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256 "You are right," replied Olympia; "but you make such progress with me that I shall never allow myself to judge in future. I am too easily influenced by surrounding circumstances, and you comprehend the general view so acutely."

"Do not call it masculine vanity," responded Spinoza; "but you confirm what I have observed with my sisters and their friends; women seldom seem to feel pleasure in mere rectitude; they do not judge of the deed but the doer, and of him with either partiality or prejudice."

"Agreed. Well, we are not in the world to philosophize. You agree with me there; you too do not like this jingling prattle, with its cut and dried ready-coined thoughts; if these pennies are always in circulation they become worn out, lose all freshness in the impression, and retain only nominal value. So it is with Kerkering, he is wanting in true inner worth."

"He has his compensations," said Spinoza, "he has all the more jingle."

Olympia seemed to have no inclination to pursue this turn of the conversation, for she continued with her eyes sparkling strangely:

"Our friend Oldenburg always wants me to try my hand at poetry like my namesake Olympia Morata; but I must confess that I pity poets almost as much as I respect them, because they both can and must lay bare their deepest feelings to the eyes