Talk was unflagging, full of charm,
and ranging over the most varied topics; words light as arrows sped to
the mark. There was a strange contrast between the dire material
poverty in which the young men lived and the splendor of their
intellectual wealth. They looked upon the practical problems of
existence simply as matter for friendly jokes. The cold weather
happened to set in early that year. Five of d'Arthez's friends
appeared one day, each concealing firewood under his cloak; the same
idea had occurred to the five, as it sometimes happens that all the
guests at a picnic are inspired with the notion of bringing a pie as
their contribution.
All of them were gifted with the moral beauty which reacts upon the
physical form, and, no less than work and vigils, overlays a youthful
face with a shade of divine gold; purity of life and the fire of
thought had brought refinement and regularity into features somewhat
pinched and rugged. The poet's amplitude of brow was a striking
characteristic common to them all; the bright, sparkling eyes told of
cleanliness of life. The hardships of penury, when they were felt at
all, were born so gaily and embraced with such enthusiasm, that they
had left no trace to mar the serenity peculiar to the faces of the
young who have no grave errors laid to their charge as yet, who have
not stooped to any of the base compromises wrung from impatience of
poverty by the strong desire to succeed.
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