Certainly the
sorriest figure on the rolls of fame.
CHAPTER VII - CHARLES OF ORLEANS
FOR one who was no great politician, nor (as men go)
especially wise, capable or virtuous, Charles of Orleans is
more than usually enviable to all who love that better sort
of fame which consists in being known not widely, but
intimately. "To be content that time to come should know
there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of
him, or to subsist under naked denominations, without deserts
or noble acts," is, says Sir Thomas Browne, a frigid
ambition. It is to some more specific memory that youth
looks forward in its vigils. Old kings are sometimes
disinterred in all the emphasis of life, the hands untainted
by decay, the beard that had so often wagged in camp or
senate still spread upon the royal bosom; and in busts and
pictures, some similitude of the great and beautiful of
former days is handed down. In this way, public curiosity
may be gratified, but hardly any private aspiration after
fame. It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with
us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathise; and
so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his
spirit than a portrait of his face, FIGURA ANIMI MAGIS QUAM
CORPORIS. Of those who have thus survived themselves most
completely, left a sort of personal seduction behind them in
the world, and retained, after death, the art of making
friends, Montaigne and Samuel Johnson certainly stand first.
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