"
"If lions could paint," says the fable, "in the room of those pictures
which exhibit men vanquishing lions, we should see lions feeding upon
men." If the stone-cutter could have written like Bruyere, what would he
have replied?
"I look up," says he, "every day from my shop, upon a man whom the
idlers, who stand still to gaze upon my work, often celebrate as a wit
and a philosopher. I often perceive his face clouded with care, and am
told that his taper is sometimes burning at midnight. The sight of a man
who works so much harder than myself, excited my curiosity. I heard no
sound of tools in his apartment, and, therefore, could not imagine what
he was doing; but was told at last, that he was writing descriptions of
mankind, who when he had described them would live just as they had
lived before; that he sat up whole nights to change a sentence, because
the sound of a letter was too often repeated: that he was often
disquieted with doubts, about the propriety of a word which every body
understood; that he would hesitate between two expressions equally
proper, till he could not fix his choice but by consulting his friends;
that he will run from one end of Paris to the other, for an opportunity
of reading a period to a nice ear; that if a single line is heard with
coldness and inattention, he returns home dejected and disconsolate; and
that by all this care and labour, he hopes only to make a little book,
which at last will teach no useful art, and which none who has it not
will perceive himself to want.
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