invent a Carnival that will please everybody, and bring shame to no one.


Three o'clock.--I have just shut my window, and stirred up my fire. As
this is a holiday for everybody, I will make it one for myself, too. So
I light the little lamp over which, on grand occasions, I make a cup of
the coffee that my portress's son brought from the Levant, and I look in
my bookcase for one of my favorite authors.

First, here is the amusing parson of Meudon; but his characters are too
fond of talking slang:--Voltaire; but he disheartens men by always
bantering them:--Moliere; but he hinders one's laughter by making one
think:--Lesage; let us stop at him. Being profound rather than grave, he
preaches virtue while ridiculing vice; if bitterness is sometimes to be
found in his writings, it is always in the garb of mirth: he sees the
miseries of the world without despising it, and knows its cowardly tricks
without hating it.

Let us call up all the heroes of his book.... Gil Blas, Fabrice,
Sangrado, the Archbishop of Granada, the Duke of Lerma, Aurora, Scipio!
Ye gay or graceful figures, rise before my eyes, people my solitude;
bring hither for my amusement the world-carnival, of which you are the
brilliant maskers!

Unfortunately, at the very moment I made this invocation, I recollected
I had a letter to write which could not be put off. One of my attic
neighbors came yesterday to ask me to do it. He is a cheerful old man,
and has a passion for pictures and prints. He comes home almost every
day with a drawing or painting--probably of little value; for I know he
lives penuriously, and even the letter that I am to write for him shows