"Well, then!" said Mr. Andrew to him, "follow the example of those to whom you presented your libel, throw it into the fire, and let no more be said of it. It is unnecessary to ask you to sup with men of wit, who can never be your enemies, since they will never read you."
"Could not you, sir, at least," said the hypocrite to him, "reconcile me with the relations of the deceased Monsieur de Montesquieu, to whose memory I offered an indignity, that I might give honor and glory to the reverend father Rout."
"Zounds!" said Mr. Andrew, "the reverend father Rout has been dead this long time; go and sup with him."
XI.
THE GOOD SENSE OF MR. ANDREW.
But how greatly did the sense of Mr. Andrew improve in vigor from the time he procured a library! He lives with books as with men, and is careful in his choice of them. What a pleasure it is to gain instruction, to enlarge one's mind by studying the best works of the greatest authors.
He congratulates himself on being born at a time when human reason is tending toward perfection. "How unhappy should I have been," he used to say, "if the age I live in had been that in which they used to condemn to the galleys those who wrote against the categories of Aristotle."
Distress had weakened the springs of Mr. Andrew's soul; but good fortune restored their elasticity. There are many Andrews in the world to whom nothing is wanting but a turn of the wheel of fortune to make of them men of true merit. He is now well acquainted with all the affairs of Europe, and especially with the progress of the human understanding.
He recently remarked to me, that Reason travels by slow journeys from north to south, in company with her two intimate friends, Experience and Toleration. Agriculture and Commerce attend them. When Reason presented herself in Italy, the congregation of the Index sternly repulsed her. All she could do, was to secretly send some of her agents, who, in spite of her enemies, do some good. Let but some years more pass, and it is to be hoped that the country of the Scipios will no longer be that of harlequins in monks' habits.