"Oh! I know very well what you have read and learned, Emile! I should have found it out from your letters even if I had not learned it from my correspondent; and I tell you that all this fine philosophico-metaphysico-politico-economical learning is of all things the vainest, the falsest, the most chimerical and the most ridiculous, not to say the most dangerous, for a young man. It has gone so far that your last letters would have made me roar with laughter as a judge, if I had not felt a mortal disappointment as a father; and it was precisely because I saw that you had mounted a new hobby-horse and were about to take your flight through space once more that I resolved to summon you here, perhaps for a time only, perhaps for good, if I do not succeed in restoring you to your senses." "Your sarcasm and your contempt are very cruel, father, and grieve my heart more than they wound my self-esteem. That I am not in full accord with you is possible. I am prepared to hear you deny all my beliefs; but that you should repulse me with ironical jeers, when, for the first time in my life, I feel a longing and have the courage to pour all my thoughts and all my emotions into your bosom--that is a very bitter thing to me, and does me more harm than you think." "There is more pride than you think in this puerile gentleness. Am I not your father, your best friend? Should I not force you to hear the truth when you are deceiving yourself and lead you back when you go astray? Come! a truce to vanity between us! I think more of your intelligence than you do yourself, for I do not propose to allow it to degenerate by feeding on unhealthy food. Listen to me, Emile! I know very well that it is the fashion among the young men of to-day to pose as legislators, to philosophize on every subject, to reform institutions that will last much longer than they will, and to invent religions and social systems--a new morality. The imagination delights in these chimeras, and they are very innocent when they don't last too long. But we must leave it all on the benches at school, and learn to know and understand society before destroying it. We soon discover that it is far superior to us, and that the wisest course is to submit to it, with shrewd tolerance. You are too big a boy now to waste your desires and reflections on a subject that has no bottom. I wish you to become interested in real, positive life; to study the meaning and application of the laws by which we are governed, instead of exhausting yourself in criticizing them. On the other hand, if such study tends to create a spirit of reaction and of disgust with the truth, you must abandon it and set about finding something useful to do for which you feel that you are fitted. Come, we are here to have an understanding and arrive at some conclusion: no vain declamations, no poetic dithyrambs against heaven and mankind! Poor creatures of a day that we are, we have no time