whose morals I am well acquainted, would have spent
his time in writing what we have just read.

There are not sufficient grounds, however, for denying positively that
the reverend dean was the author of these _paralipomena_. The question,
therefore, may still be left in doubt, as in substance they contain
nothing opposed to Catholic doctrine or to Christian morality. On the
contrary, if we examine them carefully, we shall see that they contain a
lesson to pride and arrogance, in the person of Don Luis. This history
might easily serve as an appendix to the "Spiritual Disillusions" of
Father Arbiol.

As for the opinion entertained by two or three ingenious friends of mine
that the reverend dean, if he were the author, would have used a
different style in his narration, saying "my nephew" in speaking of Don
Luis, and interposing, from time to time, moral reflections of his own,
I do not think it an argument of any great weight. The reverend dean
proposed to himself to tell what had taken place, without seeking to
prove any thesis, and he acted with judgment in narrating things as they
were, without analyzing motives or moralizing. He did not do ill,
either, in my opinion, in concealing his personality, and in avoiding
the use of the word _I_, which is a proof, not only of his humility and
modesty, but of his literary taste also, for the epic poets and
historians who should serve us as models, do not say _I_, even when
speaking of themselves, and are themselves the heroes of the events they
relate. The Athenian Xenophon, to cite an instance, does not say _I_ in
his "Anabasis" but speaks of himself in the third person, when
necessary, as if the historian of those exploits were one person, and
the hero of them another. And there are whole chapters in which no
mention at all is made of Xenophon. Only a little before the famous
battle in which the youthful Cyrus met his death, while this prince was
reviewing the Greeks and barbarians who formed his army, and when that
of his brother Artaxerxes was already near, having been descried on the
broad, treeless plain afar off, first as a little white cloud, then as a
black spot, and, finally, clearly and distinctly--the neighing of the
horses, the creaking of the war-chariots armed with formidable scythes,
the cries of the elephants and the sound of warlike instruments reaching
the ears of the spectators, and the glitter of the brass and gold of the
weapons, irradiated by the sun, s