the Great."

As soon as M. d'Asterac was gone, my tutor sat down over the papyrus
of Zosimus and, with the help of a magnifying glass commenced to
decipher it. I asked him if he was not surprised by what he had just
heard.

Without raising his head he replied:

"My dear boy, I have known too many kinds of persons and traversed
fortunes too various to be surprised at anything. This gentleman
seems to be demented, less because he really is so, but from his
thoughts differing in excess from those of the vulgar. But if one
listened to discourses commonly held in this world, there would be
found still less sense than in those of that philosopher. Left to
itself, the sublimest human reason builds its castles and temples in
the air and, truly, M. d'Asterac is a pretty good gatherer of
clouds. Truth is in God alone, never forget it, my boy. But this is
really the book 'Jmoreth' written by Zosimus the Panopolitan for his
sister Theosebia. What a glory and what a delight to read this
unique MS. rediscovered by a kind of prodigy! I'll give it my days
and night watches. How I pity, my boy, the ignorant fellows whom
idleness drives into debauchery! What a miserable life they lead!
What is a woman in comparison with an Alexandrian papyrus? Compare,
if you please, this noble library with the tavern of the _Little
Bacchus_ and the entertainment of this precious MS. with the
caresses given to a wench under the bower; and tell me, my boy,
where true contentment is to be found. For me, a companion of the
Muses, and admitted to the silent orgies of meditation of which the
rhetor of Madama speaks with so much eloquence, I thank God for