me nomine Buffon," and laid his head upon the
block.

The noblest outcome of the old and decaying order, overwhelmed in the
most hateful birth frenzy of the new. So in those cataclysms and
revolutions which take place in our own bodies during their development,
when we seem studying in order to become fishes and suddenly make, as it
were, different arrangements and resolve on becoming men--so, doubtless,
many good cells must go, and their united death cry comes up, it may be,
in the pain which an infant feels on teething. But to return. The man
who could be father of such a son, and who could retain that son's
affection, as it is well known that Buffon retained it, may not perhaps
always be strictly accurate, but it will be as well to pay attention to
whatever he may think fit to tell us. These are the only people whom it
is worth while to look to and study from.

"Glory," said Buffon, after speaking of the hours during which he had
laboured, "glory comes always after labour if she can--_and she generally
can_." But in his case she could not well help herself. "He was
conspicuous," says M. Flourens, "for elevation and force of character,
for a love of greatness and true magnificence in all he did. His great
wealth, his handsome person, and graceful manners seemed in
correspondence with the splendour of his genius, so that of all the gifts
which Fortune has in it her power to bestow she had denied him nothing."

Many of his epigrammatic sayings have passed into proverbs: for example,
that "genius is but a supreme capacity for taking pains." Another and
still more celebrated passage shall be given in its entirety and with its
original setting.

"Style," says Buffon, "is the only passport to posterity. It is not
range of information, nor mastery of some little known branch of science,
nor yet novelty of matter that will ensure immortality. Works that can
claim all this will yet die if they are conversant about trivial objects
only, or written without taste, genius, and true nobility of mind; for
range of information, knowledge of details, novelty of discovery are of a
volatile essence and fly off readily into other hands that know better
how to treat them. The matter is foreign to the man, and is not of him;
the manner is the man himself." {162}

"Le style, c'est l'homme memo." Elsewhere he tells us what true style
is, but I quote from memory and cannot be sure of the passage. "Le
style," he says "est co