United States or Tanzania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Would he presently carry a letter with recommendation of himself to Monsieur Michel de Montaigne? Linked they were, in the common friendship of the late Etienne de la Boetie yonder! Monsieur Michel could tell him much of the great ones of the Greek and Latin masters of style. Let his study be in them!
At one moment the young man felt intensely relieved, for, turning into the Rue La Boetie, they walked on slowly, as if downcast and resigned, in the direction of Grenelle. But all at once they halted once more and exchanged a few words; and then Mathieu's heart contracted as he saw them retrace their steps along the Rue La Boetie and follow the Rue de la Pepiniere as far as the Rue du Rocher.
He had lost the only man he had ever really loved, Stephen de la Boetie, an amiable and noble philosopher, counsellor in the Parliament of Bordeaux.
There had been the greatness of the old Greek and Roman life, so greatly recorded: there had been the wisdom and kindness of Etienne de la Boetie, as made known in all their fulness to him alone. That his ardent devotion to the ancients had been rewarded with minute knowledge concerning them, was the privilege of the age in which he was born, late in the Revival of Letters.
As it happened, that same Thursday, about two o'clock, Mathieu, who had come to Paris to see about a threshing-machine at Beauchene's works, was quietly walking along the Rue La Boetie when he met Cecile Moineaud, who was carrying a little parcel carefully tied round with string. She was now nearly twenty-one, but had remained slim, pale, and weak, since passing through the hands of Dr. Gaude.
The little flat in the Rue de La Boetie seemed very bright and fragrant; it was perfumed by the fair grace of Andree and illumined by the victorious charm of Ambroise, that handsome loving couple who, arm in arm, had set out so bravely to conquer the world.
"Oh! it is with a good heart," said she. "It does one good to meet a man like you. And come, kiss my poor little fellow, too; it will bring him good luck." On reaching the Rue La Boetie it occurred to Mathieu, who was bound for the Beauchene works, to take a cab and let Cecile alight near her parents' home, since it was in the neighborhood of the factory.
Touching this second point I goe as farre as my Painter, but for the other and better part I am farre behinde: for my sufficiency reacheth not so farre as that I dare undertake a rich, a polished, and, according to true skill, an art-like table. I have advised myselfe to borrow one of Steven de la Boetie, who with this kinde of worke shall honour all the world.
There was a fineness of sensation in these unpremeditated thoughts, which to Gaston seemed to connect itself with the exquisite words he had found to paint his two great affections, for his father and for Etienne de la Boetie, a fineness of sensation perhaps quite novel in that age, but still of physical sensation: and in pursuit of fine physical sensation he came, on his broad, easy, indifferent passage through the world, across the coarsest growths which also thrive "under the sun," and was not revolted.
At the same time she had promised to be present at the lunch, and thus there would be ten of them, sufficient to fill the little dining-room of the modest flat in the Rue de La Boetie, where the young couple resided pending fortune's arrival. It was a very pleasant morning.
Word Of The Day