“No; shut the door, wheel round that chair, and favour me with a sight of your book.”
“Monsieur will be angry, I fear,” said the valet (obeying the first two orders, but hesitating about the third), “with my course of reading: I confess it is not very compatible with my station.”
“Ah, some long romance, the ‘Clelia,’ I suppose,—nay, bring it hither; that is to say, if it be movable by the strength of a single man.”
Thus urged, Desmarais modestly brought me the book. Judge of my surprise when I found it was a volume of Leibnitz, a philosopher then very much the rage,—because one might talk of him very safely, without having read him.* Despite of my surprise, I could not help smiling when my eye turned from the book to the student. It is impossible to conceive an appearance less like a philosopher’s than that of Jean Desmarais. His wig was of a nicety that would not have brooked the irregularity of a single hair; his dress was not preposterous, for I do not remember, among gentles or valets, a more really exquisite taste than that of Desmarais; but it evinced, in every particular, the arts of the toilet. A perpetual smile sat upon his lips,—sometimes it deepened into a sneer, but that was the only change it ever experienced; an irresistible air of self-conceit gave piquancy to his long, marked features, small glittering eye, and withered cheeks, on which a delicate and soft bloom excited suspicion of artificial embellishment. A very fit frame of body this for a valet; but I humbly opine a very unseemly one for a student of Leibnitz.
* Which is possibly the reason why there are so many disciples of Kant at the present moment.—ED.
“And what,” said I, after a short pause, “is your opinion of this philosopher? I understand that he has just written a work* above all praise and comprehension.”
* The “Theodicaea.”
“It is true, Monsieur, that it is above his own understanding. He knows not what sly conclusions may be drawn from his premises; but I beg Monsieur’s pardon, I shall be tedious and intrusive.”
“Not a whit! speak out, and at length. So you conceive that Leibnitz makes ropes which others will make into ladders?”
“Exactly so,” said Desmarais; “all his arguments go to swell the sails of the great philosophical truth,—‘Necessity!’ We are the things and toys of Fate, and its everlasting chain compels even the Power that creates as well as the things created.”