rtune, when he reflects that
his work may pass from age to age, from nation to nation, opposing a
barrier to error and to tyranny; and that, from amidst the obscurity
in which he has lived, there will shine forth a glory which will efface
that of the common herd of monarchs, the monuments of whose deeds perish
in oblivion, notwithstanding the flatterers who erect and magnify them?

_Paul._--Ah! I am only covetous of glory to bestow it on Virginia, and
render her dear to the whole world. But can you, who know so much, tell
me whether we shall ever be married? I should like to be a very learned
man, if only for the sake of knowing what will come to pass.

_The Old Man._--Who would live, my son, if the future were revealed
to him?--when a single anticipated misfortune gives us so much useless
uneasiness--when the foreknowledge of one certain calamity is enough
to embitter every day that precedes it! It is better not to pry too
curiously, even into the things which surround us. Heaven, which has
given us the power of reflection to foresee our necessities, gave us
also those very necessities to set limits to its exercise.

_Paul._--You tell me that with money people in Europe acquire dignities
and honours. I will go, then, to enrich myself in Bengal, and afterwards
proceed to Paris, and marry Virginia. I will embark at once.

_The Old Man._--What! would you leave her mother and yours?

_Paul._--Why, you yourself have advised my going to the Indies.

_The Old Man._--Virginia was then here; but you are now the only means
of support both of her mother and of your own.

_Paul._--Virginia will assist them by means of her rich relation.

_The Old Man._--The rich care little for those, from whom no honour is
reflected upon themselves in the world. Many of them have relations
much more to be pitied than Madame de la Tour, who, for want of their
assistance, sacrifice their liberty for bread, and pass their lives
immured within the walls of a convent.

_Paul._--Oh, what a country is Europe! Virginia must come back here.
What need has she of a rich relation? She was so happy in these huts;
she looked so beautiful and so well dressed with a red handkerchief or
a few flowers around her head! Return, Virginia! leave your sumptuous
mansions and your grandeur, and come back to these rocks,--to the shade
of these woods and of our cocoa trees. Alas! you are perhaps even now
unhappy!"--and he began to shed tears. "My father," continued