“Agriculture is a question of time,” he said; “the little that I know of it makes me understand what a gain it would be to get some good out of the winter.  The rains are now beginning, and the mountains will soon be covered with snow; your operations cannot then be begun.  Had you not better hasten Monsieur Grossetete?”

Insensibly, Monsieur Bonnet, who at first did all the talking, led Madame Graslin to join in the conversation and so distract her thoughts; in fact, he left her almost recovered from the emotions of the day.  Madame Sauviat, however, thought her daughter too violently agitated to be left alone, and she spent the night in her room.

XVI

       CONCERNS ONE OF THE BLUNDERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The following day an express, sent from Limoges by Monsieur Grossetete to Madame Graslin, brought her the following letter:—­

  To Madame Graslin: 

My dear Child,—­It was difficult to find horses, but I hope you are satisfied with those I sent you.  If you want work or draft horses, you must look elsewhere.  In any case, however, I advise you to do your tilling and transportation with oxen.  All the countries where agriculture is carried on with horses lose capital when the horse is past work; whereas cattle always return a profit to those who use them.

  I approve in every way of your enterprise, my child; you will thus
  employ the passionate activity of your soul, which was turning
  against yourself and thus injuring you.

Your second request, namely, for a man capable of understanding and seconding your projects, requires me to find you a rara avis such as we seldom raise in the provinces, where, if we do raise them, we never keep them.  The education of that high product is too slow and too risky a speculation for country folks.

Besides, men of intellect alarm us; we call them “originals.”  The men belonging to the scientific category from which you will have to obtain your co-operator do not flourish here, and I was on the point of writing to you that I despaired of fulfilling your commission.  You want a poet, a man of ideas,—­in short, what we should here call a fool, and all our fools go to Paris.  I have spoken of your plans to the young men employed in land surveying, to contractors on the canals, and makers of the embankments, and none of them see any “advantage” in what you propose.

But suddenly, as good luck would have it, chance has thrown in my way the very man you want; a young man to whom I believe I render a service in naming him to you.  You will see by his letter, herewith enclosed, that deeds of beneficence ought not to be done hap-hazard.  Nothing needs more reflection than a good action.  We never know whether that which seems best at one moment may not prove an evil later.  The exercise of beneficence, as I have lived to discover, is to usurp the role of Destiny.

As she read that sentence Madame Graslin let fall the letter and was thoughtful for several minutes.