"She has just recovered from severe illness. In the winter, you
know, it was thought she would not live from hour to hour."

"And she has hardly recovered from that disease, before she seems
threatened with a worse one; namely, a hopeless passion. However,
people do not die of love now-a-days."

"Seldom, perhaps," said Flemming. "And yet it is folly to pretend
that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such
wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon
without emotion. There are names I can never hear spoken without
almost starting!"

"But whom have we here?"

"That is the French poet Quinet, with his sweet German wife; one
of the most interesting women I ever knew. He is the author of a
very wild Mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which the Ocean,
Mont-Blanc, and the Cathedral of Strassburg have parts to play; and
the saints on the stained windows of the minster speak, and the
statues and dead kings enact the Dance of Death. It is entitled
Ahasuerus, or the Wandering Jew."

"Or, as the Danes would translate it, the Shoemaker of Jerusalem.
That would be a still more fantastic title for his fantastic book.
You know I am no great admirer of the modern French school of
writers. The tales of Paul de Kock, who is, I believe, the most
popular of all, seem to me like obscene stories told at
dinner-tables, after the ladies have retired. It has been well said