Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 03.djvu/26

8 "Sir, as you understand Latin, and are a man acquainted with the court — "

"I understand Latin! I don't know one word of it," answered the wit, "and I think myself the better for being unacquainted with it. It is very evident that a man speaks his own language in greater perfection when he does not divide his application between it and foreign languages. Only consider our ladies; they have a much more agreeable turn of wit than the men; their letters are written with a hundred times the grace of ours. This superiority they owe to nothing else but their not understanding Latin."

"Well, was I not in the right?" said the lady. "I would have my son prove a notable man, I would have him succeed in the world; and you see that if he were to understand Latin he would be ruined. Pray, are plays and operas performed in Latin? Do lawyers plead in Latin? Do men court a mistress in Latin?"

The marquis, dazzled by these reasons, gave up the point, and it was resolved that the young marquis should not misspend his time in endeavoring to become acquainted with Cicero, Horace, and Virgil.

"Then," said the father, "what shall he learn? For he must know something. Might not one teach him a little geography?"

"Of what use will that be?" answered the governor. When the marquis goes to his estate won't the postilion know the roads? They certainly will not carry him out of his way. There is no occasion for a