hour?"

"Ah, my dear cousin," said I, embracing him warmly, "you do not know
what a service you have rendered me. I embrace you now, my good friend,
for the wonderful lesson you have given me. Without you I should never
have found it out, and, rest assured, I shall never forget it."

"What? Who? What is it?"

"Zounds, papa Dugrand! I freely acknowledge that I have learned more
from you in one second than from all my masters during four years."

"Are you in your right senses?"

The matter was finally explained. My cousin then told me about my home
and my family; but I must confess that I paid little attention to the
good news that he brought me, so excited and preoeccupied was my mind.
Even then I could not help thinking of the fragility of the heart in its
affections. We soon separated, and I hurried to my room, which seemed to
me on this day-paradise itself.

I gave myself up to my interrupted course of reflections.

I had proved the impotence of my own reason, and also that of my
masters. Now, as it was not probable that all my teachers and myself
were more stupid than the rest of mankind--the common herd--I concluded
that reason is blind in the matter of principles, and that all her
instructions would be powerless to guide me in my researches. But, from
another side, it was evident to me that without this reason I could not
utilize a principle. What is human reason, that faculty at once of so
little avail and yet so precious? What role does it play in art? I feel
that this is most important for me to know.

The answer to this question must spring from the study of the phenomena
of instinct. Let us examine, then, what nature offers us freely.

If these phenomena are directed by a physiological or a spiritual
necessity, a necessity on which instinct is based, I am forced to admit,
here, a reason that is not my reason; a superior, infallible reason in
the disposition of things; a reason that laughs at my reason, which, in
spite of itself, must submit under pain of falling into absurdity. I
feel that it is only by this absolute submission of my reason that it
can rise to the reason of things, since, of itself, it would know
nothing. [See definition of reason.]

Let us seek, then, without prejudice, the reason of the things that
interested me, in order that my own reason may be raised to a higher
plane. And when it shall be illumined with the light that must break
upon it from the superior reason, I feel that m