AN ORIGINAL THINKER

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1340, 13 September 1886, Page 2

AN ORIGINAL THINKER

Numbers of the r. adera of Blackwood will be grateful to the contributor of the article headed “ The Meditation of a Parish Priest,” since it is the means of introducing them to an original thinker, whose Pensees, just published in Paris, have excited quite a feeling of enthusiasm. At 52 years of age,the Abth Roux, who has been vegetating for a quarter of a century in a remote department of France, has suddenly became famous. His “ Thoughts ” were ‘'penned for relief from the b celt .iess that, but for this safety-valve, would have maddened him or dragged him down,” and they were published, almost against his will, by a chance acquaintance who discerned their remarkable character. Of the more epigrammatic and concise, we select the following examples:—“l should define poetry as the exquisite expression of exquisite impressions." “ Athens poured a soul over the body, Paris spreads a body over the soul; the Greek statue blushed, the French statue calls forth blushes.” “ Literature was once an art and finance a business; now the positions are reversed." “What is experience 7 A poor little cabin constructed with the fragments of that palace of gold and marble called our illusions.” “ What is love I—Two sonls and one body. Friendship I— Two bodies and one soul.” “ A peasant is only so far like a man as a block of marble is like a statue.” “In the matter of praise, we ratner consult onr appetite than oar health.” “Dj not have your head in your heart, nor your heart in your head.” * The speaker is made, the orator is born.” “ Shakspeare : Greater than history, as great as poetry, he alone would suffice for the literature of a nation.” “Voltaire: The mind of a courtier, and the heart of a courtesan” “George Sand: Like Girce, she changes all her lovers into blasts.”