"But what one can see in the course of a month or two is so little, and I hear so much."
"That is true; but do you not find that what you hear from one person is often contradicted by another?"
"Constantly," I replied.
"Then what can you do at last but judge by what you see?"
"Why, it appears to me that the better plan would be to listen to all parties, and let my balancing belief incline to the testimony that has most weight."
"Then be careful that this weight be not false. There are some who will tell you that the national feeling which for so many centuries has kept France together as a powerful and predominating people is loosened, melted, and gone;—that though there are Frenchmen left, there is no longer a French people."
"To any who told me so," I replied, "I would say, that the division they complained of, arose not so much from any change in the French character, as from the false position in which many were unhappily placed at the present moment. Men's hearts are divided because they are diversely drawn aside from a common centre."
"And you would say truly," said he; "but others will tell you, that regenerated France will soon dictate laws to the whole earth; that her flag will become the flag of all people—her government their government; and that their tottering monarchies will soon crumble into dust, to become part and parcel of her glorious republic."
"And to these I should say, that they appeared to be in a very heavy slumber, and that the sooner they could wake out of it and shake off their feverish dreams, the better it would be for them."
"But what would your inference be as to the state of the country from such reports as these?"