After
leading a serious life for sixty years, mirth is no offence, and what
source of merriment can be more abundant, more harmless, and more
ready to hand than oneself? If a comedy writer should ever be inclined
to amuse the public by depicting my foibles I would readily give my
assent if he agreed to let me join him in the work, as I could relate
things far more amusing than any which he could invent. But I find
that I am transgressing the first rule which my excellent masters laid
down, viz., never to speak of oneself. I will therefore treat this
latter part of my subject very briefly.
FIRST STEPS OUTSIDE ST. SULPICE.
PART IV.
The moral teaching inculcated by the pious masters who watched over me
so tenderly up to the age of three-and-twenty may be summed up in the
four virtues of disinterestedness or poverty, modesty, politeness,
and strict morality. I propose to analyse my conduct under these four
heads, not in any way with the intention of advertising my own merits,
but in order to give those who profess the philosophy of good-natured
scepticism an opportunity of exercising their powers of observation at
my expense.
I. Poverty is of all the clerical virtues the one which I have
practised the most faithfully. M. Olier had painted for his church
a picture in which St. Sulpice was represented as laying down the
fundamental rule of life for his clerks: _Habentes alimenta et quibus
tegamur, his contenti sumus_. This was just my idea, and I could
desire nothing better than to be provided with lodging, board, lights,
and firing, without any intervention of my own, by some one who
would charge me a fixed sum and leave me entirely my own master.
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