I can well believe that so learned a person as yourself would prefer absolute solitude to being tormented with the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself.

If you will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another word about escaping." The abbe smiled.

"Alas, my boy," said he, "human knowledge is confined within very narrow limits; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will know as much as I do myself.

Now, it will scarcely require two years for me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess." "Two years!" exclaimed Dantes; "do you really believe I can acquire all these things in so short a time ?" "Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned.

Memory makes the one, philosophy the other." "But cannot one learn philosophy ?" "Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into heaven." "Well, then," said Dantes, "What shall you teach me first?
I am in a hurry to begin.