"You are not modest." "I am not speaking of myself, father, but of a peasant, a true genius, who doesn't know how to read, who doesn't know the names of the fluids, gases, minerals or plants, but who understands causes and effects, whose keen eye and infallible memory detect differences and characteristics; of a man, in short, who, while speaking the language of a child, showed me all these things and made them clear to me." "Who is this unknown genius whom you met on your walk, I pray to know?" "A man whom you do not like, father, whom you take for a madman, and whose name I hardly dare mention to you." "Ah! I understand! it is your friend Jappeloup the carpenter, Monsieur de Boisguilbault's vagabond, the village sorcerer, who cures sprains with words and puts out fires by cutting a cross on a beam with his axe." Monsieur Cardonnet, who had thus far listened to his son with interest, albeit without being persuaded, laughed scornfully, and was thenceforth inclined to treat the subject with sarcasm and contempt. "And this is the way madmen come together and agree!" he said. "Really, my poor Emile, nature made you an unfortunate gift when she gave you a large supply of intellect and imagination, for she withheld the guiding spirits, coolness and common-sense. Here you are astray, and because a miracle-working peasant has posed before you as the hero of a romance, you devote all your petty knowledge and your ingenious reasoning powers to attempt to confirm his wonderful decisions! You have put all the sciences at work, and astronomy, geology, hydrography, physics and even poor little botany, which hardly expected the honor, come in a body to sign the patent of infallibility awarded to Master Jappeloup. Write poetry, Emile, write novels! you are good for nothing else, I am very much afraid." "So you despise experience and observation, father," rejoined Emile, restraining his anger; "you do not deign even to consider those commonplace bases of the work of the mind? and yet, you make sport of most theories. What am I to believe, according to your opinion, if you will not allow me to consult either theory or practice?"