“Master Joseph,” said he, half sarcastically, “the world has been pleased to outlive these follies; they have come to the wise resolve that, when languages are dead, they ought to be buried; and they have little sympathy with those who wish to resuscitate and disinter them.” “It is but an abuse of terms to call them dead, Count,” replied Joseph. “Truth, in whatever tongue it be syllabled, does not die. Fidelity to nature in our age will be acknowledged as correct in centuries after.” “Our own time gives us as good models, and with less trouble to look for them,” said the Count, flippantly. “Your dreamy bookworm is too prone to delve in the earth, and not to coin the ore that he has discovered. Take Jasper there: you have taught him diligently and patiently; I 'll be sworn you have neglected him in nothing, so far as your own knowledge went; and yet, before he shall have been three months in Paris, he will look upon you, his master, as an infant. The interval between you will be wide as the broad Atlantic; and the obstacles and crosses, to overcome which will be with him the work of a second, would be to you difficulties insurmountable.” “To Paris! Jasper go to Paris!” exclaimed my mother, as she grew deadly pale. “Jasper leave us!” cried Raper, in a tone of terror. “And why not?” replied the Count. “Is it here you would have him waste the best years of youth? Is it in the wild barbarism of this dreary valley that he will catch glimpses of the prizes for which men struggle and contend? The boy himself has higher and nobler instincts; he feels that this is but the sluggish existence of a mere peasant, and that yonder is the tournament where knights are jousting.” “And you wish to leave us, Jasper?” cried my mother, with a quivering lip, and a terrible expression of anxiety in her features. “To forsake your home!” muttered Raper. “Ask himself; let him be as frank with you as he was half-an-hour ago with me, and you will know the truth.” “Oh, Jasper, speak!--leave me not in this dreadful suspense!” cried my mother; “for in all my troubles I never pictured to my mind this calamity.” “No, no!” said Raper; “the boy 's nature has no duplicity,--he never thought of this!” “Ask him, I say,” cried the Count; “ask him if he wish not to accompany me to Paris.” I could bear no longer the power of the gaze that I felt was fixed upon me, but, falling at her feet, I hid my face in her lap, and cried bitterly. My heart was actually bursting with the fulness of sorrow, and I sobbed myself to sleep, still weeping through my dreams, and shedding hot tears as I slumbered. My dream is more graven on my memory than the events which followed my awaking. I could recount the strange and incoherent fancies which chased each other through my brain on that night, and yet not tell the actual occurrences of the following day.