ger admissible; but
they are for the most part familiar expressions for which equivalents
have been substituted. The language has been enriched with a quantity of
noble and energetic expressions; and without speaking here of the
eloquence of things, it has acquired the eloquence of words. It is in
the reign of Louis XIV., as has been said, that this eloquence had its
greatest splendour, and that the language was fixed. Whatever changes
time and caprice prepare for it, the good authors of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries will always serve as models.

_FRIENDSHIP_

Friendship is the marriage of the soul; and this marriage is subject to
divorce. It is a tacit contract between two sensitive and virtuous
persons. I say "sensitive," because a monk, a recluse can be not wicked
and live without knowing what friendship is. I say "virtuous," because
the wicked have only accomplices; voluptuaries have companions in
debauch, self-seekers have partners, politicians get partisans; the
generality of idle men have attachments; princes have courtiers;
virtuous men alone have friends. Cethegus was the accomplice of
Catilina, and Maecenas the courtier of Octavius; but Cicero was the
friend of Atticus.

_GOD_

During the reign of Arcadius, Logomacos, lecturer in theology of
Constantinople, went to Scythia and halted at the foot of the Caucasus,
in the fertile plains of Zephirim, on the frontier of Colchis. That good
old man Dondindac was in his great lower hall, between his sheepfold and
his vast barn; he was kneeling with his wife, his five sons and five
daughters, his kindred and his servants, and after a light meal they
were all singing God's praises. "What do you there, idolator?" said
Logomacos to him.

"I am not an idolator," answered Dondindac.

"You must be an idolator," said Logomacos, "seeing that you are not
Greek. Tell me, what was that you were singing in your barbarous
Scythian jargon?"

"All tongues are equal in the ears of God," answered the Scythian. "We
were singing His praises."

"That's very extraordinary," returned the theologian. "A Scythian family
who pray God without having been taught by us!" He soon engaged
Dondindac the Scythian in conversation, for he knew a little Scythian,
and the other a little Greek. The following conversation was found in a
manuscript preserved in the library of Constantinople.

LOGOMACOS:

Let us see if you know your catechism. Why do you pray God?