Gaston, as he turned from that stolen reading of the opening verse in
jerky, feverish, gouty manuscript, to the writer, let out his soul
perhaps; for the poet's face struck fire too, and seeming to detect
on a sudden the legible document of something by no means
conventional below the young man's well-controlled manner and
expression, he became as if paternally anxious for his intellectual
furtherance, and in particular for the addition of "manly power" to a
"grace" of mind, obviously there already in due sufficiency. Would
he presently carry a letter with recommendation of himself to
Monsieur Michel de Montaigne? Linked they were, in the common
friendship of the late Etienne de la Boetie yonder! Monsieur Michel
could tell him much of the great ones--of the Greek and Latin masters
of style. Let his study be in them! With what justice, by the way,
had those Latin poets dealt with winter, and wintry charms, in their
bland Italy! And just then, at the striking of a rickety great bell
of the Middle Age, in the hands of a cowled brother came the
emblazoned grace-cup, with which the Prior de Ronsard had enriched
his "house," and the guests withdrew.
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