Excerpt: ...is useless to fly into a passion with human beings because of their harshness, their injustice, their pride, their self-love and their forgetfulness of others. They are made so, it is their nature, and to be angry about it is to be angry with the stone for falling or with the flame for rising." Here is the voice of the man who had lived and who was still living in the house of that Prince de Conde of whom Saint Simon said that, "A pernicious neighbour, he made everybody miserable with whom he had to do." I like ...
Read More
Excerpt: ...is useless to fly into a passion with human beings because of their harshness, their injustice, their pride, their self-love and their forgetfulness of others. They are made so, it is their nature, and to be angry about it is to be angry with the stone for falling or with the flame for rising." Here is the voice of the man who had lived and who was still living in the house of that Prince de Conde of whom Saint Simon said that, "A pernicious neighbour, he made everybody miserable with whom he had to do." I like to imagine La Bruyere escaping from some dreadful scene where Henry Jules had injured his dependants and insulted his familiars, or had drawn out in public the worst qualities of his son, "incapable of affection and only too capable of hatred." I imagine him escaping from the violence and meanness of those intolerable tyrants up into the asylum of his own hushed apartment at Versailles; there flinging himself down for a moment in the alcove, on the painted bedstead, then presently rising, with a smile on his lips and the fright and anger gone out of his eyes, and advancing to the great oaken bureau which displayed his faience and his guitar. He would glance, for encouragement, at the framed portrait of Bossuet which was the principal ornament of the wall above it, and then, listening a moment to be sure that he was safe from disturbance, he would unlock one of the three drawers, and take out the little portfolio in which for years and years he had been storing up his observations upon society and his consolations in affliction. Presently, with infinite deliberation and most fastidious choice of the faultless phrase and single available word, he would paint the Holbein portrait of one of the prodigious creatures whom he had just seen in action, some erratic, brilliant and hateful "ornament of society" such as the Duke de Lauzun, and the picture of Straton would be added to his gallery: - "Straton was born under two stars; unlucky, lucky in...
Read Less
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France to cart. $12.55, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2024 by Alpha Edition.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France to cart. $26.63, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2024 by Alpha Edition.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France to cart. $29.32, new condition, Sold by Booksplease rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Southport, MERSEYSIDE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2024 by Alpha Edition.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France to cart. $15.42, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by Legare Street Press.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France to cart. $25.67, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2022 by Legare Street Press.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France to cart. $26.58, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by Legare Street Press.
Add this copy of Three French Moralists and the Gallantry of France to cart. $38.97, new condition, Sold by Ria Christie Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Uxbridge, MIDDLESEX, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2022 by Legare Street Press.