And finally, paint Charles IX. for us as he really
was, and not as Protestant writers have made him. Ten years of
persistent work, and fame and fortune will be yours."
By this time it was nine o'clock; Lucien followed the example set in
secret by his future friend by asking him to dine at Eldon's, and
spent twelve francs at that restaurant. During the dinner Daniel
admitted Lucien into the secret of his hopes and studies. Daniel
d'Arthez would not allow that any writer could attain to a pre-eminent
rank without a profound knowledge of metaphysics. He was engaged in
ransacking the spoils of ancient and modern philosophy, and in the
assimilation of it all; he would be like Moliere, a profound
philosopher first, and a writer of comedies afterwards. He was
studying the world of books and the living world about him--thought
and fact. His friends were learned naturalists, young doctors of
medicine, political writers and artists, a number of earnest students
full of promise.
D'Arthez earned a living by conscientious and ill-paid work; he wrote
articles for encyclopaedias, dictionaries of biography and natural
science, doing just enough to enable him to live while he followed his
own bent, and neither more nor less. He had a piece of imaginative
work on hand, undertaken solely for the sake of studying the resources
of language, an important psychological study in the form of a novel,
unfinished as yet, for d'Arthez took it up or laid it down as the
humor took him, and kept it for days of great distress.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111