are demagogues, the
sanguine, democrats, the nervous, aristocrats. You are both
sanguine and nervous, an excellent constitution, for it gives you a
choice. You may, for example, be an aristocrat in regard to
yourself personally, and, at the same time, a democrat in relation
to others; and in that you will not be exceptional.

"Make yourself master of every question likely to interest your
contemporaries, but do not become absorbed in any yourself. In
reality, all principles are indifferent--true or false according to
the hour and circumstance. Ideas are mere instruments with which
you should learn to play seasonably, so as to sway men. In that
path, likewise, you will have associates.

"Know, my son, that having attained my age, weary of all else, you
will have need of strong sensations. The sanguinary diversions of
revolution will then be for you the same as a love-affair at twenty.

"But I am fatigued, my son, and shall recapitulate. To be loved by
women, to be feared by men, to be as impassive and as imperturbable
as a god before the tears of the one and the blood of the other, and
to end in a whirlwind--such has been the lot in which I have failed,
but which, nevertheless, I bequeath to you. With your great
faculties you, however, are capable of accomplishing it, unless
indeed you should fail through some ingrained weakness of the heart
that I have noticed in you, and which, doubtless, you have imbibed
with your mother's milk.

"So long as man shall be born of woman, there will be something
faulty and incomplete in his character. In fine, strive to relieve
yourself from all thraldom, from all natural instincts, affections,
and sympathies as from so many fetters upon your liberty, your
strength.

"Do not marry unless some superior interest shall impel you to do
so. In that event, have no children.

"Have no intimate friends. Caesar having grown old, had a friend.
It was Brutus!

"Contempt for men is the beginning of wisdom.

"Change somewhat your style of fencing, it is altogether too open,
my son. Do not get angry. Rarely laugh, and never weep. Adieu.

"CAMORS."

The feeble rays of dawn had passed through the slats of the blinds. The
matin birds began their song in the chestnut-tree near the window. M. de
Camors raised his head and listened in an absent mood to the sound which