ion: since the morning everything seems
to speak to me, and with the same warning tone. Everything says: "Take
care! be content with your happy, though humble lot; happiness can be
retained only by constancy; do not forsake your old patrons for the
protection of those who are unknown!"

Are they the outward objects which speak thus, or does the warning come
from within? Is it not I myself who give this language to all that
surrounds me? The world is but an instrument, to which we give sound at
will. But what does it signify if it teaches us wisdom? The low voice
that speaks in our breasts is always a friendly voice, for it tells us
what we are, that is to say, what is our capability. Bad conduct results,
for the most part, from mistaking our calling. There are so many fools
and knaves, because there are so few men who know themselves. The
question is not to discover what will suit us, but for what we are
suited!

What should I do among these many experienced financial speculators? I am
only a poor sparrow, born among the housetops, and should always fear the
enemy crouching in the dark corner; I am a prudent workman, and should
think of the business of my neighbors who so suddenly disappeared; I am a
timid observer, and should call to mind the flowers so slowly raised by
the old soldier, or the shop brought to ruin by constant change of
masters. Away from me, ye banquets, over which hangs the sword of
Damocles! I am a country mouse. Give me my nuts and hollow tree, and I
ask nothing besides--except security.

And why this insatiable craving for riches? Does a man drink more when he
drinks from a large glass? Whence comes that universal dread of
mediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace and liberty? Ah! there is the
evil which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public and
private education to anticipate! If that were got rid of, what treasons
would be spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and crime
would be forever broken! We award the palm to charity, and to
self-sacrifice; but, above all, let us award it to moderation, for it is
the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it
stands instead of them.

Six o'clock.--I have written a letter of thanks to the promoters of the
new speculation, and have declined their offer! This decision has
restored my peace of mind. I stopped singing, like the cobbler, as long
as I entertained the hope of riches: it is gone, and happine