'
'That is very clear,' said Cadurcis, 'but I was thinking of love in
the vulgar sense, in the shape of a petticoat. Certainly, when I am in
love with a woman, I feel love is life; but, when I am out of love,
which often happens, and generally very soon, I still contrive to
live.'
'We exist,' said Herbert, 'because we sympathise. If we did not
sympathise with the air, we should die. But, if we only sympathised
with the air, we should be in the lowest order of brutes, baser than
the sloth. Mount from the sloth to the poet. It is sympathy that makes
you a poet. It is your desire that the airy children of your brain
should be born anew within another's, that makes you create;
therefore, a misanthropical poet is a contradiction in terms.'
'But when he writes a lampoon?' said Cadurcis.
'He desires that the majority, who are not lampooned, should share his
hate,' said Herbert.
'But Swift lampooned the species,' said Cadurcis. 'For my part, I
think life is hatred.'
'But Swift was not sincere, for he wrote the Drapier's Letters at the
same time. Besides, the very fact of your abusing mankind proves that
you do not hate them; it is clear that you are desirous of obtaining
their good opinion of your wit. You value them, you esteem them, you
love them.
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