Not a critic, not a scholar, just a reader.
I remember sitting with my father one afternoon in the Bois, watching the procession of people go by. If I had known and thought about him then as much as I have learnt and thought about him since his death, what an interesting conversation we might have had. For here was the city of his romantic youth, hither he had brought Louise after his desertion of de Gallatin, here he had married her and lived with her and her parents in the Boulevard de Courcelles until she died, hither he had escorted my mother thirty-one years ago. The place must have been full of memories for him, happy and sad, and if I could have that day again, I hope I should make better use of it.
J. R. Ackerley,
My Father and Myself.