morals, manners and name of that interest, saying that it
was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe
men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a
sort of free-masonry. M. de Narbonne in less than a
fortnight penetrated all the secrets of the imperial
cabinet.

Nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood.
Yet a man may come to find that the strongest of defences
and of ties,--that he has been understood; and he who
has received an opinion may come to find it the most
inconvenient of bonds.

If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal,
his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that
as into any which he publishes. If you pour water into
a vessel twisted into coils and angles, it is vain to
say, I will pour it only into this or that;--it will find
its level in all. Men feel and act the consequences of
your doctrine without being able to show how they follow.
Show us an arc of the curve, and a good mathematician will
find out the whole figure. We are always reasoning from
the seen to the unseen. Hence the perfect intelligence
that subsists between wise men of remote ages. A man
cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book but time and
like-minded men will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine,
had he? What secret can he conceal from the eyes of Bacon?
of Montaigne? of Kant? Therefore, Aristotle said of his
works, "They are published and not published."