The people whom the great writer helped were not always so polite. One
day he was seeing to the door a young man who had deceived him, and to
whom, after discovering it, he had given both assistance and advice.

"Monsieur Diderot," said the swindler, "do you know natural history?"

"A little; I can distinguish an aloe from a head of lettuce, and a
pigeon from a humming-bird."

"Do you know the formica leo?"

"No."

"It is a very clever little insect. It digs a hole in the ground, shaped
like a funnel. It covers the surface with fine, light sand. It attracts
silly insects and gets them to tumble in. It seizes them, sucks them
dry, and then says: `Monsieur Diderot, I have the honor to wish you
good-morning.'" Whereupon the young man ran downstairs, leaving the
philosopher in fits of laughter.[Footnote: Morley, Diderot and the
Encyclopaedists. Scherer, Diderot, passim. Morrellet, i. 29. Marmontel,
ii. 313. Memoire sur Diderot, par Mme. de Vandeul, sa fille (a charming
sketch only 64 pages long) in Diderot, Memoires, Corresp., etc., vol.
i.]

As a writer, the great fault of Diderot is one not common in France. He
is verbose. As we read his productions, even the cleverest, we feel that
the same thing could have been better said in fewer words. There is also
a lack of arrangement. Diderot would never take time to plan his books
before writing them. But these faults, although probably fatal to the