He was in a few minutes addressed by the identical little gentleman who had recently been speculating with the three dukes.
The little gentleman told him that he had heard with great pleasure that in Fantaisie they had no historians, poets, or novelists. He proved to Popanilla that no such thing as experience existed; that, as the world was now to be regulated on quite different principles from those by which it had hitherto been conducted, similar events to those which had occurred could never again take place; and therefore it was absolutely useless to know anything about the past. With regard to literary fiction, he explained that, as it was absolutely necessary, from his nature, that man should experience a certain quantity of excitement, the false interest which these productions created prevented their readers from obtaining this excitement by methods which, by the discovery of the useful, might greatly benefit society.
‘You are of opinion, then,’ exclaimed the delighted Popanilla, ‘that nothing is good which is not useful?’
‘Is it possible that an individual exists in this world who doubts this great first principle?’ said the little man, with great animation.
‘Ah, my dear friend!’ said Popanilla, ‘if you only knew what an avowal of this great first principle has cost me; what I have suffered; what I have lost!’
‘What have you lost?’ asked the little gentleman.
‘In the first place, a lock of hair—’
‘Poh, nonsense!’
‘Ah! you may say Poh! but it was a particular lock of hair.’
‘My friend, that word is odious. Nothing is particular, everything is general. Rules are general, feelings are general, and property should be general; and, sir, I tell you what, in a very short time it must be so. Why should Lady Spirituelle, for instance, receive me at her house, rather than I receive her at mine?’