And again, when the question of his nomination to the French Academy was under discussion, he wrote a very similar sentence: "I can hardly tell you why I would not accept this candidature. This, perhaps, will best render my idea: I am not of the stuff of which academicians are made. This is no outburst of plebeian pride--the most insolent pride of any; it is merely my true estimate of my own position." At another time he said, excusing himself for not having asked a person of high position and a friend of his to the funeral of his mother: "Whatever ignorance and enviousness may say to the contrary, there are barriers between the different classes of society which cannot be disregarded without unseemliness. My 'neglect' was but the consequence of this conviction."
He has left carelessly here and there embedded in the text of an everyday letter some phrase which seems like a proverb, so beautiful and comprehensive is it. For instance, speaking of the costliness of the Paris _salons_, he says: "The most beautiful abodes, my dear friend, are those where the devil finds nothing to look upon." Of the degeneracy of modern thought he speaks thus: "These noble convictions are passing away, and every thing is subjected to the feeble equations of reason; all things are discussed, calculated, weighed, and the heart would appear to be a superfluity of creation, so little are its holy inspirations followed!"
And of books and their readers he says: "We do not all read a book alike, but each takes from it only what his individual nature is capable of appropriating. The prejudices of divers schools of literature, the rivalry of various political, philosophical, and religious opinions, are all so many spectacles through which we judge the beauties or defects of any work."
Reboul's domestic life was a calm and simple one; his mind craved no pleasures beyond its silent circle, save those which he found in books; and his attachment to his native city and his humble home was as touching as it was sincere. His trade gave him enough for a modest and assured way of life, and he coveted no more. It was a less precarious source of gain than literature alone would have been; it supported his family in comfort, and, above all, left his own mind at ease; and it was only towards the end of his life that, having generously assisted a relation in financial difficulties, he found himself in real want. Then only, and not till then, did he accept, with touching sadness and humility, the help his friends and his heart's sovereign, the Comte de Chambord, had repeatedly pressed upon him in happier days. His greatest relaxation was an hour spent with his family or a few chosen literary friends in his _mazet_, an enclosed garden with a little dwelling attached, in which were a sitting-room and a kitchen, but no bed-rooms. We do not know if this is a peculiar institution of Nîmes alone or of the whole south of France. It is constantly mentioned by Reboul, and his letters are often dated from it--nay, his verses were sometimes composed there. It was a luxury of his later days, not of the time when he received Châteaubriand and Lamartine in the "windmill chamber."