with work; and on the other hand, a life passed in the limbo of the
abstract or in the abysses of the moral world, produces a sort of
wisdom run mad. The conditions may be summed up in brief; we may
extinguish emotion, and so live to old age, or we may choose to die
young as martyrs to contending passions. And yet this decree is at
variance with the temperaments with which we were endowed by the
bitter jester who modeled all creatures."

"Idiot!" Raphael burst in. "Go on epitomizing yourself after that
fashion, and you will fill volumes. If I attempted to formulate those
two ideas clearly, I might as well say that man is corrupted by the
exercise of his wits, and purified by ignorance. You are calling the
whole fabric of society to account. But whether we live with the wise
or perish with the fool, isn't the result the same sooner or later?
And have not the prime constituents of the quintessence of both
systems been before expressed in a couple of words--_Carymary_,
_Carymara_."

"You make me doubt the existence of a God, for your stupidity is
greater than His power," said Emile. "Our beloved Rabelais summed it
all up in a shorter word than your '_Carymary_, _Carymara_'; from his
_Peut-etre_ Montaigne derived his own _Que sais-je_? After all, this last
word of moral science is scarcely more than the cry of Pyrrhus set
betwixt good and evil, or Buridan's ass between the two measures of
oats. But let this everlasting question alone, resolved to-day by a
'Yes' and a 'No.' What experience did you look to find by a jump into
the Seine? Were you jealous of the hydraulic machine on the Pont Notre
Dame?"

"Ah, if you but knew my history!"