Quotes from Prosper Merimee's books, and about them
Carmen on Bellum Hispaniense: “According to my own surmise, founded on the text of the anonymous author of the _Bellum Hispaniense_, and on certain information culled from the excellent library owned by the Duke of Ossuna, I believed the site of the memorable struggle in which Caesar played double or quits, once and for all,…”
Carmen on Commentaries: “I had hired a guide and a couple of horses at Cordova, and had started on my way with no luggage save a few shirts, and Caesar's _Commentaries_.”
Sons and Lovers on Colomba: “She wanted to learn, thinking that if she could read, as Paul said he could read, "Colomba", or the "Voyage autour de ma Chambre", the world would have a different face for her and a deepened respect.”
The Story of My Life on Colomba: “In French we have finished "Colomba," and I am reading "Horace" by Corneille”
Words of a Pygmy on Colomba: “Mérimée disliked confession. Yet does his Colomba not speak of himself in hints? [auto-translated]”
The Age of Innocence on Lettres a une Inconnue: “…as Dukes; he had often pictured to himself what it would have been to live in the intimacy of drawing-rooms dominated by the talk of Merimee (whose "Lettres a une Inconnue" was one of his inseparables), of Thackeray, Browning or William Morris.”