he work is in the main its own. Even if all
this were but the sweetness of a lovely dream, is then the sweetness of
a dream as nothing? And am I to count for nothing a sweet dream that
lasts as long as my life, and holds me in perpetual intoxication?

[222] xviii. 94.

Falconet's answer was hard and positive. Contemporary glory suffices.
What is fame, if I am not there to enjoy? The fear of contempt and
disgrace is as strong a motive as you need, to incite men to great work.
Glory after death is chimerical and uncertain. Think of all the great
names that are clean forgotten, of all the great workers whose
achievements are lost or effaced, of all the others whose works are
attributed to those who did not execute them! Your posterity is no
better than a lottery.

No, cries Diderot, with redoubled eloquence, rising to his noblest
height,[223] "the present is an indivisible point that cuts in two the
length of an infinite line. It is impossible to rest on this point and
to glide gently along with it, never looking on in front, and never
turning the head to gaze behind. The more man ascends through the past,
and the more he launches into the future--the greater he will be....
And all these philosophers, and ministers, and truth-telling men, who
have fallen victims to the stupidity of nations, the atrocities of
priests, the fury of tyrants, what consolation was left for them in
death? This, that prejudice would pass, and that posterity would pour
out the vial of ignominy upon their enemies. O posterity, holy and
sacred! Stay of the unhappy and the oppressed, thou who art just, thou
who art incorruptible, who avengest the good man, who unmaskest the
hypocrite, who draggest down the tyrant, may thy sure faith, thy
consoling faith, never, never abandon me! Posterity is for the
philosopher what the other world is for the devout!"

[223] xviii. pp. 113 and 100.

APPENDIX.

RAMEAU'S NEPHEW: A TRANSLATION.

[See vol. i. p. 348.]

[I have omitted such pages in the following translation as refer simply
to personages who have lost all possibility of interest for our
generation; nor did any object seem to be served by reproducing the
technical points of the musical discussion. Enough is given, and given
as faithfully as I know how, to show the reader what _Rameau's Nephew_
is.]

In all weathers, wet or fine, it is my practice to go, towards five
o'clock in the evening, to take a turn in the Palais R