e to fit into the whole picture. Events
which others regarded as most important were not so in his eyes, and
political agitations appeared to him like bugs on a rose-bush which he
would carefully study with its parasites. This was to him a constant
source of delight. He had the finest appreciation of shades of
literary beauty, and his learning rather increased than impaired the
faculty, giving to his thought an infinite range of highly-flavoured
experiences to taste and compare. He belonged to the great French
tradition of learned men, master writers from Buffon to Renan and
Gaston Paris. Member of the Academy and of several Classes, his
extended knowledge gave him a superiority, not only of pure and
classic taste, but of a liberal modern spirit, over his colleagues,
genuine men of letters. He did not think himself exempt from study,
as most of them did, as soon as they had passed the threshold of the
sacred Cupola; old profesor as he was, he still went to school. When
Clerambault was still unknown to the rest of the Immortals, except to
one or two brother poets who mentioned him as little as possible with
a disdainful smile, Perrotin had already discovered and placed him in
his collection, struck by certain pictures, an original phraseology,
the mechanism of his imagination, primitive yet complicated by
simplicity. All this attracted him, and then the man interested him
too. He sent a short complimentary note to Clerambault who came to
thank him, overflowing with gratitude, and ties of friendship were
formed between the two men. They had few points of resemblance;
Clerambault had lyrical gifts and ordinary intelligence dominated by
his feelings, and Perrotin was gifted with a most lucid mind, never
hampered by flights of the imagination. What they had in common were
dignity of life, intellectual probity, and a disinterested love of art
and learning, for its own sake, and not for success. None the less as
may be seen, this had not prevented Perrotin from getting on in the
world; honours and places had sought him, not he them; but he did not
reject them; he neglected nothing.

Clerambault found him busy unwinding the wrappings with which the
readers of centuries had covered over the original thought of a
Chinese philosopher. At this game which was habitual with him, he came
naturally to the discovery of the contrary of what appeared at first
to be the meaning; passing from hand to hand the idol had become
black.

Perr