That is all there is to say, I think.... Will you have
a glass of wine with me?' he added courteously, waving a hand
towards the commander's quarters.
"I assented, for why, thought I, should there be a personal quarrel
between us? We talked on many things for an hour or more, and his
I found the keenest mind that ever I have met. There was in him a
dispassionateness, a breadth, which seemed most strange in a trifler
of the Court, in an exquisite--for such he was. I sometimes think
that his elegance and flippancy were deliberate, lest he should be
taking himself or life too seriously. His intelligence charmed me,
held me, and, later, as we travelled up to Quebec, I found my journey
one long feast of interest. He was never dull, and his cynicism had
an admirable grace and cordiality. A born intriguer, he still was
above intrigue, justifying it on the basis that life was all sport.
In logic a leveller, praising the moles, as he called them, the
champion of the peasant, the apologist for the bourgeois--who
always, he said, had civic virtues--he nevertheless held that what
was was best, that it could not be altered, and that it was all
interesting.
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