nerable hulks, crowds of ladies excite our
admiration by their beauty and our respect by their intelligence.
Whence do they come, these damsels, so young, so charming?
It is that they have arrived from the metropolis at the request of
their brothers, their cousins--what do I know of it? perhaps their
_pretendants_--of whom they wish to enhance with their applause the
athletic triumph.
. . . . .
After all, they are adorable, these English misses!
. . . . .
On the bank. . . .
One hears the portentous echo of the _Five-Minutes-Gun_.
Moment tremendous!
They have started: one sees already the _strokesman_ of the
_first-boat_.
One would say a whole University that runs on the _towing-path_, and
that utters loud cries.
Here and there _coachmen_ are seen carrying pistols and pronouncing
terrible execrations.
Why these pistols? . . .
A little brutal, these English: but of a force, a virility!
. . . . .
I myself who speak to you am infected by this enthusiasm.
I run: I utter cries: I _raffole_ of the _leading-boat_: I shout En
avant! Vive la Madeleine! Vive le Cercle Nautique! Hourra! . . .
But one does not do these things at forty years.
I am out of breath, what? I wish to stop.
Arrest yourselves, my friends too impetuous!
I appeal to you in the name of France, who respects you: do not
annihilate me, do not pulverize me. . . . .
Vain appeal! One would say the car of Juggernaut.
I am knocked down: I am _crible_ with kicks: I am massacred.
. . . . .
Ah! . . .

THUCYDIDES ON THE INFLUENZA

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the epidemic among the
Oxonians, how they had the epidemic, having begun to write as soon as it
broke out on No. 2 Staircase, and considering it to be the most
noticeable of all that had appeared previously. (For the place was not
liable to diseases at other times, but especially free from them, except
that which affected the teeth: on account of which they used to go up to
the metropolis, in word to consult the Delphic oracle but in deed to go
to Olympia, so that not a few were banished from the city both for other
reasons and not least this.) As to the causes of it, then, let any one
speak who is aware of them: but I will show what things happened on
account of it, having both myself put on an aeger and seen others
similarly afflicted, so that I can describe it with equal cert