"
"You never spoke truer words, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire. "A little judicious gallantry in youth is good for any one.
It keeps the temperature from going too high. I recall now the case of
Auguste Champigny, who owned an estate in Louisiana, near the Louisiana
estate of the St. Hilaires, and the estates of those cousins of mine whom
I visited, as I told you once.
"But pardon me. I digress, and to digress is to grow old, so I will not
digress, but remain young, in heart at least. I go back now. I was
speaking of Auguste Champigny, who in youth thought only of making money
and of making his plantation, already great, many times greater. The
blood in his veins was old at twenty-two. He did not love the vices that
the world calls such. But yet there were times, I knew, when he would
have longed to go with the young, because youth cannot be crushed
wholly at twenty-two. There was no escape of the spirits, no wholesome
blood-letting, so to speak, and that which was within him became corrupt.
He acquired riches and more riches, and land and more land, and at fifty
he went to New Orleans, and sought the places where pleasures abound.
But his true blossoming time had passed.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209