One should never write except upon that which one loves.  Oblivion and silence are the proper punishments to be inflicted upon all that we meet with in the way of what is ungainly or vulgar in the course of our journey through life.  Referring to a past which is dear to me, I have spoken of it with kindly sympathy; but I should be sorry to create any misapprehension, and to be taken for an uncompromising reactionist.  I love the past, but I envy the future.  It would have been very pleasant to have lived upon this planet at as late a period as possible.  Descartes would be delighted if he could read some trivial work on natural philosophy and cosmography written in the present day.  The fourth form school boy of our age is acquainted with truths to know which Archimedes would have laid down his life.  What would we not give to be able to get a glimpse of some book which will be used as a school-primer a hundred years hence?

We must not, because of our personal tastes, our prejudices perhaps, set ourselves to oppose the action of our time.  This action goes on without regard to us, and probably it is right.  The world is moving in the direction of what I may call a kind of Americanism, which shocks our refined ideas, but which, when once the crisis of the present hour is over, may very possibly not be more inimical than the ancient regime to the only thing which is of any real importance; viz. the emancipation and progress of the human mind.  A society in which personal distinction is of little account, in which talent and wit are not marketable commodities, in which exalted functions do not ennoble, in which politics are left to men devoid of standing or ability, in which the recompenses of life are accorded by preference to intrigue, to vulgarity, to the charlatans who cultivate the art of puffing, and to the smart people who just keep without the clutches of the law, would never suit us.  We have been accustomed to a more protective system, and to the government patronizing what is noble and worthy.  But we have not secured this patronage for nothing.  Richelieu and Louis XIV. looked upon it as their duty to provide pensions for men of merit all the world over; how much better it would have been, if the spirit of the time had admitted of it, that they should have left the men of merit to themselves!  The period of the Restoration has the credit of being a liberal one; yet we should certainly not like to live now under a regime which warped such a genius as Cuvier, stifled with paltry compromises the keen mind of M. Cousin, and retarded the growth of criticism by half a century.  The concessions which had to be made to the court, to society, and to the clergy, were far worse than the petty annoyances which a democracy can inflict upon us.