[L. 311.] ambré. Perfumed with ambergris—in a figurative sense, of course.... à la glace... 'Être à la glace, LITTRÉ (s.v. 5°), is said of such productions of the mind as the spectator or the reader, fail to move him.' 'Si Corneille avait dans le Cid le plan de l'Académie, le Cid était à la glace.' Voltaire, Lettre d'Argental, 4 oct. 1760.
[L. 313.] d'abord. Synonyms: au premier abord, de prime abord, dès l'abord. The original meaning is, 'as soon as you accost him or it, at the first contact.' D'abordée is thus explained by Cotgrave: 'At first, at first sight; as soon as they touched, incountred, or came, together.' A synonymous expression d'arrivée, somewhat archaic.
[L. 320.] contraint d'être. See note to p. 102, l. 146.
[L. 322.] abuser. Deceive, disappoint, baffle.
[L. 323.] infidèle, an unfaithful interpreter of their meaning.
[L. 327.] Creusant dans les détours. In a figurative sense, as in 'Les Anglais pensent profondément; Leur esprit, en cela, suit leur tempérament; Creusant dans les sujets et forts d'expériences, Ils étendent partout l'empire des sciences.' La Fontaine, Fabl. xii. 23.
[L. 329.] Cf. Horace, Ep. ad Pis., 40, 311; Boileau, Art poét., i. 147-154. voit partout un nuage. So Montaigne: 'Mes conceptions et mon jugement ne marchent qu'à tastons...; je veois encores du païs au delà, mais d'une veue trouble et en nuage, que je ne puis desmesler.'—Essais, I. xxv.
[L. 338.] l'embrasse. The whole thought is wrapped or clasped by the adequate expression.
[L. 343.] D'eux-même. See note to p. 42, l. 15.
[L. 346.] Io. The daughter of the river Inachus. Zeus, having fallen in no French reader of to-day would notice the word. It is a good old French word. We are thus made aware that it had been falling into disuse in the seventeenth century (when it occurs several times in La Fontaine and others), and especially in the eighteenth. E. reserene occurs in Temple.