IGNORANCE OF EACH OTHER, AND THE READER NO WISER THAN EITHER OF THEM.

THE Abbe was now particularly courteous to me. He made Gerald and
myself breakfast with him, and told us nothing was so amiable as
friendship among brothers. We agreed to the sentiment, and, like all
philosophers, did not agree a bit the better for acknowledging the same
first principles. Perhaps, notwithstanding his fine speeches, the Abbe
was the real cause of our continued want of cordiality. However, we did
not fight any more: we avoided each other, and at last became as civil
and as distant as those mathematical lines which appear to be taking all
possible pains to approach one another and never get a jot the nearer
for it. Oh! your civility is the prettiest invention possible for
dislike! Aubrey and I were inseparable, and we both gained by the
intercourse. I grew more gentle, and he more masculine; and, for my
part, the kindness of his temper so softened the satire of mine that I
learned at last to smile full as often as to sneer.

The Abbe had obtained a wonderful hold over Aubrey; he had made the poor
boy think so much of the next world, that he had lost all relish for
this. He lived in a perpetual fear of offence: he was like a chemist of
conscience, and weighed minutiae by scruples. To play, to ride, to run,
to laugh at a jest, or to banquet on a melon, were all sins to be atoned
for; and I have found (as a penance for eating twenty-three cherries
instead of eighteen) the penitent of fourteen standing, barefooted, in
the coldest nights of winter, upon the hearthstones, almost utterly
naked, and shivering like a leaf, beneath the mingled effect of frost
and devotion. At first I attempted to wrestle with this exceeding
holiness, but finding my admonitions received with great distaste and
some horror, I suffered my brother to be happy in his own way. I only
looked with a very evil and jealous eye upon the good Abbe, and