Page 217 THE CAPITOL ad inspired me with the same sentiments and ambitions
that the English Parliament inspires in the students of Oxford
and Cambridge. To be chosen by one's elders and one's peers to
sit in the company to which Corneille and Racine, Voltaire and
Victor Hugo, Taine and Renan had belonged, seemed to me a consummation
devoutly to be wished. But at the time when I received Barthou's
letter I had published only a few books which were not of sufficient
importance to justify my being chosen. I replied that there were
a number of very talented writers who had the indisputable right
to be admitted before me, and despite his insistence I persisted
in my refusal. Eight years later Paul Valery asked me: `You or
Mauriac?' I replied: 'Mauriac,' and to my great joy Fran~ois Mauriac,
who had a much greater title and a much greater chance than I,
was elected. |
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