e.Rameau's Nephew (1761-1774) turns up.The youth drops one and picks up another,pursuing In the guise of a dialogue between Diderot and a hanger-on of all and clinging to none:my ideas are my trollops. society,exposes the follies and vices,not merely of the time,but of If the weather is too cold or rainy,I take shelter in the human nature itself. Regency Cafe,where I entertain myself by watching chess being His most famous quotations are: played.Paris is the world centre,and this cafe is the Paris The aim of the Encyclopedie was "to assemble the centre,for the finest skill at this game.It is there that one sees knowledge scattered over the face of the earth;to explain its the clash of the profound Legal,the subtle Philidor,the staunch general plan to the men with whom we love...so that we may Mayot;that one sees the most surprising strokes and that one not die without having desearved well of the human race." hears the stupidest remarks.For although one may be a wit and The work was intended "to change the general way of a great chess player,like Legal,one may also be a great chess thinking and to bring about a revolution in men's minds. player and a fool,like Foubert and Mayot. If you impose silence on me about religion and One day I was there after dinner,looking hard,saying government,I shall have nothing to talk about." little,and listening the least amount possible,when I was "The first step toward philosophy is incredulity." accosted by one of the oddest characters in this country,where The following paragraphs are selected from the very God has not stinted us.The fellow is a compound of elevation beginning of his book Rameau's Nephew: and abjectness,of good sense and lunacy.The ideas of decency and depravity must be strangely scrambled in his head,for he RAMEAU'S NEPHEW shows without ostentation the good qualities that nature has Vertumnis,quotquot sunt,natus iniquis. bestowed upon him,just as he does the bad ones without (Born under all the changeful stars there are.) shame.Apart from this,he is endowed with a strong Horace constitution,a special warmth of imagination,and an unusual Rain or shine,it is my regular habit every day about five to power of lung.If you ever meet him and are not put off by his go and take a walk around the Palais-Royal.I can be seen,all originality,you will either stuff your fingers into your ears or by myself,dreaming on D'Argenson's bench.I discuss with run away.Lord,what lungs! myself questions of politics,love,taste,or philosophy.I let my He has no greater opposite than himself.Sometimes he is mind rove wantonly,give it free rein to follow any idea,wise or thin and wan like a patient in the last stages of consumption; mad,that may come uppermost;I chase it as do our young you could count his teeth through his skin;he looks as if he had libertines along Foy's Walk,when they are on the track of a been days without food or had just come out of a Trappist courtesan whose mien is giddy and face smiling,whose nose monastery.The next month,he is sleek and fat as if he ate 244 245 9两阿科福