Now suppose there were to turn up a fifth cardinal point, all the harmony of nature would be upset.

What they call a cataclysm--you understand ?" "I am waiting for the conclusion," said Carolus, whose intelligence began to be a little shaky.
"The conclusion--yes, that is the end of the argument, as death is the end of life, and marriage of love.

Well, my dear sir, I and my friends are accustomed to live together, and we fear to impair, by the introduction of another person, the harmony which reigns in our habits, opinions, tastes, and dispositions.

To speak frankly, we are going to be, some day, the four cardinal points of contemporary art; accustomed to this idea, it would annoy us to see a fifth point." "Nevertheless," suggested Carolus, "where you are four it is easy to be five." "Yes, but then we cease to be four." "The objection is a trivial one." "There is nothing trivial in this world; little brooks make great rivers; little syllables make big verses; the very mountains are made of grains of sand--so says 'The Wisdom of Nations,' of which there is a copy on the quay--tell me, my dear sir, which is the furrow that you usually follow in the noble fields of intelligence ?" "The great philosophers and the classic authors are my models.

I live upon their study.