Puis je remarquai les expressions rares, presque archaïques qu’il aimait employer à certains moments où un flot caché d’harmonie, un prélude intérieur, soulevait son style; et c’était aussi à ces moments-là qu’il se mettait à parler du «vain songe de la vie», de «l’inépuisable torrent des belles apparences», du «tourment stérile et délicieux de comprendre et d’aimer», des «émouvantes effigies qui anoblissent à jamais la façade vénérable et charmante des cathédrales», qu’il exprimait toute une philosophie nouvelle pour moi par de merveilleuses images dont on aurait dit que c’était elles qui avaient éveillé ce chant de harpes qui s’élevait alors et à l’accompagnement duquel elles donnaient quelque chose de sublime. →
Then I observed the rare, almost archaic phrases which he liked to employ at certain points, where a hidden flow of harmony, a prelude contained and concealed in the work itself would animate and elevate his style; and it was at such points as these, too, that he would begin to speak of the "vain dream of life," of the "inexhaustible torrent of fair forms," of the "sterile, splendid torture of understanding and loving," of the "moving effigies which ennoble for all time the charming and venerable fronts of our cathedrals"; that he would express a whole system of philosophy, new to me, by the use of marvellous imagery, to the inspiration of which I would naturally have ascribed that sound of harping which began to chime and echo in my ears, an accompaniment to which that imagery added something ethereal and sublime.