Brought up
in the country, she was strong, active, brave, and full of life. To
all her charms of delicate beauty she united the energy of physical and
moral health. She was the proud-spirited and fearless girl, no less than
the sweet and affable mistress of the house. I often found her haughty
and disdainful. Patience and the poor of the district never found her
anything but modest and good-natured.
Edmee loved the poets almost as much as the transcendental philosophers.
In her walks she always carried a book in her hand. One day when she had
taken Tasso with her she met Patience, who, as was his wont, inquired
minutely into both author and subject. Edmee thereupon had to give him
an account of the Crusades. This was not the most difficult part of her
task. Thanks to the stores of information derived from the abbe and to
his prodigious memory for facts, Patience had a passable knowledge of
the outlines of universal history. But what he had great trouble in
grasping was the connection and difference between epic poetry and
history. At first he was indignant at the inventions of the poets, and
declared that such impostures ought never to have been allowed. Then,
when he had realized that epic poetry, far from leading generations
into error, only raised heroic deeds to vaster proportions and a more
enduring glory, he asked how it was that all important events had not
been sung by the bards, and why the history of man had not been embodied
in a popular form capable of impressing itself on every mind without
the help of letters.
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