A Crooked Path A Novel
CHAPTER I. "GATHERING CLOUDS." The London season had not yet reached its height, some years ago, before the arch admitting to Constitution Hill had been swept back to make room for the huge, ever-increasing stream of traffic, or the plebeian 'bus had been permitted to penetrate the precincts of Hamilton Place. It was the forenoon of a splendid day, one of the earliest of June, and at that hour the roadway between the entrance to Hyde Park and the gate then surmounted by the statue of the Duke of Wellington on his drooping steed was comparatively free, when two gentlemen coming from opposite directions recognized each other, and paused at the gate of Apsley House--the elder, a stout, florid man of military aspect, middle age, and average height, with large gray mustache and small, slightly bloodshot eyes; the younger, who was tall and bony, might have been thirty, or even forty, so grave and sedate was his bearing, although his erect carriage, elastic step, and clear keen dark eyes suggested earlier manhood.
relative to the recueil by Condorcet, "Some one asked me the other day
what I thought of that work. I answered by writing on the frontispiece,
'Justice, propriety, learning, clearness, precision, taste, elegance,
and nobleness.'" And Voltaire wrote, on the 1st of March, "I have read,
while dying, the little book by M. de Condorcet; it is as good in its
departments as the eloges by Fontenelle. There is a more noble and more
modest philosophy in it, though bold."
And excitement in words and action could not be legitimately reproached
in a man who had felt himself supported by a conviction of such distinct
and powerful influence.
Among the eloges by Bailly, there is one, that of the Abbe de Lacaille,
which not having been written for a literary academy, shows no longer
any trace of inflation or declamation, and might, it seems to me,
compete with some of the best eloges by Condorcet. Yet, it is curious,
that this excellent biography contributed, perhaps as much as
D'Alembert's opposition, to make Bailly's claims fail. Vainly did the
celebrated astronomer flatter himself in his exordium, "that M. de
Fouchy, who, as Secretary of the Academy, had already paid his tribute
to Lacaille, would not be displeased at his having followed him in the
same career ... that he would not be blamed for repeating the praises
due to an illustrious man."
Bailly, in fact, was not blamed aloud; but when the hour for retreat had
sounded in M. de Fouchy's ear, without any fuss, without showing himself
CHAPTER I. "GATHERING CLOUDS." The London season had not yet reached its height, some years ago, before the arch admitting to Constitution Hill had been swept back to make room for the huge, ever-increasing stream of traffic, or the plebeian 'bus had been permitted to penetrate the precincts of Hamilton Place. It was the forenoon of a splendid day, one of the earliest of June, and at that hour the roadway between the entrance to Hyde Park and the gate then surmounted by the statue of the Duke of Wellington on his drooping steed was comparatively free, when two gentlemen coming from opposite directions recognized each other, and paused at the gate of Apsley House--the elder, a stout, florid man of military aspect, middle age, and average height, with large gray mustache and small, slightly bloodshot eyes; the younger, who was tall and bony, might have been thirty, or even forty, so grave and sedate was his bearing, although his erect carriage, elastic step, and clear keen dark eyes suggested earlier manhood.