“Il dit tout en deux mots et fait tout en deux mois.”
“He says all in two words and does all in two months.”
“Il embellit tout ce qu’il touche.”
“He embellishes all that he touches.”
“Il en coûte bien cher pour mourir à Paris.”
“To die in Paris costs a pretty penny.”
“Il en est de la vie comme de nos autres biens; tout se dissipe quand on pense en avoir un grand fond; l’economie ne devient exacte que pour menager le peu qui nous reste.”
“It is the same with life as with our other possessions; we waste it as long as we appear to have a large reserve of it: we only practise strict
economy to eke out the last small remnants.”
“Il entassait adage sur adage;
II compilait, compilait, compilait;
On le voyait sans cesse ecrire, ecrire
Ce qu’il avait jadis entendu dire.”
“Proverb on proverb lie lieaped,
Compiling, compiling, compiling;
“He kept writing and writing all day
Things he once had heard other folk say.”
“(Dame) Il eschiet souvent grans pertes,
Où l’en cuide grant gaaing avoir.”
“Great losses oftentimes befall,
Where one has thought to have great gains.”
“Il est beau qu’un mortel jusques aux cieux s’éléve;
II est beau meme d’en tomber.”
QuiNAULT. Phaéton, Act IV., Sc. II.—(Phaéton.)
“’Tis noble for a mortal to the skies to rise:
’Tis noble e’en to fall from them.”
“Il est bien plus facile de tromper les gens que de les faire rire.”
“It is much easier to deceive people than to make them laugh.”
“Il est bon d’avoir dans l’ame un tiroir secret; pourvu qu’on n’y mette que des choses saines.”
Mme. de Castries. (Quoted by De Musset in a letter to his brother, June, 1840.)
“It is well to have a secret drawer in the soul, provided that we put nothing into it but what is wholesome.”
