United States or Grenada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This ironical thrust touched Pascal's sensitive mind to the quick; he rose at once to his feet, and coldly said, "That's true. I thank you for having recalled me to myself." She made no rejoinder, but mentally thanked God. She had read her son's heart, and perceiving his hesitation and weakness she had supplied the stimulus he needed. Now she saw him as she wished to see him.
It also proved that Madame Leon was the Marquis de Valorsay's paid spy and that he must therefore have long been aware of Pascal's existence. But she lacked the time to follow out this train of thought. Her absence might awaken the Fondeges' suspicions; and her success depended on letting them suppose that she was their dupe.
I only know that he left the same day, determined never again to see one whom he could no longer love as he had loved the other, with the hope, the purity, the soul of a man of twenty." A few hours after this conversation, I found myself once more in the office of the Boulevard, seated in Pascal's den, and he was saying, "Already? Have you accomplished your interview with Pierre Fauchery?"
Four-and-twenty centuries ago, in his dialogue on the immortality of the soul, the serene Plato but was he serene? spoke of the uncertainty of our dream of being immortal and of the risk that the dream might be vain, and from his own soul there escaped this profound cry Glorious is the risk! kalos gar o kindunos, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying a sentence that was the germ of Pascal's famous argument of the wager.
A few moments later he got into the cab in which he was stricken down with apoplexy." Extraordinary as Pascal's explanations must have seemed to her, Marguerite did not doubt their accuracy in the least. "Then it is the copy of this letter which you saw in the possession of the Marquis de Valorsay?" "Yes." "And the original?" "M. de Fondege alone can tell what has become of that.
I don't know; shall we say Pascal's Pensees?" He articulated the title with an ironic emphasis so as not to appear pedantic.
It was the pompous head valet in person who ushered him into one of the small reception-rooms, exclaiming: "The baron's engaged, but I'm sure he would be annoyed if he failed to see you; and I will inform him at once." A moment later, the baron entered quite breathless from his hurried descent of the staircase. "Ah! you have been successful," he exclaimed, on seeing Pascal's face.
One is reminded here of Pascal's famous prosopopoeia: "I know not who has put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor myself. I am in a terrible ignorance about everything.... All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least of all is this very death which I cannot escape." The phrases of the Pensees are only the echo of the phrases of the Confessions. But how different is the tone!
His sentences are clear, straightforward, and distinct; and they are bound together into a succession of definitely articulated paragraphs, which are constructed, not on the system of mere haphazard aggregation, but according to the logical development of the thought. Thus Pascal's prose, like the verse of Malherbe and Corneille, is based upon reason; it is primarily intellectual.
Considering that there are many kinds of brains and only one kind of no brains, their diversity of gifts is remarkable, but one characteristic they have in common: they are all poets. Their efforts in the way of eulogium illustrate and illuminate Pascal's obscure saying that poetry is a particular sadness.
Word Of The Day