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- 11343
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11292
- text
- The foregoing hints as to what is the standing in America, or at least
among some of us Americans, of the genial foreigner here ushered into a
regard less exclusive; that, by patriotic intention goes before the
recital, show that not alone in his own sweet France are the blended
suavity and power of his genius estimated at their just rate, but that
in the high circles of every European capital he is received with even
more than good-will.
Though the subject of this theme, de Grandvin, be a patrician of
hereditary mark, he was not consulted in the matter of his progenitors.
At any rate, his cosmopolitan sympathies, transcending his class, go out
to mankind. Under auspicious circumstances make his acquaintance, and
whatever your degree in the social scale, you will find him friendly
company, cordial and frank; without condescension, a solemn popery he
was never guilty of.
As to his title, if here he be introduced as the Marquis, it is only
because his troops of friends on both sides of the water, not excluding
even the Levellers among them, insist upon retaining for him an
inherited prefix which he himself long ago renounced; and doubtless for
the reason that any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is
unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.
In defence of their insistent employment of the title, a caprice hardly
compatible with their political principles, the Levellers of his
acquaintance, candid in inconsistency, freely admit that somehow there
is something in it felicitously befitting the character innately noble
of de Grandvin.
But some fuller account of this genial paragon, upon whom are concentred
the otherwise diverging suffrages of the divers parties in Church and
State--some account less restricted by considerations of space--is in
course of preparation, and if clamorously demanded, may hereafter
appear. For the present purpose it will be enough, perhaps, if an
outlined picture or two serve to suggest the filled portrait.
Though not so plentiful as our peaches in a good year, there are men of
such noble quality that being in their company enriches and mellows one.
The wisdom they by contact give out is not celibate and sterile like
Solomon’s, but wedded to enjoyment, and hence productive. They would
seem to be a confirmation of the otherwise disputable maxim of Spinoza,
that every advance in joy implies an ascent in the scale of intelligence
and capability. The influence of such a man insensibly disposes one to
gentle charities, brave conceptions, heroic virtues. They have a
suggestion of the potentialities in the unvitiated Adam, a creature,
according to hallowed authority, originally created but a little lower
than the angels. Almost invariably these men have physical beauty; and
the moral charm is in keeping with that, apparently a spontaneous
emanation from it. It is as golden wine down in a golden chalice, where,
seen through the lustre suffusing the shadow, the delicious fluid looks
to be the exuded gathered sap of the precious metal.
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