"Very willingly," said Mr. Rockstrong, "I shall be interested to drink in company with such a bad arguer as you."
He sprang lightly down from his ladder, and we all three repaired to the inn.
XV
REVOLUTIONARY MEASURES
r. Rockstrong, who was a sensible man, bore my good master no malice for his sincerity of speech. When the landlord of the Petit Bacchus had brought a pot of wine, the pamphleteer lifted his glass and drank to Abbé Coignard's health, calling him a rogue, a friend of robbers, a tool of tyrants and an old scamp! all with quite a jovial air.
My master returned his compliments with a good grace, congratulating him on the fact that he drank to a man whose natural humour had remained unaffected by philosophy.
"As for myself," he added, "I feel that my intelligence is quite spoilt by reflection. And as it is not in the nature of mankind to think with any profundity, I own that my leaning to thought is an odd mania and highly inconvenient. In the first place it makes me unfit for any undertaking, for our actions result from a limited outlook and narrow way of thinking. You will be astonished, Mr. Rockstrong, if you picture to yourself the simple-mindedness of the men of genius who have stirred the world. Conquerors and statesmen, who have changed the face of the earth, have never reflected on the essence of the beings they handled so roughly. They shut themselves up altogether in the pettiness of their grand projects and the wisest see but very few things at a time. Such as you see me, Mr. Rockstrong, it would be impossible for me to work like Alexander at the conquest of India, or to found and govern an empire, or, generally speaking, to throw myself into any one of those vast undertakings which tempt the pride of the impetuous. Reflection would hamper me, from the outset, and I should find reasons for coming to a stop at every move I made."
Then turning to me my good master said sighing:
"Thought is a great infirmity, God keep you from it Tournebroche, my son, as He has kept His greatest saints, and the souls for whom He cherishes a singular predilection, and for whom He reserves eternal glory. Men who think little, or who think not at all, go about their business happily in this world and the next, whilst the meditative soul is incessantly menaced with its temporal and spiritual loss. Such malice lies in thought! Reflect and tremble, my son, at the thought that the serpent of Genesis is the oldest of philosophers and their everlasting prince."
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard drank a great draught of wine and went on in a low voice: