No More Learning

"A clever book that of yours, Pierre," resumed his Majesty, tapping our
friend knowingly upon the shoulder, as the latter put down his glass
after a thorough compliance with his visiter's injunction. "A clever
book that of yours, upon my honor. It's a work after my own heart. Your
arrangement of the matter, I think, however, might be improved, and many
of your notions remind me of Aristotle. That philosopher was one of my
most intimate acquaintances. I liked him as much for his terrible ill
temper, as for his happy knack at making a blunder. There is only one
solid truth in all that he has written, and for that I gave him the hint
out of pure compassion for his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you
very well know to what divine moral truth I am alluding? "

"Cannot say that I--"

"Indeed! --why it was I who told Aristotle that by sneezing, men expelled
superfluous ideas through the proboscis. "

"Which is--hiccup! --undoubtedly the case," said the metaphysician, while
he poured out for himself another bumper of Mousseux, and offered his
snuff-box to the fingers of his visiter.

"There was Plato, too," continued his Majesty, modestly declining the
snuff-box and the compliment it implied--"there was Plato, too, for
whom I, at one time, felt all the affection of a friend. You knew Plato,
Bon-Bon? --ah, no, I beg a thousand pardons.
He met me at Athens, one
day, in the Parthenon, and told me he was distressed for an idea. I bade
him write, down that o nous estin aulos. He said that he would do so,
and went home, while I stepped over to the pyramids. But my conscience
smote me for having uttered a truth, even to aid a friend, and hastening
back to Athens, I arrived behind the philosopher's chair as he was
inditing the 'aulos. '"

"Giving the lambda a fillip with my finger, I turned it upside down. So
the sentence now read 'o nous estin augos', and is, you perceive, the
fundamental doctrines in his metaphysics. "

"Were you ever at Rome? " asked the restaurateur, as he finished his
second bottle of Mousseux, and drew from the closet a larger supply of
Chambertin.

"But once, Monsieur Bon-Bon, but once. There was a time," said the devil,
as if reciting some passage from a book--"there was a time when occurred
an anarchy of five years, during which the republic, bereft of all its
officers, had no magistracy besides the tribunes of the people, and
these were not legally vested with any degree of executive power--at
that time, Monsieur Bon-Bon--at that time only I was in Rome, and I have
no earthly acquaintance, consequently, with any of its philosophy. " (*2)

{*2} Ils ecrivaient sur la Philosophie (_Cicero, Lucretius,
Seneca_) mais c'etait la Philosophie Grecque. --_Condorcet_.

"What do you think of--what do you think of--hiccup! --Epicurus? "

"What do I think of whom? " said the devil, in astonishment, "you
cannot surely mean to find any fault with Epicurus!