te espece de philosophie
pratique qui, reduisant l'Egoisme en systeme regarde la societe humaine
comme une guerre de ruse, le succes comme la regle du juste et de
l'injuste, la probite comme une affaire de gout, ou de bienseance,
le monde comme le patrimoine des fripons adroits."--"Discours de
Robespierre," Mai 7, 1794. (This sect (the Encyclopaedists) propagate
with much zeal the doctrine of materialism, which prevails among
the great and the wits; we owe to it partly that kind of practical
philosophy which, reducing Egotism to a system, looks upon society as
a war of cunning; success the rule of right and wrong, honesty as an
affair of taste or decency: and the world as the patrimony of clever
scoundrels.))

A volume lay on a table,--it was one of Voltaire, and the page was
opened at his argumentative assertion of the existence of the Supreme
Being. ("Histoire de Jenni.") The margin was covered with pencilled
notes, in the stiff but tremulous hand of old age; all in attempt to
refute or to ridicule the logic of the sage of Ferney: Voltaire did not
go far enough for the annotator! The clock struck two, when the sound
of steps was heard without. The stranger silently seated himself on the
farther side of the bed, and its drapery screened him, as he sat, from
the eyes of a man who now entered on tiptoe; it was the same person
who had passed him on the stairs. The new-comer took up the candle and
approached the bed. The old man's face was turned to the pillow; but he
lay so still, and his breathing was so inaudible, that his sleep might
well, by that hasty, shrinking, guilty glance, be mistaken for the
repose of death. The new-comer drew back, and a grim smile passed over
his face: he replaced the candle on the table, opened the bureau with
a key which he took from his pocket, and loaded himself with several
rouleaus of gold that he found in the drawers. At this time the old man
began to wake. He stirred, he looked up; he turned his eyes towards the
light now waning in its socket; he saw the robber at his work; he sat
erect for an instant, as if transfixed, more even by astonishment than
terror. At last he sprang from his bed.

"Just Heaven! do I dream! Thou--thou--thou, for whom I toiled and
starved!--THOU!"

The robber started; the gold fell from his hand, and rolled on the
floor.

"What!" he said, "art thou not dead yet? Has the poison failed?"

"Poison, boy! Ah!" shrieked the old man, and covered his face with h