to think that it is perhaps the greatest of all our
achievements, inasmuch as other people are so jealous of it.
GOOD MASTER SYSTÈME.
PART II.
Among those whom I have to thank for being more a son of the
Revolution than of the Crusaders was a singular character who was long
a puzzle to us. He was an elderly man, whose mode of life, ideas, and
habits were in striking contrast with those of the country at large.
I used to see him every day, with his threadbare cloak, going to buy
a pennyworth of milk which the girl who sold it poured into the tin
he brought with him. He was poor without being literally in want. He
never spoke to any one, but he had a very gentle look about the eyes,
and those who had happened to be brought into contact with him spoke
in very eulogistic terms of his amiability and good sense. I never
knew his name, and I do not believe that any one else did. He did not
belong to our part of the country, and he had no relations. He was
allowed to go his own way, and his singular mode of life excited no
other feeling than one of surprise; but it had not always been so.
He had passed through many vicissitudes. At one time he had been in
communication with the people of the place and had imparted some
of his ideas to them; but no one understood what he meant. The word
_system_ which he used several times tickled their fancy, and this
nickname was at once applied to him. If he had gone on imparting his
ideas he would have got himself into trouble, and the children would
have pelted him. Like a wise man he kept his tongue between his teeth,
and no one attempted to molest him. He came out every day to make
his modest purchases, and of an evening he would take a walk in some
unfrequented spot. He was of a serious but not melancholy cast of
countenance, and with more of an amiable than morose expression. Later
in life when I read Colerus's _Life of Spinoza_, I at once saw that
as a child I had had before my eyes the very image of the holy man of
Amsterdam. He was left to follow his own courses, and was even treated
with respect. His resigned and affable airs seemed like a glimpse from
another world. People did not understand him, but they felt that he
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