Moreover he had little taste for the literary sheepfold. The ambition of the age was consuming him, and the pastoral, which is the ideal of repose and unostentatious leisure, was not at all in his line. So that he was overcome with fatigue and drowsiness when Bois-Doré, overjoyed to have somebody to talk with, began to recite whole pages from Astrée.
"What can be more beautiful," he cried, "than this letter from the shepherdess to her lover:
"'I am suspicious, I am jealous, I am hard to win and easy to lose, and more easy to offend and most exceeding hard to appease. My desires must be decrees of fate, my opinions arguments, and my commands inviolable laws.'
"What style! and what beautiful character painting! And does not the sequel contain all the wisdom, all the philosophy and morality that a man can need? Listen to this, Sylvie's reply to Galatée:
"'You must not doubt that this shepherd is in love, being so honorable a man!'
"Do you understand, monsieur, the deep meaning of that sentiment? However, Sylvie herself explains it:
"'The lover desires nothing so much as to be loved; to be loved one must make oneself lovable; and that which makes one lovable is the same which makes one an honorable man?'"
"What? what does that mean?" cried D'Alvimar, awakened with a start by the remarks of the learned shepherdess, which Bois-Doré roared into his ear to drown the clattering of the carrosse over the hard pavement of the old Roman road from La Châtre to Château-Meillant.
"Yes, monsieur, yes, I would maintain it against all the world!" rejoined Bois-Doré, not observing his guest's start; "and I tire myself out repeating it to that old dotard, that old heretic in matters of sentiment!"
"Who?" queried D'Alvimar in dismay.