Parisians, the — Volume 07 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 53 of 53 (100%)
page 53 of 53 (100%)
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questionings no more. It turned upon personalities, on stratagems and
plots, on ambition. The man had more than his share of that peculiar susceptibility which is one of the characteristics of his countrymen-- susceptibility to immediate impulse--susceptibility to fleeting impressions. It was a key to many mysteries in his character when he owned his subjection to the influence of music, and in music recognised not the seraph's harp, but the siren's song. If you could have permanently fixed Victor de Mauleon in one of the good moments of his life--even now--some moment of exquisite kindness--of superb generosity --of dauntless courage--you would have secured a very rare specimen of noble humanity. But so to fix him was impossible. That impulse of the moment vanished the moment after; swept aside by the force of his very talents--talents concentrated by his intense sense of individuality--sense of wrongs or of rights--interests or objects personal to himself. He extended the royal saying, "_L'etat, c'est moi_," to words far more grandiloquent. "The universe, 'tis I." The Venosta would have understood him and smiled approvingly, if he had said with good-humoured laugh, "I dead, the world is dead!" That is an Italian proverb, and means much the same thing. |
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