43 2
Sainte-Beuve.
[April,
face, and shot away one of F 's
side-locks. His face probably looked as if he were already in the infernal regions ; but afterwards it assumed an angelic calmness and repose.
A company of persons to drink a cer- tain medicinal preparation, which would prove a poison, or the contrary, accord- ing to their different characters.
Many persons, without a conscious- ness of so doing, to contribute to some one end ; as to a beggar's feast, made up of broken victuals from many tables ; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments.
Some* very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some unexpected manner, amid homely circumstances.
To poison a person or a party of per- sons with the sacramental wine.
A cloud in the shape of an old wo- man kneeling, with arms extended to- wards the moon.
scenes, we feel as if all were unreal. This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made evi- dent by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by we become mutually adapted, and the per- ception is lost.
An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its surface.
Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, when they have disap- peared from the earth, their history will appear a fable, and they misty phan- toms.
A woman to sympathize with all emo- tions, but to have none of her own.
A portrait of a person in New Eng- land to be recognized as of the same person represented by a portrait in Old England. Having distinguished himself there, he had suddenly van- ished, and had never been heard of till he was thus discovered to be iden- tical with a distinguished man in New
On being transported to strange England.
SAINTE-BEUVE
THE lives of French men of letters, at least during the last two centu- ries, have never been isolated or ob- scure. Had Rousseau been born on the borders of Loch Lomond,, he might have proved in his own person, and without interruption, the superiority of the savage state ; and after his death the information in regard to him would have been fragmentary and uncertain. But born on the shores of Lake Le- man, centralization laid its grasp upon
him, drew him into the vortex of the " great world," and caused his name to ligure in all the questions, the quarrels, and the scandals of his day. The truth is, that literature is a far more important element -of society in France than elsewhere. We seldom think of a French author, without re- calling the history and the manners of his time. In reading a French play, though it be a tragedy of Racine or a comedy of Moliere, we are reminded
