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July 6 - September 13, 2023
It’s by his courage— mark me!—by his courage alone that a gentleman makes his way these days.
He who hesitates for a second may let an opportunity escape that his fortune depends upon.
gray mustache bristle with fury. Tréville was well versed in the prevailing principle of war that stated that he who failed to live at the expense of his enemy, had to live at the expense of his friends.
However, it’s His Majesty’s decision in any case, and I regret to say that no one is received into the King’s Musketeers who hasn’t proved himself in several campaigns, through daring exploits, or by having served for two years in some other regiment of less prestige than ours.”
“all for one, and one for all—that’s our motto, isn’t it?”
Wealth enables the purchase of all those little whimsies that are so becoming to beauty. A fine white stocking, a silk dress, a lace collar, a delicate slipper, or a crisp new ribbon won’t make an ugly woman pretty, but they can make a pretty woman beautiful. And wealth beautifies a woman’s hands—for a woman’s hands must remain idle to remain beautiful.
The fundamental ingredients of Master Bonacieux’s character were a profound selfishness mixed with sordid avarice, the whole seasoned by utter spinelessness.
“And what do you know about this ‘State’ you talk about?” said Madame Bonacieux, shrugging her shoulders. “Be content to be a simple bourgeois, and ally with the side that offers the best return.”
Finally, that the queen needs a brave, intelligent, and devoted man to travel to London for her. I have at least two of those three qualities—and here I am!”
“Wouldn’t you have to share with them the secret I didn’t want to know?” “The four of us are sworn to blind, mutual devotion no matter what. Besides, you can tell them you have complete confidence in me, and that will settle it.”
He sighed for that strange destiny that leads men to destroy each other in the interests of people who are strangers to them, and who often don’t even know they exist.
“Monsieur, don’t confuse caution with cowardice. Prudence is a virtue.”
Nothing makes time pass or shortens a trip like getting lost in one’s thoughts. Then external reality is like sleep, and our thoughts are the dream. Time loses its measure and space no longer has distance. One departs from one place and arrives at another—that’s all. We remember nothing of the interval between but a vague blur, a thousand confused images of trees, slopes, and landscapes. In the grip of such a hallucination d’Artagnan was carried, at whatever pace his horse chose, across the six leagues between Chantilly and Crèvecœur, and later he couldn’t remember a single thing he’d passed
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I’d chosen another text—and tell me, d’Artagnan, if this isn’t more to your taste: ‘Non inutile est desiderium in oblatione.’ Or, in other words: ‘A little regret is not unbecoming in an offering to the Lord.’”
“For all time! Today you’re my friend, d’Artagnan, but tomorrow you’ll be nothing to me but a shadow, or even nonexistent. As to the world, it’s nothing but a sepulcher.” “The devil! That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
As he’d said, he was ready to go to the end of the world in search of her. But as the world, being round, has many ends, he didn’t know which way to turn.
“In general, people don’t ask for advice because they want to follow it,” he said, “or if they do follow it, it’s so they’ll have someone to blame for having advised them that way.”
This last bulwark of Calvinism had to be destroyed, as it was a dangerous leaven in the body politic, constantly fermenting both civil revolt and inviting foreign interference.
It was one of those rare and beautiful days when England remembers there is a sun.
d’Artagnan. A sigh escaped from Madame Bonacieux’s mouth and caressed d’Artagnan’s: this sigh was her soul, so chaste, so loving, returning to heaven on high. D’Artagnan held only a corpse in his arms.
