1882—1884 123 



Beuve's lectures to the Ecole Normale students ; he liked that 

 varied and penetrating criticism, opening sidelights on every 

 point of the literary horizon. Nisard understood criticism 

 rather as a solemn treaty, with clauses and conditions ; with 

 his taste for hierarchy, he even gave different ranks to authors 

 as if they had been students before his chair. But, when he 

 spoke, the rigidity of his system was enveloped in the grace 

 of his conversation. Pasteur had but a restricted corner of his 

 mind to give to literature, but that corner was a privileged 

 one; he only read what was really worth reading, and every 

 writer worthy of the name inspired him with more than esteem, 

 with absolute respect. He had a most exalted idea of Literature 

 and its influence on society ; he was saying one day to Nisard 

 that Literature was a great educator : " The mind alone can 

 if necessary suffice to Science ; both the mind and the heart 

 intervene in Literature, and that explains the secret of its 

 superiority in leading the general train of thought." This was 

 preaching to an apostle : no homage to literature ever seemed 

 too great in the eyes of Nisard. 

 He approved of the modest exordium in Pasteur's speech— 

 ' At this moment when presenting myself before this illus- 

 trious assembly, I feel once more the emotion with which I first 

 solicited your suffrages. The sense of my own inadequacy is 

 borne in upon me afresh, and I should feel some confusion in 

 finding myself in this place, were it not my duty to attribute 

 to Science itself the honour— so to speak, an impersonal one— 

 which you have bestowed upon me." 



The Permanent Secretary, Camille Doucet, well versed in 

 the usages of the Institute, and preoccupied with the effect pro- 

 duced, thought that the public would not believe in such self- 

 effacement, sincere as it was, and sent the following letter to 

 Pasteur with the proof-sheet of his speech— 



"Dear and honoured colleague, allow me to suggest to you a 

 modification of your first sentence ; your modesty is excessive." 

 Camille Doucet had struck out the sense of my own 

 inadequacy is borne in upon me afresh, and further so to speak, 

 an impersonal one. Pasteur consulted Nisard, and the sense 

 of my own inadequacy was replaced by the sense of my 

 deficiencies, while Pasteur adhered energetically to so to speak, 

 an impersonal one ; he saw in his election less a particular dis- 

 tinction than a homage rendered to Science in general. 



A reception at the Academie Francaise is like a sensational 



