So it becomes the part of wisdom to waive these mundane riddles, and to consider instead the justice of Coignard’s fine epitaph, wherein we read that “living without worldly honors, he earned for himself eternal glory.” The statement may (with St. Peter keeping the gate) have been challenged in paradise, but in literature at all events the unhonored life of Jérome Coignard has clothed him with glory of tolerably longeval looking texture. It is true that this might also be said of Iago and Tartuffe, but then we have Balzac’s word for it that merely to be celebrated is not enough. Rather is the highest human desideratum twofold,—D’être célèbre et d’être aimé. And that much Coignard promises to be for a long while.
James Branch Cabell
Dumbarton Grange,
July, 1921,