Heart.  But you and I know, that all this is false:  that there is not a country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to his own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred respect.

Head.  True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.

Heart.  But they are sensible people, who think for themselves.  They will ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us, whether they saw or heard on the spot any instance of anarchy.  They will judge, too, that a people occupied, as we are, in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools, establishing academies, erecting busts and statues to our great men, protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, reforming and improving our laws in general; they will judge, I say, for themselves, whether these are not the occupations of a people at their ease; whether this is not better evidence of our true state, than a London newspaper, hired to lie, and from which no truth can ever be extracted, but by reversing every thing it says.

Head.  I did not begin this lecture, my friend, with a view to learn from you what America is doing.  Let us return, then, to our point.  I wish to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affections without reserve on objects you must so soon lose, and whose loss, when it comes, must cost you such severe pangs.  Remember the last night.  You knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day.  This was enough to throw you into agonies.  All night you tossed us from one side of the bed to the other; no sleep, no rest.  The poor Crippled wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains returned?  The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordinary change.  In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners.  This is not a world to live at random in, as you do.  To avoid those eternal distresses, to which you are for ever exposing us, you must learn to look forward before you take a step, which may interest our peace.  Every thing in this world is matter of calculation.  Advance, then, with caution, the balance in your hand.  Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other the pains which are to follow, and see which preponderates.  The making an acquaintance is not a matter of indifference.  When a new one is proposed to you, view it all round.  Consider what advantages it presents, and to what inconveniences it may expose you.  Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.  The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks