Warmed by the kindness with which, once introduced by his popular
kinsmen, he was everywhere received, the reserve or shyness which is the
compromise between the haughtiness of self-esteem and the painful doubt
of appreciation by others rapidly melted away. He caught insensibly the
polished tone, at once so light and so cordial, of his new-made friends.
With all the efforts of the democrats to establish equality and
fraternity, it is among the aristocrats that equality and fraternity are
most to be found. All _gentilshommes_ in the best society are equals;
and whether they embrace or fight each other, they embrace or fight as
brothers of the same family. But with the tone of manners Alain de
Rochebriant imbibed still more insensibly the lore of that philosophy
which young idlers in pursuit of pleasure teach to each other. Probably
in all civilized and luxurious capitals that philosophy is very much the
same among the same class of idlers at the same age; probably it
flourishes in Pekin not less than at Paris. If Paris has the credit, or
discredit, of it more than any other capital, it is because in Paris more
than in any other capital it charms the eye by grace and amuses the ear
by wit. A philosophy which takes the things of this life very easily;
which has a smile and a shrug of the shoulders for any pretender to the
Heroic; which subdivides the wealth of passion into the pocket-money of
caprices, is always in or out of love ankle-deep, never venturing a
plunge; which, light of heart as of tongue, turns "the solemn
plausibilities" of earth into subjects for epigrams and bons mots,--
jests at loyalty to kings and turns up its nose at enthusiasm for
commonwealths, abjures all grave studies and shuns all profound emotions.
We have crowds of such philosophers in London; but there they are less
noticed, because the agreeable attributes of the sect are there dimmed
and obfuscated. It is not a philosophy that flowers richly in the reek
of fogs and in the teeth of east winds; it wants for full development the
light atmosphere of Paris. Now this philosophy began rapidly to exercise