"
The men of science who spend whole months in gnawing at the bone of an
antediluvian monster, in calculating the laws of nature, when there is
an opportunity to peer into her secrets, the Grecians and Latinists
who dine on a thought of Tacitus, sup on a phrase of Thucydides, spend
their life in brushing the dust from library shelves, in keeping guard
over a commonplace book, or a papyrus, are all predestined. So great
is their abstraction or their ecstasy, that nothing that goes on
around them strikes their attention. Their unhappiness is consummated;
in full light of noon they scarcely even perceive it. Oh happy men! a
thousand times happy! Example: Beauzee, returning home after session
at the Academy, surprises his wife with a German. "Did not I tell you,
madame, that it was necessary that I shall go," cried the stranger.
"My dear sir," interrupted the academician, "you ought to say that I
_should_ go!"
Then there come, lyre in hand, certain poets whose whole animal
strength has left the ground floor and mounted to the upper story.
They know better how to mount Pegasus than the beast of old Peter,
they rarely marry, although they are accustomed to lavish the fury of
their passions on some wandering or imaginary Chloris.
But the men whose noses are stained with snuff;
But those who, to their misfortune, have a perpetual cold in their
head;
But the sailors who smoke or chew;
But those men whose dry and bilious temperament makes them always look
as if they had eaten a sour apple;
But the men who in private life have certain cynical habits,
ridiculous fads, and who always, in spite of everything, look
unwashed;
But the husbands who have obtained the degrading name of "hen-pecked";
Finally the old men who marry young girls.
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