As we have already said, Jean was a backward boy. But, under a dull
exterior, the mental machinery was working splendidly within. He lacked
all that outside care and prudence,--that constant looking out for
breakers,--which obstruct the growth and ripening of the reflective
faculties. The vulgar, by a queer mistake, call a man _absent-minded_,
when his mind shuts the door, pulls in the latch-string, and is
wholly at home. La Fontaine's mind was exceedingly domestic. It was
nowhere but at home when, riding from Paris to Chateau-Thierry, a bundle
of papers fell from his saddle-bow without his perceiving it. The
mail-carrier, coming behind him, picked it up, and overtaking La
Fontaine, asked him if he had lost anything. "Certainly not," he replied,
looking about him with great surprise. "Well, I have just picked up these
papers," rejoined the other. "Ah! they are mine," cried La Fontaine;
"they involve my whole estate." And he eagerly reached to take them. On
another occasion he was equally at home. Stopping on a journey, he
ordered dinner at an hotel, and then took a ramble about the town. On his
return, he entered another hotel, and, passing through into the garden,
took from his pocket a copy of Livy, in which he quietly set himself to
read till his dinner should be ready. The book made him forget his
appetite, till a servant informed him of his mistake, and he returned to
his hotel just in time to pay his bill and proceed on his journey.

It will be perceived that he took the world quietly, and his doing so
undoubtedly had important bearings on his style. We give another
anecdote, which illustrates this peculiarity of his mind as well as the
superlative folly of duelling. Not long after his marriage, with all his
indifference to his wife, he was persuaded into a fit of singular
jealousy. He was intimate with an ex-captain of dragoons, by name
Poignant, who had retired to Chateau-Thierry; a frank, open-hearted man,