midnight
A Stoic by nature and on principle , enthusiastic in the propagation of his doctrine of severance from false ideas , but resolute in the practice of resignation , he made many a breach in the poor cure 's defences ; and it was in these discussions , as he often told me in his last years , that he acquired his knowledge of philosophy . In order to make a stand against the battering-ram of natural logic , the worthy Jansenist was obliged to invoke the testimony of all the Fathers of the Church , and to oppose these , often even to corroborate them , with the teaching of all the sages and scholars of antiquity . Then Patience , his round eyes starting from his head -LRB- this was his own expression -RRB- , lapsed into silence , and , delighted to learn without having the bother of studying , would ask for long explanations of the doctrines of these men , and for an account of their lives . Noticing this attention and this silence , his adversary would exult ; but just as he thought he had convinced this rebellious soul , Patience , hearing the village clock strike midnight , would rise , take an affectionate leave of his host , and on the very threshold of the vicarage , would dismay the good man with some laconic and cutting comment that confounded Saint Jerome and Plato alike , Eusebius equally with Seneca , Tertullian no less than Aristotle . The cure was not too ready to acknowledge the superiority of this untutored intellect . Still , he was quite astonished at passing so many winter evenings by his fireside with this peasant without feeling either bored or tired ; and he would wonder how it was that the village schoolmaster , and even the prior of the convent , in spite of their Greek and Latin , appeared to him , the one a bore , the other a sophist , in all their discussions . Knowing the perfect purity of the peasant 's life , he attributed the ascendency of his mind to the power of virtue and the charm it spreads over all things .