Page 306: "My lessons on the Provencals were never-ending."

From page 306 of the book:  My lessons on the Provençals were never-ending.  I remembered our second dinner with Ebert, where he'd explained that Alphonse Daudet was one of many great Frenchmen to have come from this region, and like many of those great Frenchmen he had referred to his birthplace, a land dominated by the industrial and wealthy North, as if it were a joke.  Daudet later explained, and one was supposed to believe it, that his mockery was merely a ruse for his true love of the South. 

Young Alphonse Daudet

cover of "Letters from My Mill"

Another edition of "Letters from My [Wind]Mill"

Alphonse Daudet

The Windmill

Plaque with Daudet quote which explains that, in this corner of the world, it was for him a fatherland where one could find beings or places in all of his books.  I know such a reverence.  I have four such corners: Connecticut, Illinois, Queens NY, and Arlington, VA. 

Page 326 "Duncan is in his grave"

From page 326 of the book:  I took de Chambrun's diary out of the envelope.... The following pages mentioned Lincoln reciting a passage from MacBeth, act three, scene four; I could only remember a small bit of it: "Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; ...nothing can touch him further."

Above: Three witches, from a stage production of "Macbeth"; Orson Welles as Macbeth; play edition cover.

Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.

(Macbeth, Act III, Sc. 4)