Note 169 — Chapter VI · ROMANTIC LOVE
Reading edition
Even on his death-bed the hero of Browning’s Confessions gives himself up to impassionated recollection:
How sad and bad and mad it was— But then, how it was sweet.
In his Stances à Madame Lullin Voltaire is at least as poetical and nearer to normal experience:
Quel mortel s’est jamais flatté D’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?