What my mother's friend, and, it would seem, what Dr.
du Boulbon liked above all in the writings of Bergotte was just what I
liked, the same flow of melody, the same old-fashioned phrases, and
certain others, quite simple and familiar, but so placed by him, in such
prominence, as to hint at a particular quality of taste on his part; and
also, in the sad parts of his books, a sort of roughness, a tone that was
almost harsh. And he himself, no doubt, realised that these were his
principal attractions. For in his later books, if he had hit upon some
great truth, or upon the name of an historic cathedral, he would break off
his narrative, and in an invocation, an apostrophe, a lengthy prayer,
would give a free outlet to that effluence which, in the earlier volumes,
remained buried beneath the form of his prose, discernible only in a
rippling of its surface, and perhaps even more delightful, more harmonious
when it was thus veiled from the eye, when the reader could give no
precise indication of where the murmur of the current began, or of where
it died away. These passages in which he delighted were our favourites
also.
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