I am guarantor to each for the other. Their hearts, their virtue, my honesty, the confidence of their parents, all combine to reassure them. But what can reason avail against weakness? They part as if they were never to meet again.

Then it is that Sophy recalls the regrets of Eucharis, and fancies herself in her place. Do not let us revive that fantastic affection during his absence "Sophy," say I one day, "exchange books with Emile; let him have your Telemachus that he may learn to be like him, and let him give you his Spectator which you enjoy reading. Study the duties of good wives in it, and remember that in two years' time you will undertake those duties." The exchange gave pleasure to both and inspired them with confidence. At last the sad day arrived and they must part.

Sophy's worthy father, with whom I had arranged the whole business, took affectionate leave of me, and taking me aside, he spoke seriously and somewhat emphatically, saying, "I have done everything to please you; I knew I had to do with a man of honour; I have only one word to say. Remembering your pupil has signed his contract of marriage on my daughter's lips."

What a difference in the behaviour of the two lovers! Emile, impetuous, eager, excited, almost beside himself, cries aloud and sheds torrents of tears upon the hands of father, mother, and daughter; with sobs he embraces every one in the house and repeats the same thing over and over again in a way that would be ludicrous at any other time. Sophy, pale, sorrowful, doleful, and heavy-eyed, remains quiet without a word or a tear, she sees no one, not even Emile. In vain he takes her hand, and clasps her in his arms; she remains motionless, unheeding his tears, his caresses, and everything he does; so far as she is concerned, he is gone already. A sight more moving than the prolonged lamentations and noisy regrets of her lover! He sees, he feels, he is heartbroken. I drag him reluctantly away; if I left him another minute, he would never go. I am delighted that he should carry this touching picture with him. If he should ever be tempted to forget what is due to Sophy, his heart must have strayed very far indeed if I cannot bring it back to her by recalling her as he saw her last.

OF TRAVEL

Is it good for young people to travel? The question is often asked and as often hotly disputed. If it were stated otherwise--Are men the better for having travelled?--perhaps there would be less difference of opinion.

The misuse of books is the death of sound learning. People think they know what they have read, and take no pains to learn. Too much reading only produces a pretentious ignoramus. There was never so much reading in any age as the present, and never was there less learning; in no country of Europe are so many histories and books of travel printed as in France, and nowhere is there less knowledge of the mind and manners of other nations. So many books lead us to neglect the book of the world; if we read it at all, we keep each to our own page. If the phrase, "Can one become a Persian," were unknown to me, I should suspect on hearing it that it came from the country where national prejudice is most prevalent and from the sex which does most to increase it.

A Parisian thinks he has a knowledge of men and he knows only Frenchmen; his town is always full of foreigners, but he considers every foreigner as a strange phenomenon which has no equal in the universe. You must have a close acquaintance with the middle classes of that great city, you must have lived among them, before you can believe that people could be at once so witty and so stupid. The strangest thing about it is that probably every one of them has read a dozen times a description of the country whose inhabitants inspire him with such wonder.

To discover the truth amidst our own prejudices and those of the authors is too hard a task. I have been reading books of travels all my life, but I never found two that gave me the same idea of the same nation. On comparing my own scanty observations with what I have read, I have decided to abandon the travellers and I regret the time wasted in trying to learn from their books; for I am quite convinced that for that sort of study, seeing not reading is required. That would be true enough if every traveller were honest, if he only said what he saw and believed, and if truth were not tinged with false colours from his own eyes. What must it be when we have to disentangle the truth from the web of lies and ill-faith?

Let us leave the boasted resources of books to those who are content to use them. Like the art of Raymond Lully they are able to set people chattering about things they do not know. They are able to set fifteen-year-old Platos discussing philosophy in the clubs, and teaching people the customs of Egypt and the Indies on the word of Paul Lucas or Tavernier.

I maintain that it is beyond dispute that any one who has only seen one nation does not know men; he only knows those men among whom he has lived. Hence there is another way of stating the question about travel: "Is it enough for a well-educated man to know his fellow-countrymen, or ought he to know mankind in general?" Then there is no place for argument or uncertainty. See how greatly the solution of a difficult problem may depend on the way in which it is stated.

