"Master," I would cry as I moved respectfully beneath him, "what
is it you seek today?" and always the answer, clear and without
doubt, from above: "The old secret, my son!"
The immense egotism of youth forced me on my own path, but (cry
of the human always!) had I known--if I had known--I would many
times have bartered my poor laurels for the privilege, such as
Tinsley and Herrera possess, of having aided him in his
monumental researches.
It is to the filial piety of Victor Lavalle that we owe the two
volumes consecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of
the holy intimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from
the abysms of the utter North to that little house upon the
outskirts of Meudon, it was not the philosopher, the daring
observer, the man of iron energy that imposed himself on his
family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a farceur incarnate
and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must be
written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as
she writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable
mother, found "in this unequalled intellect whose name I bear the
abandon of a large and very untidy boy.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208