corridors, the masculine exhalations contained in rooms without
ventilators, the odor of paper, pens, and ink; the soil he treads is a
tiled pavement or a wooden floor, strewn with a curious litter and
moistened by the attendant's watering-pot; his sky is the ceiling
toward which he yawns; his element is dust. Several distinguished
doctors have remonstrated against the influence of this second nature,
both savage and civilized, on the moral being vegetating in those
dreadful pens called bureaus, where the sun seldom penetrates, where
thoughts are tied down to occupations like that of horses who turn a
crank and who, poor beasts, yawn distressingly and die quickly.
Rabourdin was, therefore, fully justified in seeking to reform their
present condition, by lessening their numbers and giving to each a
larger salary and far heavier work. Men are neither wearied nor bored
when doing great things. Under the present system government loses
fully four hours out of the nine which the clerks owe to the service,
--hours wasted, as we shall see, in conversations, in gossip, in
disputes, and, above all, in underhand intriguing. The reader must
have haunted the bureaus of the ministerial departments before he can
realize how much their petty and belittling life resembles that of
seminaries. Wherever men live collectively this likeness is obvious;
in regiments, in law-courts, you will find the elements of the school
on a smaller or larger scale. The government clerks, forced to be
together for nine hours of the day, looked upon their office as a sort
of class-room where they had tasks to perform, where the head of the
bureau was no other than a schoolmaster, and where the gratuities
bestowed took the place of prizes given out to proteges,--a place,
moreover, where they teased and hated each other, and yet felt a
certain comradeship, colder than that of a regiment, which itself is
less hearty than that of seminaries. As a man advances in life he
grows more selfish; egoism develops, and relaxes all the secondary