But is it necessary to travel the whole globe to study mankind? Need we go to Japan to study Europeans? Need we know every individual before we know the species? No, there are men so much alike that it is not worth while to study them individually. When you have seen a dozen Frenchmen you have seen them all. Though one cannot say as much of the English and other nations, it is, however, certain that every nation has its own specific character, which is derived by induction from the study, not of one, but many of its members. He who has compared a dozen nations knows men, just he who has compared a dozen Frenchmen knows the French.

To acquire knowledge it is not enough to travel hastily through a country. Observation demands eyes, and the power of directing them towards the object we desire to know. There are plenty of people who learn no more from their travels than from their books, because they do not know how to think; because in reading their mind is at least under the guidance of the author, and in their travels they do not know how to see for themselves. Others learn nothing, because they have no desire to learn. Their object is so entirely different, that this never occurs to them; it is very unlikely that you will see clearly what you take no trouble to look for. The French travel more than any other nation, but they are so taken up with their own customs, that everything else is confused together. There are Frenchmen in every corner of the globe. In no country of the world do you find more people who have travelled than in France. And yet of all the nations of Europe, that which has seen most, knows least. The English are also travellers, but they travel in another fashion; these two nations must always be at opposite extremes. The English nobility travels, the French stays at home; the French people travel, the English stay at home. This difference does credit, I think, to the English. The French almost always travel for their own ends; the English do not seek their fortune in other lands, unless in the way of commerce and with their hands full; when they travel it is to spend their money, not to live by their wits; they are too proud to cringe before strangers. This is why they learn more abroad than the French who have other fish to fry. Yet the English have their national prejudices; but these prejudices are not so much the result of ignorance as of feeling. The Englishman's prejudices are the result of pride, the Frenchman's are due to vanity.

Just as the least cultivated nations are usually the best, so those travel best who travel least; they have made less progress than we in our frivolous pursuits, they are less concerned with the objects of our empty curiosity, so that they give their attention to what is really useful. I hardly know any but the Spaniards who travel in this fashion. While the Frenchman is running after all the artists of the country, while the Englishman is getting a copy of some antique, while the German is taking his album to every man of science, the Spaniard is silently studying the government, the manners of the country, its police, and he is the only one of the four who from all that he has seen will carry home any observation useful to his own country.

The ancients travelled little, read little, and wrote few books; yet we see in those books that remain to us, that they observed each other more thoroughly than we observe our contemporaries. Without going back to the days of Homer, the only poet who transports us to the country he describes, we cannot deny to Herodotus the glory of having painted manners in his history, though he does it rather by narrative than by comment; still he does it better than all our historians whose books are overladen with portraits and characters. Tacitus has described the Germans of his time better than any author has described the Germans of to-day. There can be no doubt that those who have devoted themselves to ancient history know more about the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Gauls, and Persians than any nation of to-day knows about its neighbours.

It must also be admitted that the original characteristics of different nations are changing day by day, and are therefore more difficult to grasp. As races blend and nations intermingle, those national differences which formerly struck the observer at first sight gradually disappear. Before our time every nation remained more or less cut off from the rest; the means of communication were fewer; there was less travelling, less of mutual or conflicting interests, less political and civil intercourse between nation and nation; those intricate schemes of royalty, miscalled diplomacy, were less frequent; there were no permanent ambassadors resident at foreign courts; long voyages were rare, there was little foreign trade, and what little there was, was either the work of princes, who employed foreigners, or of people of no account who had no influence on others and did nothing to bring the nations together. The relations between Europe and Asia in the present century are a hundredfold more numerous than those between Gaul and Spain in the past; Europe alone was less accessible than the whole world is now.

Moreover, the peoples of antiquity usually considered themselves as the original inhabitants of their country; they had dwelt there so long that all record was lost of the far-off times when their ancestors settled there; they had been there so long that the place had made a lasting impression on them; but in modern Europe the invasions of the barbarians, following upon the Roman conquests, have caused an extraordinary confusion. The Frenchmen of to-day are no longer the big fair men of old; the Greeks are no longer beautiful enough to serve as a sculptor's model; the very face of the Romans has changed as well as their character; the Persians, originally from Tartary, are daily losing their native ugliness through the intermixture of Circassian blood. Europeans are no longer Gauls, Germans, Iberians, Allobroges; they are all Scythians, more or less degenerate in countenance, and still more so in conduct.