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... My journey to Paris is fixed for some time in February, where I hear I may expect to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti. Her husband is just dead; and you know the House of Bourbon have an alacrity at marrying their old mistresses. She was here last year, being extremely infected with the Anglomanie, though I believe pretty well cured by her journey. She is past forty, and does not appear ever to have been handsome, but is one of the most agreeable and sensible women I ever saw; yet I must tell you a trait of her that will not prove my assertion. Lady Holland asked her how she liked Strawberry Hill? She owned that she did not approve of it, and that it was not digne de la solidité Angloise. It made me laugh for a quarter of an hour. They allot us a character we have not, and then draw consequences from that idea, which would be absurd, even if the idea were just. One must not build a Gothic house because the nation is solide. Perhaps, as everything now in France must be
The text of Wallon's Life is, however, wanting in charm, and it is, as M. Veuillot writes of it, 'un livre sérieuse et solide. Sainte-Beuve has been still more severe in his judgment on Wallon's book, which he calls 'la faiblesse même.
To this end at least 200,000 Frenchmen and 100,000 Italians would be necessary. Cavour has been criticised for acquiescing in the crippled programme of a kingdom of Upper Italy. What was he to do? Victor Amadeus II, in his instructions to the Marquis del Borgo, his minister at the Congress of Utrecht, laid down the rule: "Aller au solide et au présent et parler ensuite des chimères agréables."
He dreamed of combining their delicate vision, their exquisite sensation, with a more positive and elaborate statement. He wanted to make of Impressionism "quelque chose de solide et de durable comme l'art des Musées." He succeeded. But at what moment did his dissent become acute, and to what extent was he aware from the first of its existence?
His numerous commercial voyages had made them well acquainted with each other, but on the present occasion Carbuccia presented an appearance which alarmed his friend; a gaillard grand et solide had been metamorphosed suddenly into an emaciated and feeble old man. There was a mystery somewhere, and the ship's doctor was destined to diagnose its character.
In this he resembles the Scotsman much more than the Englishman; and both European foreigners and the Americans themselves seem aware of this. Thus, Max O'Rell writes: De tous les citoyens du Royaume plus ou moins Uni l'ami Donald est le plus fini, le plus solide, le plus positif, le plus persévérant, le plus laborieux, et le plus spirituel.
Dumas was certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the mouth of d'Artagnan's old servant this excellent profession: "MONSIEUR, J'ETAIS UNE DE CES BONNES PATES D'HOMMES QUE DIEU A FAIT POUR S'ANIMER PENDANT UN CERTAIN TEMPS ET POUR TROUVER BONNES TOUTES CHOSES QUI ACCOMPAGNENT LEUR SEJOUR SUR LA TERRE." He was thinking, as I say, of Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also to Planchet's creator; and perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for observe what follows: "D'ARTAGNAN S'ASSIT ALORS PRES DE LA FENETRE, ET, CETTE PHILOSOPHIE DE PLANCHET LUI AYANT PARU SOLIDE, IL Y REVA." In a man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge entirely mean and partly impious.
But, after all, was the Oxford which contained Pater, Pattison, and Bywater, which had nurtured Matthew Arnold and Swinburne Swinburne with his wonderful knowledge of the intricacies and subtleties of the French tongue and the French literature merely "solide and positif," as Taine declares?
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