h you put forth
will suspect your morals and will misrepresent your intentions. In a
word, in order to handle social sores, one ought to be a king, or a
first consul at least."

Reason, although it appeared under a form most pleasing to the author,
was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of
Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to
catch it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules.
Moreover, the cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young
man who was less pleased with producing a good work than with wearing
fine gloves could not even touch it.

"Is our work completed?" asked the younger of the two feminine
assistants of the author.

"Alas! madame," I said, "will you ever requite me for all the hatreds
which that work will array against me?"

She waved her hand, and then the author replied to her doubt by a look
of indifference.

"What do you mean? Would you hesitate? You must publish it without
fear. In the present day we accept a book more because it is in
fashion than because it has anything in it."

Although the author does not here represent himself as anything more
than the secretary of two ladies, he has in compiling their
observations accomplished a double task. With regard to marriage he
has here arranged matters which represent what everybody thinks but no
one dares to say; but has he not also exposed himself to public
displeasure by expressing the mind of the public? Perhaps, however,
the eclecticism of the present essay will save it from condemnation.
All the while that he indulges in banter the author has attempted to
popularize certain ideas which are particularly consoling. He has
almost always endeavored to lay bare the hidden springs which move the
human soul. While undertaking to defend the most material interests of
man, judging them or condemning them, he will perhaps bring to light
many sources of intellectual delight. But the author does not
foolishly claim always to put forth his pleasantries in the best of
taste; he has merely counted upon the diversity of intellectual
pursuits in expectation of receiving as much blame as approbation. The
subject of his work was so serious that he is constantly launched into
anecdote; because at the present day anecdotes are the vehicle of all
moral teaching, and the anti-narcotic of every work of literature. In
literature, analysis and investigation prevail, and the wearying of
th