If the worthy classicist, sage critic, and general
preserver of the traditions of correct taste had read Byron, he would
have thought that he had come on a Manfred when he looked to find
Childe Harold.
"Good day, pere Porriquet," said Raphael, pressing the old
schoolmaster's frozen fingers in his own damp ones; "how are you?"
"I am very well," replied the other, alarmed by the touch of that
feverish hand. "But how about you?"
"Oh, I am hoping to keep myself in health."
"You are engaged in some great work, no doubt?"
"No," Raphael answered. "Exegi monumemtum, pere Porriquet; I have
contributed an important page to science, and have now bidden her
farewell for ever. I scarcely know where my manuscript is."
"The style is no doubt correct?" queried the schoolmaster. "You, I
hope, would never have adopted the barbarous language of the new
school, which fancies it has worked such wonders by discovering
Ronsard!"
"My work treats of physiology pure and simple."
"Oh, then, there is no more to be said," the schoolmaster answered.
"Grammar must yield to the exigencies of discovery. Nevertheless,
young man, a lucid and harmonious style--the diction of Massillon, of
M. de Buffon, of the great Racine--a classical style, in short, can
never spoil anything----But, my friend," the schoolmaster interrupted
himself, "I was forgetting the object of my visit, which concerns my
own interests.
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