demi-philosophe

Updated: May 15, 2025

M. Marteau was no ordinary shopkeeper. The various distinguished people who had fingered his clavecins, and turned over the folios of music, for half a century past, had left their memories behind them; M. de Voltaire, for instance, who had caressed the head of Phlipote with an aged, skeleton hand, leaving, apparently, no very agreeable impression on the child, though her father delighted to recall the incident, being himself a demi-philosophe.

Walter Pater - Essays from 'The Guardian'