w become the custom to seem
religious, though many are frivolous and lukewarm enough at heart."

"_Desinit in atrum piscem_," said the Baron warmly, "your beginning
promised something better."

"How many persons," proceeded Brandenstein calmly, "have fallen in my
way, who almost at the first bow gave me to understand that they were
extraordinary Christians. Others, at every third word, and upon the
most indifferent subjects, make mention of the Saviour; upon every
occasion, however trifling, they fall a praying, and tell us of it;
nay, I have read romances, in which the author said in his preface,
that he never wrote without praying first, and that every thing good
contained in his book was immediate inspiration; the shortest way of
rebutting all criticism, and setting the romance close by the side of
revealed Writ. In company people take every opportunity to talk of
repentance, penance, devotion and redemption, and profane, according to
my feeling, what is sacred, forgetting that it has a resemblance to
love, the feelings and confessions of which the true lover will be
unwilling to expose to a stranger's ear."

"But what harm does it," said the Baron, "if pious spirits do perhaps
speak even too often of the object of their love?"

"It cannot be love," replied Brandenstein, "it is vanity, arrogance,
that affects to be better than other men. Just like that of the period
of sentimentalism or philosophism, it is a sickly craving, that seeks
nourishment every where, that flatters and humours itself into deeper
and deeper disease, looks intolerantly and contemptuously on our fellow
men, who are often better and more pious, because they will not
precisely chime in with the given tone."

"You are painting the excess," faultered the Baroness in a kind of
uneasiness.

"Nothing else, honoured madam," answered the Count; "only that it has
frequently fallen under my notice. I have seen too books of
edification, that seem to be very much in fashion, old and new, which
really can only serve completely to distract men of moderate
intellects, who are already infected with this vanity, in which the
Creator, the essence of love, is represented like a capricious old
humourist, that for want of employment has taken a fancy to weave the
most complicated destinies, and again, in a subtle and extraordinary
manner, to extricate this or that individual out of their misery,
though many at the same time are lost. Others convert religion in