There is nothing more enduring. It has for some who
were most blessed outlasted, you may say, all material things which they
handled or they knew--all fabrics, all instruments, all habitations. It
is comparable in its endurance to the years, and a man reads the "Song
of Roland" and can still look on that same unchanged Cleft of
Roncesvalles, or a man reads the Iliad and can look to-day westward from
the shores to Tenedos. But wait a moment. Are they indeed blessed in
this, the great poets? Ronsard debated it. He decided that they were,
and put into the mouth of the muses the great lines:----
Mais un tel accident n'arrive point a l'ame,
Qui sans matiere vist immortelle la haut.
* * * * *
Vela saigement dit, Ceux dont la fantaisie
Sera religieuse et devote envers Dieu
Tousjours acheveront quelque grand poesie,
Et dessus leur renom la Parque n'aura lieu.
But the matter is still undecided.
Mr. The Duke: The Man of Malplaquet
On the field of Malplaquet, that battlefield, I met a man.
He was pointed out to me as a man who drove travellers to Bavai. His
name was Mr. The Duke, and he was very poor.
If he comes across these lines (which is exceedingly unlikely) I offer
him my apologies. Anyhow, I can write about him freely, for he is not
rich, and, what is more, the laws of his country permit the telling of
the truth about our fellow-men, even when they are rich.
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