I've a strong
impression, too, that the second volume is lost--has been packed in
the bag of some departing guest; and yet everybody has the
impression that somebody else has read to the end. You see
therefore that the beautiful book plays a great part in our
existence. Why should I take the occasion of such distinguished
honours to say that I begin to see deeper into Gustave Flaubert's
doleful refrain about the hatred of literature? I refer you again
to the perverse constitution of man.
"The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete
and the confusion of tongues of a valet de place. She contrives to
commit herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages,
and is entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays,
like an institution which goes on from generation to generation or
a big building contracted for under a forfeit. She can't have a
personal taste any more than, when her husband succeeds, she can
have a personal crown, and her opinion on any matter is rusty and
heavy and plain--made, in the night of ages, to last and be
transmitted. I feel as if I ought to 'tip' some custode for my
glimpse of it. She has been told everything in the world and has
never perceived anything, and the echoes of her education respond
awfully to the rash footfall--I mean the casual remark--in the cold
Valhalla of her memory.
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