Arsène, from the height of his esprit, contemplates men; and from such a great distance, he is fightened by their littleness; having been praised, exalted, and carried into the heavens by certain people who admire him in return for his admiration, he thinks that he has all the merit that it is possible for man to have, and that he will never have; occupied and filled with sublime ideas, he hardly has the time to pronounce a few prophesies; lifted by his character above human discernment, he leaves it to common souls to have a regulated and uniform life; he only has to account for his fickleness to the circle of friends that idolize him: only they are able to judge, to think, to write, and they are the only ones who should write; there is no work of literature in the world that has been so well received and so universally enjoyed by honest men, that he will, not approve of it, but deign to read it: he is incapable of being corrected by this portrait, which he will never see.