Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

One night in Paris some of us took him to No 8 rue Colbert. He was very disgusted, and remarked, “ My uncle might stay, if he came, but I’m off.” None of us saw any joke, but I happened to call at the old gentleman’s house the next day, and found him suffering from gout in both thumbs ! On another occasion he walked into a house in Paris, lazily surveyed the grinning girls, snapped out “ Une douzaine de Marennes ! ” and made for the door. He it was who painted a number in im- mense characters on the door of a girl he dis- liked. He had at one time a small studio. Two nuns came thither a begging. Opening the door to receive them, he wittily cried “ Pas de Modle ” in the monotone of disgust which artists so quickly learn, and banged the door. On another occasion he caused to be printed and stuck up in all the uri- noirs of the Latin Quarter the following smart sa- tirical parody on French quack advertisements, directing it against the crapulous punk whom he also speaks of in the following pages under the pseudonym of “ Sal B . . . . . s,” which I retain : I might multiply examples, but to what good purpose ? On the other hand, he would employ his fine wit in the service of piety and charity. Many are the good and generous deeds done by him under the cover of a light practical joke or quaint whim. Still less need I speak of this side of my friend ; all the world knows more than I could say. His character was more than dual, how- ever. Not only did the r of predicor vanish and re- turn, as in the epigram of Priapus, but the devo- tion to literature of all kinds bore many diverse fruits. Before he was thirty he had published a volume of semi-sacred verse, a notable collection of Carmina Mariana, a short and most lucid history of the metaphysical controversies which culmi- nated in the birth of Scholasticism, a contribution to the Encyclopaedia Britannica on some refine- [5]