"One man alone, an old philosopher, had remained at home because, at the time they were to leave, he suddenly fell ill.
"When his sufferings were relieved, he started out to join the others and found them committing all sorts of follies.
"Two among them were reviling one another, each one claiming that he was the only king.
"Some were weeping because they thought that they were changed into beasts.
"Others were screaming, without rime or reason, now embracing each other, now attacking one another furiously.
"Soon the wise man recognized that they had been affected by the fall of snow, which had made them crazy, and he tried to speak to them in the language of reason.
"But all these crazy people turned on him, crying out that he had just lost his reason and that he must be shut away.
"They undertook the task of taking him back to his home, but, as that was not to be accomplished without rough usage, he assumed the part indicated by practical sense; this man of common sense feigned insanity, and from the moment the insane people thought that he resembled them they let him alone and ceased to torment him.
"The philosopher profited by this fact to disarm their excitement, and, little by little, all the time indulging in a thousand eccentricities, which had no other object than to protect himself against them, he demonstrated their aberration to them."
Could not this story serve as an example to the majority of contemporary critics?