Note 457 — Chapter XIII

Mérimée, though after his fashion making no fuss about it, was also an early virtuoso in this kind; and one of his letters contains an excellent example of the quiet cynicism in which he excelled. Some ladies had asked to see his collection, and he had very properly warned them that the "curios" of that ingenious and valiant nation were sometimes "curious" in a special sense, and had offered to "select." "Elles ont tout vu," he adds simply, and one hopes his correspondent (I forgot whether it was one of the Inconnues or Madame de Montijo) appreciated the Mount-Everest-like Laconism.