Still Even In
Charmes I Found One Marvellous Corner Of A Renaissance House, Which I
Drew; But As I Have Lost The Drawing, Let It Go.
When I came out from the inn of Charmes the heat was more terrible
than ever, and the prospect of a march in it more intolerable.
My head
hung, I went very slowly, and I played with cowardly thoughts, which
were really (had I known it) good angels. I began to look out
anxiously for woods, but saw only long whitened wall glaring in the
sun, or, if ever there were trees, they were surrounded by wooden
palisades which the owners had put there. But in a little time (now I
had definitely yielded to temptation) I found a thicket.
You must know that if you yield to entertaining a temptation, there is
the opportunity presented to you like lightning. A theologian told me
this, and it is partly true: but not of Mammon or Belphegor, or
whatever Devil it is that overlooks the Currency (I can see his face
from here): for how many have yielded to the Desire of Riches and
professed themselves very willing to revel in them, yet did not get an
opportunity worth a farthing till they died? Like those two beggars
that Rabelais tells of, one of whom wished for all the gold that would
pay for all the merchandise that had ever been sold in Paris since its
first foundation, and the other for as much gold as would go into all
the sacks that could be sewn by all the needles (and those of the
smallest size) that could be crammed into Notre-Dame from the floor to
the ceiling, filling the smallest crannies.
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